HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

      Edward Gibbon, Esq.

      With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

      Vol. 1

      1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

        CONTENTS

         Introduction

         Preface By The Editor.

         Preface Of The Author.

         Preface To The First Volume.

         Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.

         Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
         Antonines—Part I.

     The Extent And Military Force Of The Empire In The Age Of The
     Antonines.

         Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
         Antonines.—Part II.

         Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
         Antonines.—Part III.

         Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
         Antonines.—Part I.

     Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The
     Age Of The Antonines.

         Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
         Antonines.—Part II.

         Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
         Antonines.—Part III.

         Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
         Antonines. Part IV.

         Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The
         Antonines.—Part I.

     Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The
     Antonines.

         Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The
         Antonines.—Part II.

         Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part
         I.

     The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus—Election Of
     Pertinax—His Attempts To Reform The State—His Assassination By The
     Prætorian Guards.

         Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part
         II.

         Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part I.

     Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Prætorian
     Guards—Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And
     Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of
     Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three
     Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New Maxims Of Government.

         Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part II.

         Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation
         Of Marcinus.—Part I.

     The Death Of Severus.—Tyranny Of Caracalla.—Usurpation Of
     Macrinus.—Follies Of Elagabalus.—Virtues Of Alexander
     Severus.—Licentiousness Of The Army.—General State Of The Roman
     Finances.

         Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation
         Of Marcinus.—Part II.

         Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation
         Of Marcinus.—Part III.

         Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation
         Of Marcinus.—Part IV.

         Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death
         Of Maximin.—Part I.

     The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.—Rebellion In Africa And
     Italy, Under The Authority Of The Senate.—Civil Wars And
     Seditions.—Violent Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And
     Balbinus, And Of The Three Gordians.— Usurpation And Secular Games
     Of Philip.

         Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death
         Of Maximin.—Part II.

         Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death
         Of Maximin.—Part III.

         Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The
         Monarchy.—Part I.

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

         Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The
         Monarchy.—Part II.

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

     The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In The
     Time Of The Emperor Decius.

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

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

         Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
         Gallienus—Part I.

     The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And
     Gallienus.—The General Irruption Of The Barbari Ans.—The Thirty
     Tyrants.

         Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
         Gallienus.—Part II.

         Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
         Gallienus.—Part III.

         Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
         Gallienus.—Part IV.

         Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part I.

     Reign Of Claudius.—Defeat Of The Goths.—Victories, Triumph, And
     Death Of Aurelian.

         Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part II.

         Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part III.

         Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His
         Sons.—Part I.

     Conduct Of The Army And Senate After The Death Of Aurelian.
     —Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus, And His Sons.

         Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His
         Sons.—Part II.

         Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His
         Sons.—Part III.

         Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three
         Associates.—Part I.

     The Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates, Maximian,
     Galerius, And Constantius.—General Reestablishment Of Order And
     Tranquillity.—The Persian War, Victory, And Triumph.—The New Form
     Of Administration.—Abdication And Retirement Of Diocletian And
     Maximian.

         Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three
         Associates.—Part II.

         Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three
         Associates.—Part III.

         Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three
         Associates.—Part IV.

         Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
         Empire.—Part I.

     Troubles After The Abdication Of Diocletian.—Death Of
     Constantius.—Elevation Of Constantine And Maxen Tius.— Six
     Emperors At The Same Time.—Death Of Maximian And
     Galerius.—Victories Of Constantine Over Maxentius And
     Licinus.—Reunion Of The Empire Under The Authority Of Constantine.

         Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
         Empire.—Part II.

         Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
         Empire.—Part III.

         Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
         Empire.—Part IV.

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

     The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments,
     Manners, Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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




      Introduction

      Preface By The Editor.


      The great work of Gibbon is indispensable to the student of
      history. The literature of Europe offers no substitute for “The
      Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” It has obtained undisputed
      possession, as rightful occupant, of the vast period which it
      comprehends. However some subjects, which it embraces, may have
      undergone more complete investigation, on the general view of the
      whole period, this history is the sole undisputed authority to
      which all defer, and from which few appeal to the original
      writers, or to more modern compilers. The inherent interest of
      the subject, the inexhaustible labor employed upon it; the
      immense condensation of matter; the luminous arrangement; the
      general accuracy; the style, which, however monotonous from its
      uniform stateliness, and sometimes wearisome from its elaborate
      ar., is throughout vigorous, animated, often picturesque, always
      commands attention, always conveys its meaning with emphatic
      energy, describes with singular breadth and fidelity, and
      generalizes with unrivalled felicity of expression; all these
      high qualifications have secured, and seem likely to secure, its
      permanent place in historic literature.

      This vast design of Gibbon, the magnificent whole into which he
      has cast the decay and ruin of the ancient civilization, the
      formation and birth of the new order of things, will of itself,
      independent of the laborious execution of his immense plan,
      render “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” an
      unapproachable subject to the future historian: 101 in the
      eloquent language of his recent French editor, M. Guizot:—

      101 (return) [ A considerable portion of this preface has already
      appeared before us public in the Quarterly Review.]

      “The gradual decline of the most extraordinary dominion which has
      ever invaded and oppressed the world; the fall of that immense
      empire, erected on the ruins of so many kingdoms, republics, and
      states both barbarous and civilized; and forming in its turn, by
      its dismemberment, a multitude of states, republics, and
      kingdoms; the annihilation of the religion of Greece and Rome;
      the birth and the progress of the two new religions which have
      shared the most beautiful regions of the earth; the decrepitude
      of the ancient world, the spectacle of its expiring glory and
      degenerate manners; the infancy of the modern world, the picture
      of its first progress, of the new direction given to the mind and
      character of man—such a subject must necessarily fix the
      attention and excite the interest of men, who cannot behold with
      indifference those memorable epochs, during which, in the fine
      language of Corneille—

     ‘Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s’achève.’”

      This extent and harmony of design is unquestionably that which
      distinguishes the work of Gibbon from all other great historical
      compositions. He has first bridged the abyss between ancient and
      modern times, and connected together the two great worlds of
      history. The great advantage which the classical historians
      possess over those of modern times is in unity of plan, of course
      greatly facilitated by the narrower sphere to which their
      researches were confined. Except Herodotus, the great historians
      of Greece—we exclude the more modern compilers, like Diodorus
      Siculus—limited themselves to a single period, or at ‘east to the
      contracted sphere of Grecian affairs. As far as the Barbarians
      trespassed within the Grecian boundary, or were necessarily
      mingled up with Grecian politics, they were admitted into the
      pale of Grecian history; but to Thucydides and to Xenophon,
      excepting in the Persian inroad of the latter, Greece was the
      world. Natural unity confined their narrative almost to
      chronological order, the episodes were of rare occurrence and
      extremely brief. To the Roman historians the course was equally
      clear and defined. Rome was their centre of unity; and the
      uniformity with which the circle of the Roman dominion spread
      around, the regularity with which their civil polity expanded,
      forced, as it were, upon the Roman historian that plan which
      Polybius announces as the subject of his history, the means and
      the manner by which the whole world became subject to the Roman
      sway. How different the complicated politics of the European
      kingdoms! Every national history, to be complete, must, in a
      certain sense, be the history of Europe; there is no knowing to
      how remote a quarter it may be necessary to trace our most
      domestic events; from a country, how apparently disconnected, may
      originate the impulse which gives its direction to the whole
      course of affairs.

      In imitation of his classical models, Gibbon places _Rome_ as the
      cardinal point from which his inquiries diverge, and to which
      they bear constant reference; yet how immeasurable the space over
      which those inquiries range! how complicated, how confused, how
      apparently inextricable the causes which tend to the decline of
      the Roman empire! how countless the nations which swarm forth, in
      mingling and indistinct hordes, constantly changing the
      geographical limits—incessantly confounding the natural
      boundaries! At first sight, the whole period, the whole state of
      the world, seems to offer no more secure footing to an historical
      adventurer than the chaos of Milton—to be in a state of
      irreclaimable disorder, best described in the language of the
      poet:—

     —“A dark Illimitable ocean, without bound, Without dimension,
     where length, breadth, and height,
     And time, and place, are lost: where eldest Night And Chaos,
     ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of
     endless wars, and by confusion stand.”

      We feel that the unity and harmony of narrative, which shall
      comprehend this period of social disorganization, must be
      ascribed entirely to the skill and luminous disposition of the
      historian. It is in this sublime Gothic architecture of his work,
      in which the boundless range, the infinite variety, the, at first
      sight, incongruous gorgeousness of the separate parts,
      nevertheless are all subordinate to one main and predominant
      idea, that Gibbon is unrivalled. We cannot but admire the manner
      in which he masses his materials, and arranges his facts in
      successive groups, not according to chronological order, but to
      their moral or political connection; the distinctness with which
      he marks his periods of gradually increasing decay; and the skill
      with which, though advancing on separate parallels of history, he
      shows the common tendency of the slower or more rapid religious
      or civil innovations. However these principles of composition may
      demand more than ordinary attention on the part of the reader,
      they can alone impress upon the memory the real course, and the
      relative importance of the events. Whoever would justly
      appreciate the superiority of Gibbon’s lucid arrangement, should
      attempt to make his way through the regular but wearisome annals
      of Tillemont, or even the less ponderous volumes of Le Beau. Both
      these writers adhere, almost entirely, to chronological order;
      the consequence is, that we are twenty times called upon to break
      off, and resume the thread of six or eight wars in different
      parts of the empire; to suspend the operations of a military
      expedition for a court intrigue; to hurry away from a siege to a
      council; and the same page places us in the middle of a campaign
      against the barbarians, and in the depths of the Monophysite
      controversy. In Gibbon it is not always easy to bear in mind the
      exact dates but the course of events is ever clear and distinct;
      like a skilful general, though his troops advance from the most
      remote and opposite quarters, they are constantly bearing down
      and concentrating themselves on one point—that which is still
      occupied by the name, and by the waning power of Rome. Whether he
      traces the progress of hostile religions, or leads from the
      shores of the Baltic, or the verge of the Chinese empire, the
      successive hosts of barbarians—though one wave has hardly burst
      and discharged itself, before another swells up and
      approaches—all is made to flow in the same direction, and the
      impression which each makes upon the tottering fabric of the
      Roman greatness, connects their distant movements, and measures
      the relative importance assigned to them in the panoramic
      history. The more peaceful and didactic episodes on the
      development of the Roman law, or even on the details of
      ecclesiastical history, interpose themselves as resting-places or
      divisions between the periods of barbaric invasion. In short,
      though distracted first by the two capitals, and afterwards by
      the formal partition of the empire, the extraordinary felicity of
      arrangement maintains an order and a regular progression. As our
      horizon expands to reveal to us the gathering tempests which are
      forming far beyond the boundaries of the civilized world—as we
      follow their successive approach to the trembling frontier—the
      compressed and receding line is still distinctly visible; though
      gradually dismembered and the broken fragments assuming the form
      of regular states and kingdoms, the real relation of those
      kingdoms to the empire is maintained and defined; and even when
      the Roman dominion has shrunk into little more than the province
      of Thrace—when the name of Rome, confined, in Italy, to the walls
      of the city—yet it is still the memory, the shade of the Roman
      greatness, which extends over the wide sphere into which the
      historian expands his later narrative; the whole blends into the
      unity, and is manifestly essential to the double catastrophe of
      his tragic drama.

      But the amplitude, the magnificence, or the harmony of design,
      are, though imposing, yet unworthy claims on our admiration,
      unless the details are filled up with correctness and accuracy.
      No writer has been more severely tried on this point than Gibbon.
      He has undergone the triple scrutiny of theological zeal
      quickened by just resentment, of literary emulation, and of that
      mean and invidious vanity which delights in detecting errors in
      writers of established fame. On the result of the trial, we may
      be permitted to summon competent witnesses before we deliver our
      own judgment.

      M. Guizot, in his preface, after stating that in France and
      Germany, as well as in England, in the most enlightened countries
      of Europe, Gibbon is constantly cited as an authority, thus
      proceeds:—

      “I have had occasion, during my labors, to consult the writings
      of philosophers, who have treated on the finances of the Roman
      empire; of scholars, who have investigated the chronology; of
      theologians, who have searched the depths of ecclesiastical
      history; of writers on law, who have studied with care the Roman
      jurisprudence; of Orientalists, who have occupied themselves with
      the Arabians and the Koran; of modern historians, who have
      entered upon extensive researches touching the crusades and their
      influence; each of these writers has remarked and pointed out, in
      the ‘History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ some
      negligences, some false or imperfect views, some omissions, which
      it is impossible not to suppose voluntary; they have rectified
      some facts, combated with advantage some assertions; but in
      general they have taken the researches and the ideas of Gibbon,
      as points of departure, or as proofs of the researches or of the
      new opinions which they have advanced.”

      M. Guizot goes on to state his own impressions on reading
      Gibbon’s history, and no authority will have greater weight with
      those to whom the extent and accuracy of his historical
      researches are known:—

      “After a first rapid perusal, which allowed me to feel nothing
      but the interest of a narrative, always animated, and,
      notwithstanding its extent and the variety of objects which it
      makes to pass before the view, always perspicuous, I entered upon
      a minute examination of the details of which it was composed; and
      the opinion which I then formed was, I confess, singularly
      severe. I discovered, in certain chapters, errors which appeared
      to me sufficiently important and numerous to make me believe that
      they had been written with extreme negligence; in others, I was
      struck with a certain tinge of partiality and prejudice, which
      imparted to the exposition of the facts that want of truth and
      justice, which the English express by their happy term
      _misrepresentation_. Some imperfect (_tronquées_) quotations;
      some passages, omitted unintentionally or designedly cast a
      suspicion on the honesty (_bonne foi_) of the author; and his
      violation of the first law of history—increased to my eye by the
      prolonged attention with which I occupied myself with every
      phrase, every note, every reflection—caused me to form upon the
      whole work, a judgment far too rigorous. After having finished my
      labors, I allowed some time to elapse before I reviewed the
      whole. A second attentive and regular perusal of the entire work,
      of the notes of the author, and of those which I had thought it
      right to subjoin, showed me how much I had exaggerated the
      importance of the reproaches which Gibbon really deserved; I was
      struck with the same errors, the same partiality on certain
      subjects; but I had been far from doing adequate justice to the
      immensity of his researches, the variety of his knowledge, and
      above all, to that truly philosophical discrimination (_justesse
      d’esprit_) which judges the past as it would judge the present;
      which does not permit itself to be blinded by the clouds which
      time gathers around the dead, and which prevent us from seeing
      that, under the toga, as under the modern dress, in the senate as
      in our councils, men were what they still are, and that events
      took place eighteen centuries ago, as they take place in our
      days. I then felt that his book, in spite of its faults, will
      always be a noble work—and that we may correct his errors and
      combat his prejudices, without ceasing to admit that few men have
      combined, if we are not to say in so high a degree, at least in a
      manner so complete, and so well regulated, the necessary
      qualifications for a writer of history.”

      The present editor has followed the track of Gibbon through many
      parts of his work; he has read his authorities with constant
      reference to his pages, and must pronounce his deliberate
      judgment, in terms of the highest admiration as to his general
      accuracy. Many of his seeming errors are almost inevitable from
      the close condensation of his matter. From the immense range of
      his history, it was sometimes necessary to compress into a single
      sentence, a whole vague and diffuse page of a Byzantine
      chronicler. Perhaps something of importance may have thus
      escaped, and his expressions may not quite contain the whole
      substance of the passage from which they are taken. His limits,
      at times, compel him to sketch; where that is the case, it is not
      fair to expect the full details of the finished picture. At times
      he can only deal with important results; and in his account of a
      war, it sometimes requires great attention to discover that the
      events which seem to be comprehended in a single campaign, occupy
      several years. But this admirable skill in selecting and giving
      prominence to the points which are of real weight and
      importance—this distribution of light and shade—though perhaps it
      may occasionally betray him into vague and imperfect statements,
      is one of the highest excellencies of Gibbon’s historic manner.
      It is the more striking, when we pass from the works of his chief
      authorities, where, after laboring through long, minute, and
      wearisome descriptions of the accessary and subordinate
      circumstances, a single unmarked and undistinguished sentence,
      which we may overlook from the inattention of fatigue, contains
      the great moral and political result.

      Gibbon’s method of arrangement, though on the whole most
      favorable to the clear comprehension of the events, leads
      likewise to apparent inaccuracy. That which we expect to find in
      one part is reserved for another. The estimate which we are to
      form, depends on the accurate balance of statements in remote
      parts of the work; and we have sometimes to correct and modify
      opinions, formed from one chapter by those of another. Yet, on
      the other hand, it is astonishing how rarely we detect
      contradiction; the mind of the author has already harmonized the
      whole result to truth and probability; the general impression is
      almost invariably the same. The quotations of Gibbon have
      likewise been called in question;—I have, _in general_, been more
      inclined to admire their exactitude, than to complain of their
      indistinctness, or incompleteness. Where they are imperfect, it
      is commonly from the study of brevity, and rather from the desire
      of compressing the substance of his notes into pointed and
      emphatic sentences, than from dishonesty, or uncandid suppression
      of truth.

      These observations apply more particularly to the accuracy and
      fidelity of the historian as to his facts; his inferences, of
      course, are more liable to exception. It is almost impossible to
      trace the line between unfairness and unfaithfulness; between
      intentional misrepresentation and undesigned false coloring. The
      relative magnitude and importance of events must, in some
      respect, depend upon the mind before which they are presented;
      the estimate of character, on the habits and feelings of the
      reader. Christians, like M. Guizot and ourselves, will see some
      things, and some persons, in a different light from the historian
      of the Decline and Fall. We may deplore the bias of his mind; we
      may ourselves be on our guard against the danger of being misled,
      and be anxious to warn less wary readers against the same perils;
      but we must not confound this secret and unconscious departure
      from truth, with the deliberate violation of that veracity which
      is the only title of an historian to our confidence. Gibbon, it
      may be fearlessly asserted, is rarely chargeable even with the
      suppression of any material fact, which bears upon individual
      character; he may, with apparently invidious hostility, enhance
      the errors and crimes, and disparage the virtues of certain
      persons; yet, in general, he leaves us the materials for forming
      a fairer judgment; and if he is not exempt from his own
      prejudices, perhaps we might write _passions_, yet it must be
      candidly acknowledged, that his philosophical bigotry is not more
      unjust than the theological partialities of those ecclesiastical
      writers who were before in undisputed possession of this province
      of history.

      We are thus naturally led to that great misrepresentation which
      pervades his history—his false estimate of the nature and
      influence of Christianity.

      But on this subject some preliminary caution is necessary, lest
      that should be expected from a new edition, which it is
      impossible that it should completely accomplish. We must first be
      prepared with the only sound preservative against the false
      impression likely to be produced by the perusal of Gibbon; and we
      must see clearly the real cause of that false impression. The
      former of these cautions will be briefly suggested in its proper
      place, but it may be as well to state it, here, somewhat more at
      length. The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impression
      produced by his two memorable chapters, consists in his
      confounding together, in one indistinguishable mass, the _origin_
      and _apostolic_ propagation of the new religion, with its _later_
      progress. No argument for the divine authority of Christianity
      has been urged with greater force, or traced with higher
      eloquence, than that deduced from its primary development,
      explicable on no other hypothesis than a heavenly origin, and
      from its rapid extension through great part of the Roman empire.
      But this argument—one, when confined within reasonable limits, of
      unanswerable force—becomes more feeble and disputable in
      proportion as it recedes from the birthplace, as it were, of the
      religion. The further Christianity advanced, the more causes
      purely human were enlisted in its favor; nor can it be doubted
      that those developed with such artful exclusiveness by Gibbon did
      concur most essentially to its establishment. It is in the
      Christian dispensation, as in the material world. In both it is
      as the great First Cause, that the Deity is most undeniably
      manifest. When once launched in regular motion upon the bosom of
      space, and endowed with all their properties and relations of
      weight and mutual attraction, the heavenly bodies appear to
      pursue their courses according to secondary laws, which account
      for all their sublime regularity. So Christianity proclaims its
      Divine Author chiefly in its first origin and development. When
      it had once received its impulse from above—when it had once been
      infused into the minds of its first teachers—when it had gained
      full possession of the reason and affections of the favored
      few—it _might be_—and to the Protestant, the rationa Christian,
      it is impossible to define _when_ it really _was_—left to make
      its way by its native force, under the ordinary secret agencies
      of all-ruling Providence. The main question, the _divine origin
      of the religion_, was dexterously eluded, or speciously conceded
      by Gibbon; his plan enabled him to commence his account, in most
      parts, _below the apostolic times;_ and it was only by the
      strength of the dark coloring with which he brought out the
      failings and the follies of the succeeding ages, that a shadow of
      doubt and suspicion was thrown back upon the primitive period of
      Christianity.

      “The theologian,” says Gibbon, “may indulge the pleasing task of
      describing religion as she descended from heaven, arrayed in her
      native purity; a more melancholy duty is imposed upon the
      historian:—he must discover the inevitable mixture of error and
      corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon earth
      among a weak and degenerate race of beings.” Divest this passage
      of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the subsequent tone of the
      whole disquisition, and it might commence a Christian history
      written in the most Christian spirit of candor. But as the
      historian, by seeming to respect, yet by dexterously confounding
      the limits of the sacred land, contrived to insinuate that it was
      an Utopia which had no existence but in the imagination of the
      theologian—as he _suggested_ rather than affirmed that the days
      of Christian purity were a kind of poetic golden age;—so the
      theologian, by venturing too far into the domain of the
      historian, has been perpetually obliged to contest points on
      which he had little chance of victory—to deny facts established
      on unshaken evidence—and thence, to retire, if not with the shame
      of defeat, yet with but doubtful and imperfect success. Paley,
      with his intuitive sagacity, saw through the difficulty of
      answering Gibbon by the ordinary arts of controversy; his
      emphatic sentence, “Who can refute a sneer?” contains as much
      truth as point. But full and pregnant as this phrase is, it is
      not quite the whole truth; it is the tone in which the progress
      of Christianity is traced, in _comparison_ with the rest of the
      splendid and prodigally ornamented work, which is the radical
      defect in the “Decline and Fall.” Christianity alone receives no
      embellishment from the magic of Gibbon’s language; his
      imagination is dead to its moral dignity; it is kept down by a
      general zone of jealous disparagement, or neutralized by a
      painfully elaborate exposition of its darker and degenerate
      periods. There are occasions, indeed, when its pure and exalted
      humanity, when its manifestly beneficial influence, can compel
      even him, as it were, to fairness, and kindle his unguarded
      eloquence to its usual fervor; but, in general, he soon relapses
      into a frigid apathy; _affects_ an ostentatiously severe
      impartiality; notes all the faults of Christians in every age
      with bitter and almost malignant sarcasm; reluctantly, and with
      exception and reservation, admits their claim to admiration. This
      inextricable bias appears even to influence his manner of
      composition. While all the other assailants of the Roman empire,
      whether warlike or religious, the Goth, the Hun, the Arab, the
      Tartar, Alaric and Attila, Mahomet, and Zengis, and Tamerlane,
      are each introduced upon the scene almost with dramatic
      animation—their progress related in a full, complete, and
      unbroken narrative—the triumph of Christianity alone takes the
      form of a cold and critical disquisition. The successes of
      barbarous energy and brute force call forth all the consummate
      skill of composition; while the moral triumphs of Christian
      benevolence—the tranquil heroism of endurance, the blameless
      purity, the contempt of guilty fame and of honors destructive to
      the human race, which, had they assumed the proud name of
      philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words,
      because they own religion as their principle—sink into narrow
      asceticism. The _glories_ of Christianity, in short, touch on no
      chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains
      unkindled; his words, though they maintain their stately and
      measured march, have become cool, argumentative, and inanimate.
      Who would obscure one hue of that gorgeous coloring in which
      Gibbon has invested the dying forms of Paganism, or darken one
      paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and progress of
      Mahometanism? But who would not have wished that the same equal
      justice had been done to Christianity; that its real character
      and deeply penetrating influence had been traced with the same
      philosophical sagacity, and represented with more sober, as would
      become its quiet course, and perhaps less picturesque, but still
      with lively and attractive, descriptiveness? He might have thrown
      aside, with the same scorn, the mass of ecclesiastical fiction
      which envelops the early history of the church, stripped off the
      legendary romance, and brought out the facts in their primitive
      nakedness and simplicity—if he had but allowed those facts the
      benefit of the glowing eloquence which he denied to them alone.
      He might have annihilated the whole fabric of post-apostolic
      miracles, if he had left uninjured by sarcastic insinuation those
      of the New Testament; he might have cashiered, with Dodwell, the
      whole host of martyrs, which owe their existence to the prodigal
      invention of later days, had he but bestowed fair room, and dwelt
      with his ordinary energy on the sufferings of the genuine
      witnesses to the truth of Christianity, the Polycarps, or the
      martyrs of Vienne. And indeed, if, after all, the view of the
      early progress of Christianity be melancholy and humiliating we
      must beware lest we charge the whole of this on the infidelity of
      the historian. It is idle, it is disingenuous, to deny or to
      dissemble the early depravations of Christianity, its gradual but
      rapid departure from its primitive simplicity and purity, still
      more, from its spirit of universal love. It may be no unsalutary
      lesson to the Christian world, that this silent, this
      unavoidable, perhaps, yet fatal change shall have been drawn by
      an impartial, or even an hostile hand. The Christianity of every
      age may take warning, lest by its own narrow views, its want of
      wisdom, and its want of charity, it give the same advantage to
      the future unfriendly historian, and disparage the cause of true
      religion.

      The design of the present edition is partly corrective, partly
      supplementary: corrective, by notes, which point out (it is
      hoped, in a perfectly candid and dispassionate spirit with no
      desire but to establish the truth) such inaccuracies or
      misstatements as may have been detected, particularly with regard
      to Christianity; and which thus, with the previous caution, may
      counteract to a considerable extent the unfair and unfavorable
      impression created against rational religion: supplementary, by
      adding such additional information as the editor’s reading may
      have been able to furnish, from original documents or books, not
      accessible at the time when Gibbon wrote.

      The work originated in the editor’s habit of noting on the margin
      of his copy of Gibbon references to such authors as had
      discovered errors, or thrown new light on the subjects treated by
      Gibbon. These had grown to some extent, and seemed to him likely
      to be of use to others. The annotations of M. Guizot also
      appeared to him worthy of being better known to the English
      public than they were likely to be, as appended to the French
      translation.

      The chief works from which the editor has derived his materials
      are, I. The French translation, with notes by M. Guizot; 2d
      edition, Paris, 1828. The editor has translated almost all the
      notes of M. Guizot. Where he has not altogether agreed with him,
      his respect for the learning and judgment of that writer has, in
      general, induced him to retain the statement from which he has
      ventured to differ, with the grounds on which he formed his own
      opinion. In the notes on Christianity, he has retained all those
      of M. Guizot, with his own, from the conviction, that on such a
      subject, to many, the authority of a French statesman, a
      Protestant, and a rational and sincere Christian, would appear
      more independent and unbiassed, and therefore be more commanding,
      than that of an English clergyman.

      The editor has not scrupled to transfer the notes of M. Guizot to
      the present work. The well-known zeal for knowledge, displayed in
      all the writings of that distinguished historian, has led to the
      natural inference, that he would not be displeased at the attempt
      to make them of use to the English readers of Gibbon. The notes
      of M. Guizot are signed with the letter G.

      II. The German translation, with the notes of Wenck.
      Unfortunately this learned translator died, after having
      completed only the first volume; the rest of the work was
      executed by a very inferior hand.

      The notes of Wenck are extremely valuable; many of them have been
      adopted by M. Guizot; they are distinguished by the letter W. 102

      102 (return) [ The editor regrets that he has not been able to
      find the Italian translation, mentioned by Gibbon himself with
      some respect. It is not in our great libraries, the Museum or the
      Bodleian; and he has never found any bookseller in London who has
      seen it.]

      III. The new edition of Le Beau’s “Histoire du Bas Empire, with
      notes by M. St. Martin, and M. Brosset.” That distinguished
      Armenian scholar, M. St. Martin (now, unhappily, deceased) had
      added much information from Oriental writers, particularly from
      those of Armenia, as well as from more general sources. Many of
      his observations have been found as applicable to the work of
      Gibbon as to that of Le Beau.

      IV. The editor has consulted the various answers made to Gibbon
      on the first appearance of his work; he must confess, with little
      profit. They were, in general, hastily compiled by inferior and
      now forgotten writers, with the exception of Bishop Watson, whose
      able apology is rather a general argument, than an examination of
      misstatements. The name of Milner stands higher with a certain
      class of readers, but will not carry much weight with the severe
      investigator of history.

      V. Some few classical works and fragments have come to light,
      since the appearance of Gibbon’s History, and have been noticed
      in their respective places; and much use has been made, in the
      latter volumes particularly, of the increase to our stores of
      Oriental literature. The editor cannot, indeed, pretend to have
      followed his author, in these gleanings, over the whole vast
      field of his inquiries; he may have overlooked or may not have
      been able to command some works, which might have thrown still
      further light on these subjects; but he trusts that what he has
      adduced will be of use to the student of historic truth.

      The editor would further observe, that with regard to some other
      objectionable passages, which do not involve misstatement or
      inaccuracy, he has intentionally abstained from directing
      particular attention towards them by any special protest.

      The editor’s notes are marked M.

      A considerable part of the quotations (some of which in the later
      editions had fallen into great confusion) have been verified, and
      have been corrected by the latest and best editions of the
      authors.

      June, 1845.

      In this new edition, the text and the notes have been carefully
      revised, the latter by the editor.

      Some additional notes have been subjoined, distinguished by the
      signature M. 1845.




      Preface Of The Author.


      It is not my intention to detain the reader by expatiating on the
      variety or the importance of the subject, which I have undertaken
      to treat; since the merit of the choice would serve to render the
      weakness of the execution still more apparent, and still less
      excusable. But as I have presumed to lay before the public a
      _first_ volume only 1 of the History of the Decline and Fall of
      the Roman Empire, it will, perhaps, be expected that I should
      explain, in a few words, the nature and limits of my general
      plan.

      1 (return) [ The first volume of the quarto, which contained the
      sixteen first chapters.]

      The memorable series of revolutions, which in the course of about
      thirteen centuries gradually undermined, and at length destroyed,
      the solid fabric of human greatness, may, with some propriety, be
      divided into the three following periods:

      I. The first of these periods may be traced from the age of
      Trajan and the Antonines, when the Roman monarchy, having
      attained its full strength and maturity, began to verge towards
      its decline; and will extend to the subversion of the Western
      Empire, by the barbarians of Germany and Scythia, the rude
      ancestors of the most polished nations of modern Europe. This
      extraordinary revolution, which subjected Rome to the power of a
      Gothic conqueror, was completed about the beginning of the sixth
      century.

      II. The second period of the Decline and Fall of Rome may be
      supposed to commence with the reign of Justinian, who, by his
      laws, as well as by his victories, restored a transient splendor
      to the Eastern Empire. It will comprehend the invasion of Italy
      by the Lombards; the conquest of the Asiatic and African
      provinces by the Arabs, who embraced the religion of Mahomet; the
      revolt of the Roman people against the feeble princes of
      Constantinople; and the elevation of Charlemagne, who, in the
      year eight hundred, established the second, or German Empire of
      the West.

      III. The last and longest of these periods includes about six
      centuries and a half; from the revival of the Western Empire,
      till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and the
      extinction of a degenerate race of princes, who continued to
      assume the titles of Cæsar and Augustus, after their dominions
      were contracted to the limits of a single city; in which the
      language, as well as manners, of the ancient Romans, had been
      long since forgotten. The writer who should undertake to relate
      the events of this period, would find himself obliged to enter
      into the general history of the Crusades, as far as they
      contributed to the ruin of the Greek Empire; and he would
      scarcely be able to restrain his curiosity from making some
      inquiry into the state of the city of Rome, during the darkness
      and confusion of the middle ages.

      As I have ventured, perhaps too hastily, to commit to the press a
      work which in every sense of the word, deserves the epithet of
      imperfect. I consider myself as contracting an engagement to
      finish, most probably in a second volume, 2a the first of these
      memorable periods; and to deliver to the Public the complete
      History of the Decline and Fall of Rome, from the age of the
      Antonines to the subversion of the Western Empire. With regard to
      the subsequent periods, though I may entertain some hopes, I dare
      not presume to give any assurances. The execution of the
      extensive plan which I have described, would connect the ancient
      and modern history of the world; but it would require many years
      of health, of leisure, and of perseverance.

      2a (return) [ The Author, as it frequently happens, took an
      inadequate measure of his growing work. The remainder of the
      first period has filled _two_ volumes in quarto, being the third,
      fourth, fifth, and sixth volumes of the octavo edition.]

      BENTINCK STREET, _February_ 1, 1776.

      P. S. The entire History, which is now published, of the Decline
      and Fall of the Roman Empire in the West, abundantly discharges
      my engagements with the Public. Perhaps their favorable opinion
      may encourage me to prosecute a work, which, however laborious it
      may seem, is the most agreeable occupation of my leisure hours.

      BENTINCK STREET, _March_ 1, 1781.

      An Author easily persuades himself that the public opinion is
      still favorable to his labors; and I have now embraced the
      serious resolution of proceeding to the last period of my
      original design, and of the Roman Empire, the taking of
      Constantinople by the Turks, in the year one thousand four
      hundred and fifty-three. The most patient Reader, who computes
      that three ponderous 3 volumes have been already employed on the
      events of four centuries, may, perhaps, be alarmed at the long
      prospect of nine hundred years. But it is not my intention to
      expatiate with the same minuteness on the whole series of the
      Byzantine history. At our entrance into this period, the reign of
      Justinian, and the conquests of the Mahometans, will deserve and
      detain our attention, and the last age of Constantinople (the
      Crusades and the Turks) is connected with the revolutions of
      Modern Europe. From the seventh to the eleventh century, the
      obscure interval will be supplied by a concise narrative of such
      facts as may still appear either interesting or important.

      BENTINCK STREET, _March_ 1, 1782.

      3 (return) [ The first six volumes of the octavo edition.]




      Preface To The First Volume.


      Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which an historical
      writer may ascribe to himself; if any merit, indeed, can be
      assumed from the performance of an indispensable duty. I may
      therefore be allowed to say, that I have carefully examined all
      the original materials that could illustrate the subject which I
      had undertaken to treat. Should I ever complete the extensive
      design which has been sketched out in the Preface, I might
      perhaps conclude it with a critical account of the authors
      consulted during the progress of the whole work; and however such
      an attempt might incur the censure of ostentation, I am persuaded
      that it would be susceptible of entertainment, as well as
      information.

      At present I shall content myself with a single observation.

      The biographers, who, under the reigns of Diocletian and
      Constantine, composed, or rather compiled, the lives of the
      Emperors, from Hadrian to the sons of Carus, are usually
      mentioned under the names of Ælius Spartianus, Julius
      Capitolinus, Ælius Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallicanus, Trebellius
      Pollio and Flavius Vopiscus. But there is so much perplexity in
      the titles of the MSS., and so many disputes have arisen among
      the critics (see Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin. l. iii. c. 6)
      concerning their number, their names, and their respective
      property, that for the most part I have quoted them without
      distinction, under the general and well-known title of the
      _Augustan History_.




      Preface To The Fourth Volume Of The Original Quarto Edition.

      I now discharge my promise, and complete my design, of writing
      the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, both in
      the West and the East. The whole period extends from the age of
      Trajan and the Antonines, to the taking of Constantinople by
      Mahomet the Second; and includes a review of the Crusades, and
      the state of Rome during the middle ages. Since the publication
      of the first volume, twelve years have elapsed; twelve years,
      according to my wish, “of health, of leisure, and of
      perseverance.” I may now congratulate my deliverance from a long
      and laborious service, and my satisfaction will be pure and
      perfect, if the public favor should be extended to the conclusion
      of my work.

      It was my first intention to have collected, under one view, the
      numerous authors, of every age and language, from whom I have
      derived the materials of this history; and I am still convinced
      that the apparent ostentation would be more than compensated by
      real use. If I have renounced this idea, if I have declined an
      undertaking which had obtained the approbation of a
      master-artist,4 my excuse may be found in the extreme difficulty
      of assigning a proper measure to such a catalogue. A naked list
      of names and editions would not be satisfactory either to myself
      or my readers: the characters of the principal Authors of the
      Roman and Byzantine History have been occasionally connected with
      the events which they describe; a more copious and critical
      inquiry might indeed deserve, but it would demand, an elaborate
      volume, which might swell by degrees into a general library of
      historical writers. For the present, I shall content myself with
      renewing my serious protestation, that I have always endeavored
      to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a
      sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and
      that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully
      marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact
      were reduced to depend.

      4 (return) [ See Dr. Robertson’s Preface to his History of
      America.]

      I shall soon revisit the banks of the Lake of Lausanne, a country
      which I have known and loved from my early youth. Under a mild
      government, amidst a beauteous landscape, in a life of leisure
      and independence, and among a people of easy and elegant manners,
      I have enjoyed, and may again hope to enjoy, the varied pleasures
      of retirement and society. But I shall ever glory in the name and
      character of an Englishman: I am proud of my birth in a free and
      enlightened country; and the approbation of that country is the
      best and most honorable reward of my labors. Were I ambitious of
      any other Patron than the Public, I would inscribe this work to a
      Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfortunate
      administration, had many political opponents, almost without a
      personal enemy; who has retained, in his fall from power, many
      faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure
      of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigor of his mind, and the
      felicity of his incomparable temper. Lord North will permit me to
      express the feelings of friendship in the language of truth: but
      even truth and friendship should be silent, if he still dispensed
      the favors of the crown.

      In a remote solitude, vanity may still whisper in my ear, that my
      readers, perhaps, may inquire whether, in the conclusion of the
      present work, I am now taking an everlasting farewell. They shall
      hear all that I know myself, and all that I could reveal to the
      most intimate friend. The motives of action or silence are now
      equally balanced; nor can I pronounce, in my most secret
      thoughts, on which side the scale will preponderate. I cannot
      dissemble that six quartos must have tried, and may have
      exhausted, the indulgence of the Public; that, in the repetition
      of similar attempts, a successful Author has much more to lose
      than he can hope to gain; that I am now descending into the vale
      of years; and that the most respectable of my countrymen, the men
      whom I aspire to imitate, have resigned the pen of history about
      the same period of their lives. Yet I consider that the annals of
      ancient and modern times may afford many rich and interesting
      subjects; that I am still possessed of health and leisure; that
      by the practice of writing, some skill and facility must be
      acquired; and that, in the ardent pursuit of truth and knowledge,
      I am not conscious of decay. To an active mind, indolence is more
      painful than labor; and the first months of my liberty will be
      occupied and amused in the excursions of curiosity and taste. By
      such temptations, I have been sometimes seduced from the rigid
      duty even of a pleasing and voluntary task: but my time will now
      be my own; and in the use or abuse of independence, I shall no
      longer fear my own reproaches or those of my friends. I am fairly
      entitled to a year of jubilee: next summer and the following
      winter will rapidly pass away; and experience only can determine
      whether I shall still prefer the freedom and variety of study to
      the design and composition of a regular work, which animates,
      while it confines, the daily application of the Author.

      Caprice and accident may influence my choice; but the dexterity
      of self-love will contrive to applaud either active industry or
      philosophic repose.

      DOWNING STREET, _May_ 1, 1788.

      P. S. I shall embrace this opportunity of introducing two
      _verbal_ remarks, which have not conveniently offered themselves
      to my notice. 1. As often as I use the definitions of _beyond_
      the Alps, the Rhine, the Danube, &c., I generally suppose myself
      at Rome, and afterwards at Constantinople; without observing
      whether this relative geography may agree with the local, but
      variable, situation of the reader, or the historian. 2. In proper
      names of foreign, and especially of Oriental origin, it should be
      always our aim to express, in our English version, a faithful
      copy of the original. But this rule, which is founded on a just
      regard to uniformity and truth, must often be relaxed; and the
      exceptions will be limited or enlarged by the custom of the
      language and the taste of the interpreter. Our alphabets may be
      often defective; a harsh sound, an uncouth spelling, might offend
      the ear or the eye of our countrymen; and some words, notoriously
      corrupt, are fixed, and, as it were, naturalized in the vulgar
      tongue. The prophet _Mohammed_ can no longer be stripped of the
      famous, though improper, appellation of Mahomet: the well-known
      cities of Aleppo, Damascus, and Cairo, would almost be lost in
      the strange descriptions of _Haleb, Demashk_, and _Al Cahira:_
      the titles and offices of the Ottoman empire are fashioned by the
      practice of three hundred years; and we are pleased to blend the
      three Chinese monosyllables, _Con-fû-tzee_, in the respectable
      name of Confucius, or even to adopt the Portuguese corruption of
      Mandarin. But I would vary the use of Zoroaster and _Zerdusht_,
      as I drew my information from Greece or Persia: since our
      connection with India, the genuine _Timour_ is restored to the
      throne of Tamerlane: our most correct writers have retrenched the
      _Al_, the superfluous article, from the Koran; and we escape an
      ambiguous termination, by adopting _Moslem_ instead of Musulman,
      in the plural number. In these, and in a thousand examples, the
      shades of distinction are often minute; and I can feel, where I
      cannot explain, the motives of my choice.




      Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
      Antonines—Part I.

      Introduction.

     The Extent And Military Force Of The Empire In The Age Of The
     Antonines.

      In the second century of the Christian Æra, the empire of Rome
      comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most
      civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive
      monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor.
      The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had
      gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful
      inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and
      luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with
      decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the
      sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the
      executive powers of government. During a happy period of more
      than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by
      the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two
      Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding
      chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire;
      and afterwards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the
      most important circumstances of its decline and fall; a
      revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by
      the nations of the earth.

      The principal conquests of the Romans were achieved under the
      republic; and the emperors, for the most part, were satisfied
      with preserving those dominions which had been acquired by the
      policy of the senate, the active emulations of the consuls, and
      the martial enthusiasm of the people. The seven first centuries
      were filled with a rapid succession of triumphs; but it was
      reserved for Augustus to relinquish the ambitious design of
      subduing the whole earth, and to introduce a spirit of moderation
      into the public councils. Inclined to peace by his temper and
      situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome, in her
      present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear
      from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote
      wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event
      more doubtful, and the possession more precarious, and less
      beneficial. The experience of Augustus added weight to these
      salutary reflections, and effectually convinced him that, by the
      prudent vigor of his counsels, it would be easy to secure every
      concession which the safety or the dignity of Rome might require
      from the most formidable barbarians. Instead of exposing his
      person and his legions to the arrows of the Parthians, he
      obtained, by an honorable treaty, the restitution of the
      standards and prisoners which had been taken in the defeat of
      Crassus. 1a

      1 (return) [ Dion Cassius, (l. liv. p. 736,) with the annotations
      of Reimar, who has collected all that Roman vanity has left upon
      the subject. The marble of Ancyra, on which Augustus recorded his
      own exploits, asserted that _he compelled_ the Parthians to
      restore the ensigns of Crassus.]

      His generals, in the early part of his reign, attempted the
      reduction of Ethiopia and Arabia Felix. They marched near a
      thousand miles to the south of the tropic; but the heat of the
      climate soon repelled the invaders, and protected the un-warlike
      natives of those sequestered regions. 2c The northern countries
      of Europe scarcely deserved the expense and labor of conquest.
      The forests and morasses of Germany were filled with a hardy race
      of barbarians, who despised life when it was separated from
      freedom; and though, on the first attack, they seemed to yield to
      the weight of the Roman power, they soon, by a signal act of
      despair, regained their independence, and reminded Augustus of
      the vicissitude of fortune. 3a On the death of that emperor, his
      testament was publicly read in the senate. He bequeathed, as a
      valuable legacy to his successors, the advice of confining the
      empire within those limits which nature seemed to have placed as
      its permanent bulwarks and boundaries: on the west, the Atlantic
      Ocean; the Rhine and Danube on the north; the Euphrates on the
      east; and towards the south, the sandy deserts of Arabia and
      Africa. 4a

      2c (return) [ Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 780,) Pliny the elder, (Hist.
      Natur. l. vi. c. 32, 35, [28, 29,]) and Dion Cassius, (l. liii.
      p. 723, and l. liv. p. 734,) have left us very curious details
      concerning these wars. The Romans made themselves masters of
      Mariaba, or Merab, a city of Arabia Felix, well known to the
      Orientals. (See Abulfeda and the Nubian geography, p. 52) They
      were arrived within three days’ journey of the spice country, the
      rich object of their invasion.

      Note: It is this city of Merab that the Arabs say was the
      residence of Belkis, queen of Saba, who desired to see Solomon. A
      dam, by which the waters collected in its neighborhood were kept
      back, having been swept away, the sudden inundation destroyed
      this city, of which, nevertheless, vestiges remain. It bordered
      on a country called Adramout, where a particular aromatic plant
      grows: it is for this reason that we real in the history of the
      Roman expedition, that they were arrived within three days’
      journey of the spice country.—G. Compare _Malte-Brun, Geogr_.
      Eng. trans. vol. ii. p. 215. The period of this flood has been
      copiously discussed by Reiske, (_Program. de vetustâ Epochâ
      Arabum, rupturâ cataractæ Merabensis_.) Add. Johannsen, _Hist.
      Yemanæ_, p. 282. Bonn, 1828; and see Gibbon, note 16. to Chap.
      L.—M.

      Note: Two, according to Strabo. The detailed account of Strabo
      makes the invaders fail before Marsuabæ this cannot be the same
      place as Mariaba. Ukert observes, that Ælius Gallus would not
      have failed for want of water before Mariaba. (See M. Guizot’s
      note above.) “Either, therefore, they were different places, or
      Strabo is mistaken.” (Ukert, _Geographie der Griechen und Römer_,
      vol. i. p. 181.) Strabo, indeed, mentions Mariaba distinct from
      Marsuabæ. Gibbon has followed Pliny in reckoning Mariaba among
      the conquests of Gallus. There can be little doubt that he is
      wrong, as Gallus did not approach the capital of Sabæa. Compare
      the note of the Oxford editor of Strabo.—M.]

      3a (return) [ By the slaughter of Varus and his three legions.
      See the first book of the Annals of Tacitus. Sueton. in August.
      c. 23, and Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 117, &c. Augustus did
      not receive the melancholy news with all the temper and firmness
      that might have been expected from his character.]

      4a (return) [ Tacit. Annal. l. ii. Dion Cassius, l. lvi. p. 833,
      and the speech of Augustus himself, in Julian’s Cæsars. It
      receives great light from the learned notes of his French
      translator, M. Spanheim.]

      Happily for the repose of mankind, the moderate system
      recommended by the wisdom of Augustus, was adopted by the fears
      and vices of his immediate successors. Engaged in the pursuit of
      pleasure, or in the exercise of tyranny, the first Cæsars seldom
      showed themselves to the armies, or to the provinces; nor were
      they disposed to suffer, that those triumphs which _their_
      indolence neglected, should be usurped by the conduct and valor
      of their lieutenants. The military fame of a subject was
      considered as an insolent invasion of the Imperial prerogative;
      and it became the duty, as well as interest, of every Roman
      general, to guard the frontiers intrusted to his care, without
      aspiring to conquests which might have proved no less fatal to
      himself than to the vanquished barbarians. 5

      5 (return) [ Germanicus, Suetonius Paulinus, and Agricola were
      checked and recalled in the course of their victories. Corbulo
      was put to death. Military merit, as it is admirably expressed by
      Tacitus, was, in the strictest sense of the word, _imperatoria
      virtus_.]

      The only accession which the Roman empire received, during the
      first century of the Christian Æra, was the province of Britain.
      In this single instance, the successors of Cæsar and Augustus
      were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than
      the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the
      coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing though
      doubtful intelligence of a pearl fishery attracted their avarice;
      6 and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and
      insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to
      the general system of continental measures. After a war of about
      forty years, undertaken by the most stupid, 7 maintained by the
      most dissolute, and terminated by the most timid of all the
      emperors, the far greater part of the island submitted to the
      Roman yoke. 8 The various tribes of Britain possessed valor
      without conduct, and the love of freedom without the spirit of
      union. They took up arms with savage fierceness; they laid them
      down, or turned them against each other, with wild inconsistency;
      and while they fought singly, they were successively subdued.
      Neither the fortitude of Caractacus, nor the despair of Boadicea,
      nor the fanaticism of the Druids, could avert the slavery of
      their country, or resist the steady progress of the Imperial
      generals, who maintained the national glory, when the throne was
      disgraced by the weakest, or the most vicious of mankind. At the
      very time when Domitian, confined to his palace, felt the terrors
      which he inspired, his legions, under the command of the virtuous
      Agricola, defeated the collected force of the Caledonians, at the
      foot of the Grampian Hills; and his fleets, venturing to explore
      an unknown and dangerous navigation, displayed the Roman arms
      round every part of the island. The conquest of Britain was
      considered as already achieved; and it was the design of Agricola
      to complete and insure his success, by the easy reduction of
      Ireland, for which, in his opinion, one legion and a few
      auxiliaries were sufficient. 9 The western isle might be improved
      into a valuable possession, and the Britons would wear their
      chains with the less reluctance, if the prospect and example of
      freedom were on every side removed from before their eyes.

      6 (return) [ Cæsar himself conceals that ignoble motive; but it
      is mentioned by Suetonius, c. 47. The British pearls proved,
      however, of little value, on account of their dark and livid
      color. Tacitus observes, with reason, (in Agricola, c. 12,) that
      it was an inherent defect. “Ego facilius crediderim, naturam
      margaritis deesse quam nobis avaritiam.”]

      7 (return) [ Claudius, Nero, and Domitian. A hope is expressed by
      Pomponius Mela, l. iii. c. 6, (he wrote under Claudius,) that, by
      the success of the Roman arms, the island and its savage
      inhabitants would soon be better known. It is amusing enough to
      peruse such passages in the midst of London.]

      8 (return) [ See the admirable abridgment given by Tacitus, in
      the life of Agricola, and copiously, though perhaps not
      completely, illustrated by our own antiquarians, Camden and
      Horsley.]

      9 (return) [ The Irish writers, jealous of their national honor,
      are extremely provoked on this occasion, both with Tacitus and
      with Agricola.]

      But the superior merit of Agricola soon occasioned his removal
      from the government of Britain; and forever disappointed this
      rational, though extensive scheme of conquest. Before his
      departure, the prudent general had provided for security as well
      as for dominion. He had observed, that the island is almost
      divided into two unequal parts by the opposite gulfs, or, as they
      are now called, the Friths of Scotland. Across the narrow
      interval of about forty miles, he had drawn a line of military
      stations, which was afterwards fortified, in the reign of
      Antoninus Pius, by a turf rampart, erected on foundations of
      stone. 10 This wall of Antoninus, at a small distance beyond the
      modern cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, was fixed as the limit of
      the Roman province. The native Caledonians preserved, in the
      northern extremity of the island, their wild independence, for
      which they were not less indebted to their poverty than to their
      valor. Their incursions were frequently repelled and chastised;
      but their country was never subdued. 11 The masters of the
      fairest and most wealthy climates of the globe turned with
      contempt from gloomy hills, assailed by the winter tempest, from
      lakes concealed in a blue mist, and from cold and lonely heaths,
      over which the deer of the forest were chased by a troop of naked
      barbarians. 12

      10 (return) [ See Horsley’s Britannia Romana, l. i. c. 10. Note:
      Agricola fortified the line from Dumbarton to Edinburgh,
      consequently within Scotland. The emperor Hadrian, during his
      residence in Britain, about the year 121, caused a rampart of
      earth to be raised between Newcastle and Carlisle. Antoninus
      Pius, having gained new victories over the Caledonians, by the
      ability of his general, Lollius, Urbicus, caused a new rampart of
      earth to be constructed between Edinburgh and Dumbarton. Lastly,
      Septimius Severus caused a wall of stone to be built parallel to
      the rampart of Hadrian, and on the same locality. See John
      Warburton’s Vallum Romanum, or the History and Antiquities of the
      Roman Wall. London, 1754, 4to.—W. See likewise a good note on the
      Roman wall in Lingard’s History of England, vol. i. p. 40, 4to
      edit—M.]

      11 (return) [ The poet Buchanan celebrates with elegance and
      spirit (see his Sylvæ, v.) the unviolated independence of his
      native country. But, if the single testimony of Richard of
      Cirencester was sufficient to create a Roman province of
      Vespasiana to the north of the wall, that independence would be
      reduced within very narrow limits.]

      12 (return) [ See Appian (in Proœm.) and the uniform imagery of
      Ossian’s Poems, which, according to every hypothesis, were
      composed by a native Caledonian.]

      Such was the state of the Roman frontiers, and such the maxims of
      Imperial policy, from the death of Augustus to the accession of
      Trajan. That virtuous and active prince had received the
      education of a soldier, and possessed the talents of a general.
      13 The peaceful system of his predecessors was interrupted by
      scenes of war and conquest; and the legions, after a long
      interval, beheld a military emperor at their head. The first
      exploits of Trajan were against the Dacians, the most warlike of
      men, who dwelt beyond the Danube, and who, during the reign of
      Domitian, had insulted, with impunity, the Majesty of Rome. 14 To
      the strength and fierceness of barbarians they added a contempt
      for life, which was derived from a warm persuasion of the
      immortality and transmigration of the soul. 15 Decebalus, the
      Dacian king, approved himself a rival not unworthy of Trajan; nor
      did he despair of his own and the public fortune, till, by the
      confession of his enemies, he had exhausted every resource both
      of valor and policy. 16 This memorable war, with a very short
      suspension of hostilities, lasted five years; and as the emperor
      could exert, without control, the whole force of the state, it
      was terminated by an absolute submission of the barbarians. 17
      The new province of Dacia, which formed a second exception to the
      precept of Augustus, was about thirteen hundred miles in
      circumference. Its natural boundaries were the Niester, the Teyss
      or Tibiscus, the Lower Danube, and the Euxine Sea. The vestiges
      of a military road may still be traced from the banks of the
      Danube to the neighborhood of Bender, a place famous in modern
      history, and the actual frontier of the Turkish and Russian
      empires. 18

      13 (return) [ See Pliny’s Panegyric, which seems founded on
      facts.]

      14 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxvii.]

      15 (return) [ Herodotus, l. iv. c. 94. Julian in the Cæsars, with
      Spanheims observations.]

      16 (return) [ Plin. Epist. viii. 9.]

      17 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p. 1123, 1131. Julian in
      Cæsaribus Eutropius, viii. 2, 6. Aurelius Victor in Epitome.]

      18 (return) [ See a Memoir of M. d’Anville, on the Province of
      Dacia, in the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p.
      444—468.]

      Trajan was ambitious of fame; and as long as mankind shall
      continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than
      on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be
      the vice of the most exalted characters. The praises of
      Alexander, transmitted by a succession of poets and historians,
      had kindled a dangerous emulation in the mind of Trajan. Like
      him, the Roman emperor undertook an expedition against the
      nations of the East; but he lamented with a sigh, that his
      advanced age scarcely left him any hopes of equalling the renown
      of the son of Philip. 19 Yet the success of Trajan, however
      transient, was rapid and specious. The degenerate Parthians,
      broken by intestine discord, fled before his arms. He descended
      the River Tigris in triumph, from the mountains of Armenia to the
      Persian Gulf. He enjoyed the honor of being the first, as he was
      the last, of the Roman generals, who ever navigated that remote
      sea. His fleets ravaged the coast of Arabia; and Trajan vainly
      flattered himself that he was approaching towards the confines of
      India. 20 Every day the astonished senate received the
      intelligence of new names and new nations, that acknowledged his
      sway. They were informed that the kings of Bosphorus, Colchos,
      Iberia, Albania, Osrhoene, and even the Parthian monarch himself,
      had accepted their diadems from the hands of the emperor; that
      the independent tribes of the Median and Carduchian hills had
      implored his protection; and that the rich countries of Armenia,
      Mesopotamia, and Assyria, were reduced into the state of
      provinces. 21 But the death of Trajan soon clouded the splendid
      prospect; and it was justly to be dreaded, that so many distant
      nations would throw off the unaccustomed yoke, when they were no
      longer restrained by the powerful hand which had imposed it.

      19 (return) [ Trajan’s sentiments are represented in a very just
      and lively manner in the Cæsars of Julian.]

      20 (return) [ Eutropius and Sextus Rufus have endeavored to
      perpetuate the illusion. See a very sensible dissertation of M.
      Freret in the Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxi. p. 55.]

      21 (return) [Dion Cassius, l. lxviii.; and the Abbreviators.]




      Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
      Antonines.—Part II.

      It was an ancient tradition, that when the Capitol was founded by
      one of the Roman kings, the god Terminus (who presided over
      boundaries, and was represented, according to the fashion of that
      age, by a large stone) alone, among all the inferior deities,
      refused to yield his place to Jupiter himself. A favorable
      inference was drawn from his obstinacy, which was interpreted by
      the augurs as a sure presage that the boundaries of the Roman
      power would never recede. 22 During many ages, the prediction, as
      it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment. But though
      Terminus had resisted the Majesty of Jupiter, he submitted to the
      authority of the emperor Hadrian. 23 The resignation of all the
      eastern conquests of Trajan was the first measure of his reign.
      He restored to the Parthians the election of an independent
      sovereign; withdrew the Roman garrisons from the provinces of
      Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria; and, in compliance with the
      precept of Augustus, once more established the Euphrates as the
      frontier of the empire. 24 Censure, which arraigns the public
      actions and the private motives of princes, has ascribed to envy,
      a conduct which might be attributed to the prudence and
      moderation of Hadrian. The various character of that emperor,
      capable, by turns, of the meanest and the most generous
      sentiments, may afford some color to the suspicion. It was,
      however, scarcely in his power to place the superiority of his
      predecessor in a more conspicuous light, than by thus confessing
      himself unequal to the task of defending the conquests of Trajan.

      22 (return) [ Ovid. Fast. l. ii. ver. 667. See Livy, and
      Dionysius of Halicarnassus, under the reign of Tarquin.]

      23 (return) [ St. Augustin is highly delighted with the proof of
      the weakness of Terminus, and the vanity of the Augurs. See De
      Civitate Dei, iv. 29. * Note: The turn of Gibbon’s sentence is
      Augustin’s: “Plus Hadrianum regem hominum, quam regem Deorum
      timuisse videatur.”—M]

      24 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 5, Jerome’s Chronicle,
      and all the Epitomizers. It is somewhat surprising, that this
      memorable event should be omitted by Dion, or rather by
      Xiphilin.]

      The martial and ambitious spirit of Trajan formed a very singular
      contrast with the moderation of his successor. The restless
      activity of Hadrian was not less remarkable when compared with
      the gentle repose of Antoninus Pius. The life of the former was
      almost a perpetual journey; and as he possessed the various
      talents of the soldier, the statesman, and the scholar, he
      gratified his curiosity in the discharge of his duty.

      Careless of the difference of seasons and of climates, he marched
      on foot, and bare-headed, over the snows of Caledonia, and the
      sultry plains of the Upper Egypt; nor was there a province of the
      empire which, in the course of his reign, was not honored with
      the presence of the monarch. 25 But the tranquil life of
      Antoninus Pius was spent in the bosom of Italy, and, during the
      twenty-three years that he directed the public administration,
      the longest journeys of that amiable prince extended no farther
      than from his palace in Rome to the retirement of his Lanuvian
      villa. 26

      25 (return) [ Dion, l. lxix. p. 1158. Hist. August. p. 5, 8. If
      all our historians were lost, medals, inscriptions, and other
      monuments, would be sufficient to record the travels of Hadrian.
      Note: The journeys of Hadrian are traced in a note on Solvet’s
      translation of Hegewisch, Essai sur l’Epoque de Histoire Romaine
      la plus heureuse pour Genre Humain Paris, 1834, p. 123.—M.]

      26 (return) [ See the Augustan History and the Epitomes.]

      Notwithstanding this difference in their personal conduct, the
      general system of Augustus was equally adopted and uniformly
      pursued by Hadrian and by the two Antonines. They persisted in
      the design of maintaining the dignity of the empire, without
      attempting to enlarge its limits. By every honorable expedient
      they invited the friendship of the barbarians; and endeavored to
      convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the
      temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order
      and justice. During a long period of forty-three years, their
      virtuous labors were crowned with success; and if we except a few
      slight hostilities, that served to exercise the legions of the
      frontier, the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius offer the fair
      prospect of universal peace. 27 The Roman name was revered among
      the most remote nations of the earth. The fiercest barbarians
      frequently submitted their differences to the arbitration of the
      emperor; and we are informed by a contemporary historian that he
      had seen ambassadors who were refused the honor which they came
      to solicit of being admitted into the rank of subjects. 28

      27 (return) [ We must, however, remember, that in the time of
      Hadrian, a rebellion of the Jews raged with religious fury,
      though only in a single province. Pausanias (l. viii. c. 43)
      mentions two necessary and successful wars, conducted by the
      generals of Pius: 1st. Against the wandering Moors, who were
      driven into the solitudes of Atlas. 2d. Against the Brigantes of
      Britain, who had invaded the Roman province. Both these wars
      (with several other hostilities) are mentioned in the Augustan
      History, p. 19.]

      28 (return) [ Appian of Alexandria, in the preface to his History
      of the Roman Wars.]

      The terror of the Roman arms added weight and dignity to the
      moderation of the emperors. They preserved peace by a constant
      preparation for war; and while justice regulated their conduct,
      they announced to the nations on their confines, that they were
      as little disposed to endure, as to offer an injury. The military
      strength, which it had been sufficient for Hadrian and the elder
      Antoninus to display, was exerted against the Parthians and the
      Germans by the emperor Marcus. The hostilities of the barbarians
      provoked the resentment of that philosophic monarch, and, in the
      prosecution of a just defence, Marcus and his generals obtained
      many signal victories, both on the Euphrates and on the Danube.
      29 The military establishment of the Roman empire, which thus
      assured either its tranquillity or success, will now become the
      proper and important object of our attention.

      29 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. Hist. August. in Marco. The Parthian
      victories gave birth to a crowd of contemptible historians, whose
      memory has been rescued from oblivion and exposed to ridicule, in
      a very lively piece of criticism of Lucian.]

      In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was
      reserved for those ranks of citizens who had a country to love, a
      property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws, which
      it was their interest as well as duty to maintain. But in
      proportion as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest,
      war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a
      trade. 30 The legions themselves, even at the time when they were
      recruited in the most distant provinces, were supposed to consist
      of Roman citizens. That distinction was generally considered,
      either as a legal qualification or as a proper recompense for the
      soldier; but a more serious regard was paid to the essential
      merit of age, strength, and military stature. 31 In all levies, a
      just preference was given to the climates of the North over those
      of the South: the race of men born to the exercise of arms was
      sought for in the country rather than in cities; and it was very
      reasonably presumed, that the hardy occupations of smiths,
      carpenters, and huntsmen, would supply more vigor and resolution
      than the sedentary trades which are employed in the service of
      luxury. 32 After every qualification of property had been laid
      aside, the armies of the Roman emperors were still commanded, for
      the most part, by officers of liberal birth and education; but
      the common soldiers, like the mercenary troops of modern Europe,
      were drawn from the meanest, and very frequently from the most
      profligate, of mankind.

      30 (return) [ The poorest rank of soldiers possessed above forty
      pounds sterling, (Dionys. Halicarn. iv. 17,) a very high
      qualification at a time when money was so scarce, that an ounce
      of silver was equivalent to seventy pounds weight of brass. The
      populace, excluded by the ancient constitution, were
      indiscriminately admitted by Marius. See Sallust. de Bell.
      Jugurth. c. 91. * Note: On the uncertainty of all these
      estimates, and the difficulty of fixing the relative value of
      brass and silver, compare Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 473, &c. Eng.
      trans. p. 452. According to Niebuhr, the relative disproportion
      in value, between the two metals, arose, in a great degree from
      the abundance of brass or copper.—M. Compare also Dureau ‘de la
      Malle Economie Politique des Romains especially L. l. c. ix.—M.
      1845.]

      31 (return) [ Cæsar formed his legion Alauda of Gauls and
      strangers; but it was during the license of civil war; and after
      the victory, he gave them the freedom of the city for their
      reward.]

      32 (return) [ See Vegetius, de Re Militari, l. i. c. 2—7.]

      That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated
      patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in
      the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which
      we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions
      of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble
      impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it
      became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a
      different, but not less forcible nature—honor and religion. The
      peasant, or mechanic, imbibed the useful prejudice that he was
      advanced to the more dignified profession of arms, in which his
      rank and reputation would depend on his own valor; and that,
      although the prowess of a private soldier must often escape the
      notice of fame, his own behavior might sometimes confer glory or
      disgrace on the company, the legion, or even the army, to whose
      honors he was associated. On his first entrance into the service,
      an oath was administered to him with every circumstance of
      solemnity. He promised never to desert his standard, to submit
      his own will to the commands of his leaders, and to sacrifice his
      life for the safety of the emperor and the empire. 33 The
      attachment of the Roman troops to their standards was inspired by
      the united influence of religion and of honor. The golden eagle,
      which glittered in the front of the legion, was the object of
      their fondest devotion; nor was it esteemed less impious than it
      was ignominious, to abandon that sacred ensign in the hour of
      danger. 34 These motives, which derived their strength from the
      imagination, were enforced by fears and hopes of a more
      substantial kind. Regular pay, occasional donatives, and a stated
      recompense, after the appointed time of service, alleviated the
      hardships of the military life, 35 whilst, on the other hand, it
      was impossible for cowardice or disobedience to escape the
      severest punishment. The centurions were authorized to chastise
      with blows, the generals had a right to punish with death; and it
      was an inflexible maxim of Roman discipline, that a good soldier
      should dread his officers far more than the enemy. From such
      laudable arts did the valor of the Imperial troops receive a
      degree of firmness and docility unattainable by the impetuous and
      irregular passions of barbarians.

      33 (return) [ The oath of service and fidelity to the emperor was
      annually renewed by the troops on the first of January.]

      34 (return) [ Tacitus calls the Roman eagles, Bellorum Deos. They
      were placed in a chapel in the camp, and with the other deities
      received the religious worship of the troops. * Note: See also
      Dio. Cass. xl. c. 18. —M.]

      35 (return) [ See Gronovius de Pecunia vetere, l. iii. p. 120,
      &c. The emperor Domitian raised the annual stipend of the
      legionaries to twelve pieces of gold, which, in his time, was
      equivalent to about ten of our guineas. This pay, somewhat higher
      than our own, had been, and was afterwards, gradually increased,
      according to the progress of wealth and military government.
      After twenty years’ service, the veteran received three thousand
      denarii, (about one hundred pounds sterling,) or a proportionable
      allowance of land. The pay and advantages of the guards were, in
      general, about double those of the legions.]

      And yet so sensible were the Romans of the imperfection of valor
      without skill and practice, that, in their language, the name of
      an army was borrowed from the word which signified exercise. 36
      Military exercises were the important and unremitted object of
      their discipline. The recruits and young soldiers were constantly
      trained, both in the morning and in the evening, nor was age or
      knowledge allowed to excuse the veterans from the daily
      repetition of what they had completely learnt. Large sheds were
      erected in the winter-quarters of the troops, that their useful
      labors might not receive any interruption from the most
      tempestuous weather; and it was carefully observed, that the arms
      destined to this imitation of war, should be of double the weight
      which was required in real action. 37 It is not the purpose of
      this work to enter into any minute description of the Roman
      exercises. We shall only remark, that they comprehended whatever
      could add strength to the body, activity to the limbs, or grace
      to the motions. The soldiers were diligently instructed to march,
      to run, to leap, to swim, to carry heavy burdens, to handle every
      species of arms that was used either for offence or for defence,
      either in distant engagement or in a closer onset; to form a
      variety of evolutions; and to move to the sound of flutes in the
      Pyrrhic or martial dance. 38 In the midst of peace, the Roman
      troops familiarized themselves with the practice of war; and it
      is prettily remarked by an ancient historian who had fought
      against them, that the effusion of blood was the only
      circumstance which distinguished a field of battle from a field
      of exercise. 39 It was the policy of the ablest generals, and
      even of the emperors themselves, to encourage these military
      studies by their presence and example; and we are informed that
      Hadrian, as well as Trajan, frequently condescended to instruct
      the unexperienced soldiers, to reward the diligent, and sometimes
      to dispute with them the prize of superior strength or dexterity.
      40 Under the reigns of those princes, the science of tactics was
      cultivated with success; and as long as the empire retained any
      vigor, their military instructions were respected as the most
      perfect model of Roman discipline.

      36 (return) [ _Exercitus ab exercitando_, Varro de Lingua Latina,
      l. iv. Cicero in Tusculan. l. ii. 37. 15. There is room for a
      very interesting work, which should lay open the connection
      between the languages and manners of nations. * Note I am not
      aware of the existence, at present, of such a work; but the
      profound observations of the late William von Humboldt, in the
      introduction to his posthumously published Essay on the Language
      of the Island of Java, (uber die Kawi-sprache, Berlin, 1836,) may
      cause regret that this task was not completed by that
      accomplished and universal scholar.—M.]

      37 (return) [ Vegatius, l. ii. and the rest of his first book.]

      38 (return) [ The Pyrrhic dance is extremely well illustrated by
      M. le Beau, in the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxxv. p. 262,
      &c. That learned academician, in a series of memoirs, has
      collected all the passages of the ancients that relate to the
      Roman legion.]

      39 (return) [ Joseph. de Bell. Judaico, l. iii. c. 5. We are
      indebted to this Jew for some very curious details of Roman
      discipline.]

      40 (return) [ Plin. Panegyr. c. 13. Life of Hadrian, in the
      Augustan History.]

      Nine centuries of war had gradually introduced into the service
      many alterations and improvements. The legions, as they are
      described by Polybius, 41 in the time of the Punic wars, differed
      very materially from those which achieved the victories of Cæsar,
      or defended the monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines. The
      constitution of the Imperial legion may be described in a few
      words. 42 The heavy-armed infantry, which composed its principal
      strength, 43 was divided into ten cohorts, and fifty-five
      companies, under the orders of a correspondent number of tribunes
      and centurions. The first cohort, which always claimed the post
      of honor and the custody of the eagle, was formed of eleven
      hundred and five soldiers, the most approved for valor and
      fidelity. The remaining nine cohorts consisted each of five
      hundred and fifty-five; and the whole body of legionary infantry
      amounted to six thousand one hundred men. Their arms were
      uniform, and admirably adapted to the nature of their service: an
      open helmet, with a lofty crest; a breastplate, or coat of mail;
      greaves on their legs, and an ample buckler on their left arm.
      The buckler was of an oblong and concave figure, four feet in
      length, and two and a half in breadth, framed of a light wood,
      covered with a bull’s hide, and strongly guarded with plates of
      brass. Besides a lighter spear, the legionary soldier grasped in
      his right hand the formidable _pilum_, a ponderous javelin, whose
      utmost length was about six feet, and which was terminated by a
      massy triangular point of steel of eighteen inches. 44 This
      instrument was indeed much inferior to our modern fire-arms;
      since it was exhausted by a single discharge, at the distance of
      only ten or twelve paces. Yet when it was launched by a firm and
      skilful hand, there was not any cavalry that durst venture within
      its reach, nor any shield or corselet that could sustain the
      impetuosity of its weight. As soon as the Roman had darted his
      _pilum_, he drew his sword, and rushed forwards to close with the
      enemy. His sword was a short well-tempered Spanish blade, that
      carried a double edge, and was alike suited to the purpose of
      striking or of pushing; but the soldier was always instructed to
      prefer the latter use of his weapon, as his own body remained
      less exposed, whilst he inflicted a more dangerous wound on his
      adversary. 45 The legion was usually drawn up eight deep; and the
      regular distance of three feet was left between the files as well
      as ranks. 46 A body of troops, habituated to preserve this open
      order, in a long front and a rapid charge, found themselves
      prepared to execute every disposition which the circumstances of
      war, or the skill of their leader, might suggest. The soldier
      possessed a free space for his arms and motions, and sufficient
      intervals were allowed, through which seasonable reinforcements
      might be introduced to the relief of the exhausted combatants. 47
      The tactics of the Greeks and Macedonians were formed on very
      different principles. The strength of the phalanx depended on
      sixteen ranks of long pikes, wedged together in the closest
      array. 48 But it was soon discovered by reflection, as well as by
      the event, that the strength of the phalanx was unable to contend
      with the activity of the legion. 49

      41 (return) [ See an admirable digression on the Roman
      discipline, in the sixth book of his History.]

      42 (return) [ Vegetius de Re Militari, l. ii. c. 4, &c.
      Considerable part of his very perplexed abridgment was taken from
      the regulations of Trajan and Hadrian; and the legion, as he
      describes it, cannot suit any other age of the Roman empire.]

      43 (return) [Vegetius de Re Militari, l. ii. c. 1. In the purer
      age of Cæsar and Cicero, the word miles was almost confined to
      the infantry. Under the lower empire, and the times of chivalry,
      it was appropriated almost as exclusively to the men at arms, who
      fought on horseback.]

      44 (return) [ In the time of Polybius and Dionysius of
      Halicarnassus, (l. v. c. 45,) the steel point of the pilum seems
      to have been much longer. In the time of Vegetius, it was reduced
      to a foot, or even nine inches. I have chosen a medium.]

      45 (return) [ For the legionary arms, see Lipsius de Militia
      Romana, l. iii. c. 2—7.]

      46 (return) [ See the beautiful comparison of Virgil, Georgic ii.
      v. 279.]

      47 (return) [ M. Guichard, Memoires Militaires, tom. i. c. 4, and
      Nouveaux Memoires, tom. i. p. 293—311, has treated the subject
      like a scholar and an officer.]

      48 (return) [ See Arrian’s Tactics. With the true partiality of a
      Greek, Arrian rather chose to describe the phalanx, of which he
      had read, than the legions which he had commanded.]

      49 (return) [ Polyb. l. xvii. (xviii. 9.)]

      The cavalry, without which the force of the legion would have
      remained imperfect, was divided into ten troops or squadrons; the
      first, as the companion of the first cohort, consisted of a
      hundred and thirty-two men; whilst each of the other nine
      amounted only to sixty-six. The entire establishment formed a
      regiment, if we may use the modern expression, of seven hundred
      and twenty-six horse, naturally connected with its respective
      legion, but occasionally separated to act in the line, and to
      compose a part of the wings of the army. 50 The cavalry of the
      emperors was no longer composed, like that of the ancient
      republic, of the noblest youths of Rome and Italy, who, by
      performing their military service on horseback, prepared
      themselves for the offices of senator and consul; and solicited,
      by deeds of valor, the future suffrages of their countrymen. 51
      Since the alteration of manners and government, the most wealthy
      of the equestrian order were engaged in the administration of
      justice, and of the revenue; 52 and whenever they embraced the
      profession of arms, they were immediately intrusted with a troop
      of horse, or a cohort of foot. 53 Trajan and Hadrian formed their
      cavalry from the same provinces, and the same class of their
      subjects, which recruited the ranks of the legion. The horses
      were bred, for the most part, in Spain or Cappadocia. The Roman
      troopers despised the complete armor with which the cavalry of
      the East was encumbered. _Their_ more useful arms consisted in a
      helmet, an oblong shield, light boots, and a coat of mail. A
      javelin, and a long broad sword, were their principal weapons of
      offence. The use of lances and of iron maces they seem to have
      borrowed from the barbarians. 54

      50 (return) [ Veget. de Re Militari, l. ii. c. 6. His positive
      testimony, which might be supported by circumstantial evidence,
      ought surely to silence those critics who refuse the Imperial
      legion its proper body of cavalry. Note: See also Joseph. B. J.
      iii. vi. 2.—M.]

      51 (return) [ See Livy almost throughout, particularly xlii. 61.]

      52 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 2. The true sense of
      that very curious passage was first discovered and illustrated by
      M. de Beaufort, Republique Romaine, l. ii. c. 2.]

      53 (return) [ As in the instance of Horace and Agricola. This
      appears to have been a defect in the Roman discipline; which
      Hadrian endeavored to remedy by ascertaining the legal age of a
      tribune. * Note: These details are not altogether accurate.
      Although, in the latter days of the republic, and under the first
      emperors, the young Roman nobles obtained the command of a
      squadron or a cohort with greater facility than in the former
      times, they never obtained it without passing through a tolerably
      long military service. Usually they served first in the prætorian
      cohort, which was intrusted with the guard of the general: they
      were received into the companionship (contubernium) of some
      superior officer, and were there formed for duty. Thus Julius
      Cæsar, though sprung from a great family, served first as
      contubernalis under the prætor, M. Thermus, and later under
      Servilius the Isaurian. (Suet. Jul. 2, 5. Plut. in Par. p. 516.
      Ed. Froben.) The example of Horace, which Gibbon adduces to prove
      that young knights were made tribunes immediately on entering the
      service, proves nothing. In the first place, Horace was not a
      knight; he was the son of a freedman of Venusia, in Apulia, who
      exercised the humble office of coactor exauctionum, (collector of
      payments at auctions.) (Sat. i. vi. 45, or 86.) Moreover, when
      the poet was made tribune, Brutus, whose army was nearly entirely
      composed of Orientals, gave this title to all the Romans of
      consideration who joined him. The emperors were still less
      difficult in their choice; the number of tribunes was augmented;
      the title and honors were conferred on persons whom they wished
      to attack to the court. Augustus conferred on the sons of
      senators, sometimes the tribunate, sometimes the command of a
      squadron. Claudius gave to the knights who entered into the
      service, first the command of a cohort of auxiliaries, later that
      of a squadron, and at length, for the first time, the tribunate.
      (Suet in Claud. with the notes of Ernesti.) The abuses that arose
      caused by the edict of Hadrian, which fixed the age at which that
      honor could be attained. (Spart. in Had. &c.) This edict was
      subsequently obeyed; for the emperor Valerian, in a letter
      addressed to Mulvius Gallinnus, prætorian præfect, excuses
      himself for having violated it in favor of the young Probus
      afterwards emperor, on whom he had conferred the tribunate at an
      earlier age on account of his rare talents. (Vopisc. in Prob.
      iv.)—W. and G. Agricola, though already invested with the title
      of tribune, was contubernalis in Britain with Suetonius Paulinus.
      Tac. Agr. v.—M.]

      54 (return) [ See Arrian’s Tactics.]

      The safety and honor of the empire was principally intrusted to
      the legions, but the policy of Rome condescended to adopt every
      useful instrument of war. Considerable levies were regularly made
      among the provincials, who had not yet deserved the honorable
      distinction of Romans. Many dependent princes and communities,
      dispersed round the frontiers, were permitted, for a while, to
      hold their freedom and security by the tenure of military
      service. 55 Even select troops of hostile barbarians were
      frequently compelled or persuaded to consume their dangerous
      valor in remote climates, and for the benefit of the state. 56
      All these were included under the general name of auxiliaries;
      and howsoever they might vary according to the difference of
      times and circumstances, their numbers were seldom much inferior
      to those of the legions themselves. 57 Among the auxiliaries, the
      bravest and most faithful bands were placed under the command of
      præfects and centurions, and severely trained in the arts of
      Roman discipline; but the far greater part retained those arms,
      to which the nature of their country, or their early habits of
      life, more peculiarly adapted them. By this institution, each
      legion, to whom a certain proportion of auxiliaries was allotted,
      contained within itself every species of lighter troops, and of
      missile weapons; and was capable of encountering every nation,
      with the advantages of its respective arms and discipline. 58 Nor
      was the legion destitute of what, in modern language, would be
      styled a train of artillery. It consisted in ten military engines
      of the largest, and fifty-five of a smaller size; but all of
      which, either in an oblique or horizontal manner, discharged
      stones and darts with irresistible violence. 59

      55 (return) [ Such, in particular, was the state of the
      Batavians. Tacit. Germania, c. 29.]

      56 (return) [ Marcus Antoninus obliged the vanquished Quadi and
      Marcomanni to supply him with a large body of troops, which he
      immediately sent into Britain. Dion Cassius, l. lxxi. (c. 16.)]

      57 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iv. 5. Those who fix a regular
      proportion of as many foot, and twice as many horse, confound the
      auxiliaries of the emperors with the Italian allies of the
      republic.]

      58 (return) [ Vegetius, ii. 2. Arrian, in his order of march and
      battle against the Alani.]

      59 (return) [ The subject of the ancient machines is treated with
      great knowledge and ingenuity by the Chevalier Folard, (Polybe,
      tom. ii. p. 233-290.) He prefers them in many respects to our
      modern cannon and mortars. We may observe, that the use of them
      in the field gradually became more prevalent, in proportion as
      personal valor and military skill declined with the Roman empire.
      When men were no longer found, their place was supplied by
      machines. See Vegetius, ii. 25. Arrian.]




      Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
      Antonines.—Part III.

      The camp of a Roman legion presented the appearance of a
      fortified city. 60 As soon as the space was marked out, the
      pioneers carefully levelled the ground, and removed every
      impediment that might interrupt its perfect regularity. Its form
      was an exact quadrangle; and we may calculate, that a square of
      about seven hundred yards was sufficient for the encampment of
      twenty thousand Romans; though a similar number of our own troops
      would expose to the enemy a front of more than treble that
      extent. In the midst of the camp, the prætorium, or general’s
      quarters, rose above the others; the cavalry, the infantry, and
      the auxiliaries occupied their respective stations; the streets
      were broad and perfectly straight, and a vacant space of two
      hundred feet was left on all sides between the tents and the
      rampart. The rampart itself was usually twelve feet high, armed
      with a line of strong and intricate palisades, and defended by a
      ditch of twelve feet in depth as well as in breadth. This
      important labor was performed by the hands of the legionaries
      themselves; to whom the use of the spade and the pickaxe was no
      less familiar than that of the sword or _pilum_. Active valor may
      often be the present of nature; but such patient diligence can be
      the fruit only of habit and discipline. 61

      60 (return) [ Vegetius finishes his second book, and the
      description of the legion, with the following emphatic
      words:—“Universa quæ in quoque belli genere necessaria esse
      creduntur, secum legio debet ubique portare, ut in quovis loco
      fixerit castra, armatam faciat civitatem.”]

      61 (return) [ For the Roman Castrametation, see Polybius, l. vi.
      with Lipsius de Militia Romana, Joseph. de Bell. Jud. l. iii. c.
      5. Vegetius, i. 21—25, iii. 9, and Memoires de Guichard, tom. i.
      c. 1.]

      Whenever the trumpet gave the signal of departure, the camp was
      almost instantly broke up, and the troops fell into their ranks
      without delay or confusion. Besides their arms, which the
      legionaries scarcely considered as an encumbrance, they were
      laden with their kitchen furniture, the instruments of
      fortification, and the provision of many days. 62 Under this
      weight, which would oppress the delicacy of a modern soldier,
      they were trained by a regular step to advance, in about six
      hours, near twenty miles. 63 On the appearance of an enemy, they
      threw aside their baggage, and by easy and rapid evolutions
      converted the column of march into an order of battle. 64 The
      slingers and archers skirmished in the front; the auxiliaries
      formed the first line, and were seconded or sustained by the
      strength of the legions; the cavalry covered the flanks, and the
      military engines were placed in the rear.

      62 (return) [ Cicero in Tusculan. ii. 37, [15.]—Joseph. de Bell.
      Jud. l. iii. 5, Frontinus, iv. 1.]

      63 (return) [ Vegetius, i. 9. See Memoires de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 187.]

      64 (return) [ See those evolutions admirably well explained by M.
      Guichard Nouveaux Memoires, tom. i. p. 141—234.]

      Such were the arts of war, by which the Roman emperors defended
      their extensive conquests, and preserved a military spirit, at a
      time when every other virtue was oppressed by luxury and
      despotism. If, in the consideration of their armies, we pass from
      their discipline to their numbers, we shall not find it easy to
      define them with any tolerable accuracy. We may compute, however,
      that the legion, which was itself a body of six thousand eight
      hundred and thirty-one Romans, might, with its attendant
      auxiliaries, amount to about twelve thousand five hundred men.
      The peace establishment of Hadrian and his successors was
      composed of no less than thirty of these formidable brigades; and
      most probably formed a standing force of three hundred and
      seventy-five thousand men. Instead of being confined within the
      walls of fortified cities, which the Romans considered as the
      refuge of weakness or pusillanimity, the legions were encamped on
      the banks of the great rivers, and along the frontiers of the
      barbarians. As their stations, for the most part, remained fixed
      and permanent, we may venture to describe the distribution of the
      troops. Three legions were sufficient for Britain. The principal
      strength lay upon the Rhine and Danube, and consisted of sixteen
      legions, in the following proportions: two in the Lower, and
      three in the Upper Germany; one in Rhætia, one in Noricum, four
      in Pannonia, three in Mæsia, and two in Dacia. The defence of the
      Euphrates was intrusted to eight legions, six of whom were
      planted in Syria, and the other two in Cappadocia. With regard to
      Egypt, Africa, and Spain, as they were far removed from any
      important scene of war, a single legion maintained the domestic
      tranquillity of each of those great provinces. Even Italy was not
      left destitute of a military force. Above twenty thousand chosen
      soldiers, distinguished by the titles of City Cohorts and
      Prætorian Guards, watched over the safety of the monarch and the
      capital. As the authors of almost every revolution that
      distracted the empire, the Prætorians will, very soon, and very
      loudly, demand our attention; but, in their arms and
      institutions, we cannot find any circumstance which discriminated
      them from the legions, unless it were a more splendid appearance,
      and a less rigid discipline. 65

      65 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. iv. 5) has given us a state of the
      legions under Tiberius; and Dion Cassius (l. lv. p. 794) under
      Alexander Severus. I have endeavored to fix on the proper medium
      between these two periods. See likewise Lipsius de Magnitudine
      Romana, l. i. c. 4, 5.]

      The navy maintained by the emperors might seem inadequate to
      their greatness; but it was fully sufficient for every useful
      purpose of government. The ambition of the Romans was confined to
      the land; nor was that warlike people ever actuated by the
      enterprising spirit which had prompted the navigators of Tyre, of
      Carthage, and even of Marseilles, to enlarge the bounds of the
      world, and to explore the most remote coasts of the ocean. To the
      Romans the ocean remained an object of terror rather than of
      curiosity; 66 the whole extent of the Mediterranean, after the
      destruction of Carthage, and the extirpation of the pirates, was
      included within their provinces. The policy of the emperors was
      directed only to preserve the peaceful dominion of that sea, and
      to protect the commerce of their subjects. With these moderate
      views, Augustus stationed two permanent fleets in the most
      convenient ports of Italy, the one at Ravenna, on the Adriatic,
      the other at Misenum, in the Bay of Naples. Experience seems at
      length to have convinced the ancients, that as soon as their
      galleys exceeded two, or at the most three ranks of oars, they
      were suited rather for vain pomp than for real service. Augustus
      himself, in the victory of Actium, had seen the superiority of
      his own light frigates (they were called Liburnians) over the
      lofty but unwieldy castles of his rival. 67 Of these Liburnians
      he composed the two fleets of Ravenna and Misenum, destined to
      command, the one the eastern, the other the western division of
      the Mediterranean; and to each of the squadrons he attached a
      body of several thousand marines. Besides these two ports, which
      may be considered as the principal seats of the Roman navy, a
      very considerable force was stationed at Frejus, on the coast of
      Provence, and the Euxine was guarded by forty ships, and three
      thousand soldiers. To all these we add the fleet which preserved
      the communication between Gaul and Britain, and a great number of
      vessels constantly maintained on the Rhine and Danube, to harass
      the country, or to intercept the passage of the barbarians. 68 If
      we review this general state of the Imperial forces; of the
      cavalry as well as infantry; of the legions, the auxiliaries, the
      guards, and the navy; the most liberal computation will not allow
      us to fix the entire establishment by sea and by land at more
      than four hundred and fifty thousand men: a military power,
      which, however formidable it may seem, was equalled by a monarch
      of the last century, whose kingdom was confined within a single
      province of the Roman empire. 69

      66 (return) [ The Romans tried to disguise, by the pretence of
      religious awe their ignorance and terror. See Tacit. Germania, c.
      34.]

      67 (return) [ Plutarch, in Marc. Anton. [c. 67.] And yet, if we
      may credit Orosius, these monstrous castles were no more than ten
      feet above the water, vi. 19.]

      68 (return) [ See Lipsius, de Magnitud. Rom. l. i. c. 5. The
      sixteen last chapters of Vegetius relate to naval affairs.]

      69 (return) [ Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. c. 29. It must,
      however, be remembered, that France still feels that
      extraordinary effort.]

      We have attempted to explain the spirit which moderated, and the
      strength which supported, the power of Hadrian and the Antonines.
      We shall now endeavor, with clearness and precision, to describe
      the provinces once united under their sway, but, at present,
      divided into so many independent and hostile states. Spain, the
      western extremity of the empire, of Europe, and of the ancient
      world, has, in every age, invariably preserved the same natural
      limits; the Pyrenæan Mountains, the Mediterranean, and the
      Atlantic Ocean. That great peninsula, at present so unequally
      divided between two sovereigns, was distributed by Augustus into
      three provinces, Lusitania, Bætica, and Tarraconensis. The
      kingdom of Portugal now fills the place of the warlike country of
      the Lusitanians; and the loss sustained by the former on the side
      of the East, is compensated by an accession of territory towards
      the North. The confines of Grenada and Andalusia correspond with
      those of ancient Bætica. The remainder of Spain, Gallicia, and
      the Asturias, Biscay, and Navarre, Leon, and the two Castiles,
      Murcia, Valencia, Catalonia, and Arragon, all contributed to form
      the third and most considerable of the Roman governments, which,
      from the name of its capital, was styled the province of
      Tarragona. 70 Of the native barbarians, the Celtiberians were the
      most powerful, as the Cantabrians and Asturians proved the most
      obstinate. Confident in the strength of their mountains, they
      were the last who submitted to the arms of Rome, and the first
      who threw off the yoke of the Arabs.

      70 (return) [ See Strabo, l. ii. It is natural enough to suppose,
      that Arragon is derived from Tarraconensis, and several moderns
      who have written in Latin use those words as synonymous. It is,
      however, certain, that the Arragon, a little stream which falls
      from the Pyrenees into the Ebro, first gave its name to a
      country, and gradually to a kingdom. See d’Anville, Geographie du
      Moyen Age, p. 181.]

      Ancient Gaul, as it contained the whole country between the
      Pyrenees, the Alps, the Rhine, and the Ocean, was of greater
      extent than modern France. To the dominions of that powerful
      monarchy, with its recent acquisitions of Alsace and Lorraine, we
      must add the duchy of Savoy, the cantons of Switzerland, the four
      electorates of the Rhine, and the territories of Liege,
      Luxemburgh, Hainault, Flanders, and Brabant. When Augustus gave
      laws to the conquests of his father, he introduced a division of
      Gaul, equally adapted to the progress of the legions, to the
      course of the rivers, and to the principal national distinctions,
      which had comprehended above a hundred independent states. 71 The
      sea-coast of the Mediterranean, Languedoc, Provence, and
      Dauphiné, received their provincial appellation from the colony
      of Narbonne. The government of Aquitaine was extended from the
      Pyrenees to the Loire. The country between the Loire and the
      Seine was styled the Celtic Gaul, and soon borrowed a new
      denomination from the celebrated colony of Lugdunum, or Lyons.
      The Belgic lay beyond the Seine, and in more ancient times had
      been bounded only by the Rhine; but a little before the age of
      Cæsar, the Germans, abusing their superiority of valor, had
      occupied a considerable portion of the Belgic territory. The
      Roman conquerors very eagerly embraced so flattering a
      circumstance, and the Gallic frontier of the Rhine, from Basil to
      Leyden, received the pompous names of the Upper and the Lower
      Germany. 72 Such, under the reign of the Antonines, were the six
      provinces of Gaul; the Narbonnese, Aquitaine, the Celtic, or
      Lyonnese, the Belgic, and the two Germanies.

      71 (return) [ One hundred and fifteen _cities_ appear in the
      Notitia of Gaul; and it is well known that this appellation was
      applied not only to the capital town, but to the whole territory
      of each state. But Plutarch and Appian increase the number of
      tribes to three or four hundred.]

      72 (return) [ D’Anville. Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule.]

      We have already had occasion to mention the conquest of Britain,
      and to fix the boundary of the Roman Province in this island. It
      comprehended all England, Wales, and the Lowlands of Scotland, as
      far as the Friths of Dumbarton and Edinburgh. Before Britain lost
      her freedom, the country was irregularly divided between thirty
      tribes of barbarians, of whom the most considerable were the
      Belgæ in the West, the Brigantes in the North, the Silures in
      South Wales, and the Iceni in Norfolk and Suffolk. 73 As far as
      we can either trace or credit the resemblance of manners and
      language, Spain, Gaul, and Britain were peopled by the same hardy
      race of savages. Before they yielded to the Roman arms, they
      often disputed the field, and often renewed the contest. After
      their submission, they constituted the western division of the
      European provinces, which extended from the columns of Hercules
      to the wall of Antoninus, and from the mouth of the Tagus to the
      sources of the Rhine and Danube.

      73 (return) [ Whittaker’s History of Manchester, vol. i. c. 3.]
      Before the Roman conquest, the country which is now called
      Lombardy, was not considered as a part of Italy. It had been
      occupied by a powerful colony of Gauls, who, settling themselves
      along the banks of the Po, from Piedmont to Romagna, carried
      their arms and diffused their name from the Alps to the Apennine.

      The Ligurians dwelt on the rocky coast which now forms the
      republic of Genoa. Venice was yet unborn; but the territories of
      that state, which lie to the east of the Adige, were inhabited by
      the Venetians. 74 The middle part of the peninsula, that now
      composes the duchy of Tuscany and the ecclesiastical state, was
      the ancient seat of the Etruscans and Umbrians; to the former of
      whom Italy was indebted for the first rudiments of civilized
      life. 75 The Tyber rolled at the foot of the seven hills of Rome,
      and the country of the Sabines, the Latins, and the Volsci, from
      that river to the frontiers of Naples, was the theatre of her
      infant victories. On that celebrated ground the first consuls
      deserved triumphs, their successors adorned villas, and _their_
      posterity have erected convents. 76 Capua and Campania possessed
      the immediate territory of Naples; the rest of the kingdom was
      inhabited by many warlike nations, the Marsi, the Samnites, the
      Apulians, and the Lucanians; and the sea-coasts had been covered
      by the flourishing colonies of the Greeks. We may remark, that
      when Augustus divided Italy into eleven regions, the little
      province of Istria was annexed to that seat of Roman sovereignty.
      77

      74 (return) [ The Italian Veneti, though often confounded with
      the Gauls, were more probably of Illyrian origin. See M. Freret,
      Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xviii. * Note: Or
      Liburnian, according to Niebuhr. Vol. i. p. 172.—M.]

      75 (return) [ See Maffei Verona illustrata, l. i. * Note: Add
      Niebuhr, vol. i., and Otfried Müller, _die Etrusker_, which
      contains much that is known, and much that is conjectured, about
      this remarkable people. Also Micali, Storia degli antichi popoli
      Italiani. Florence, 1832—M.]

      76 (return) [ The first contrast was observed by the ancients.
      See Florus, i. 11. The second must strike every modern
      traveller.]

      77 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. iii.) follows the division
      of Italy by Augustus.]

      The European provinces of Rome were protected by the course of
      the Rhine and the Danube. The latter of those mighty streams,
      which rises at the distance of only thirty miles from the former,
      flows above thirteen hundred miles, for the most part to the
      south-east, collects the tribute of sixty navigable rivers, and
      is, at length, through six mouths, received into the Euxine,
      which appears scarcely equal to such an accession of waters. 78
      The provinces of the Danube soon acquired the general appellation
      of Illyricum, or the Illyrian frontier, 79 and were esteemed the
      most warlike of the empire; but they deserve to be more
      particularly considered under the names of Rhætia, Noricum,
      Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Mæsia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece.

      78 (return) [ Tournefort, Voyages en Grece et Asie Mineure,
      lettre xviii.]

      79 (return) [ The name of Illyricum originally belonged to the
      sea-coast of the Adriatic, and was gradually extended by the
      Romans from the Alps to the Euxine Sea. See Severini Pannonia, l.
      i. c. 3.]

      The province of Rhætia, which soon extinguished the name of the
      Vindelicians, extended from the summit of the Alps to the banks
      of the Danube; from its source, as far as its conflux with the
      Inn. The greatest part of the flat country is subject to the
      elector of Bavaria; the city of Augsburg is protected by the
      constitution of the German empire; the Grisons are safe in their
      mountains, and the country of Tirol is ranked among the numerous
      provinces of the house of Austria.

      The wide extent of territory which is included between the Inn,
      the Danube, and the Save,—Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola,
      the Lower Hungary, and Sclavonia,—was known to the ancients under
      the names of Noricum and Pannonia. In their original state of
      independence, their fierce inhabitants were intimately connected.
      Under the Roman government they were frequently united, and they
      still remain the patrimony of a single family. They now contain
      the residence of a German prince, who styles himself Emperor of
      the Romans, and form the centre, as well as strength, of the
      Austrian power. It may not be improper to observe, that if we
      except Bohemia, Moravia, the northern skirts of Austria, and a
      part of Hungary between the Teyss and the Danube, all the other
      dominions of the House of Austria were comprised within the
      limits of the Roman Empire.

      Dalmatia, to which the name of Illyricum more properly belonged,
      was a long, but narrow tract, between the Save and the Adriatic.
      The best part of the sea-coast, which still retains its ancient
      appellation, is a province of the Venetian state, and the seat of
      the little republic of Ragusa. The inland parts have assumed the
      Sclavonian names of Croatia and Bosnia; the former obeys an
      Austrian governor, the latter a Turkish pacha; but the whole
      country is still infested by tribes of barbarians, whose savage
      independence irregularly marks the doubtful limit of the
      Christian and Mahometan power. 80

      80 (return) [ A Venetian traveller, the Abbate Fortis, has lately
      given us some account of those very obscure countries. But the
      geography and antiquities of the western Illyricum can be
      expected only from the munificence of the emperor, its
      sovereign.]

      After the Danube had received the waters of the Teyss and the
      Save, it acquired, at least among the Greeks, the name of Ister.
      81 It formerly divided Mæsia and Dacia, the latter of which, as
      we have already seen, was a conquest of Trajan, and the only
      province beyond the river. If we inquire into the present state
      of those countries, we shall find that, on the left hand of the
      Danube, Temeswar and Transylvania have been annexed, after many
      revolutions, to the crown of Hungary; whilst the principalities
      of Moldavia and Wallachia acknowledge the supremacy of the
      Ottoman Porte. On the right hand of the Danube, Mæsia, which,
      during the middle ages, was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of
      Servia and Bulgaria, is again united in Turkish slavery.

      81 (return) [ The Save rises near the confines of _Istria_, and
      was considered by the more early Greeks as the principal stream
      of the Danube.]

      The appellation of Roumelia, which is still bestowed by the Turks
      on the extensive countries of Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece,
      preserves the memory of their ancient state under the Roman
      empire. In the time of the Antonines, the martial regions of
      Thrace, from the mountains of Hæmus and Rhodope, to the Bosphorus
      and the Hellespont, had assumed the form of a province.
      Notwithstanding the change of masters and of religion, the new
      city of Rome, founded by Constantine on the banks of the
      Bosphorus, has ever since remained the capital of a great
      monarchy. The kingdom of Macedonia, which, under the reign of
      Alexander, gave laws to Asia, derived more solid advantages from
      the policy of the two Philips; and with its dependencies of
      Epirus and Thessaly, extended from the Ægean to the Ionian Sea.
      When we reflect on the fame of Thebes and Argos, of Sparta and
      Athens, we can scarcely persuade ourselves, that so many immortal
      republics of ancient Greece were lost in a single province of the
      Roman empire, which, from the superior influence of the Achæan
      league, was usually denominated the province of Achaia.

      Such was the state of Europe under the Roman emperors. The
      provinces of Asia, without excepting the transient conquests of
      Trajan, are all comprehended within the limits of the Turkish
      power. But, instead of following the arbitrary divisions of
      despotism and ignorance, it will be safer for us, as well as more
      agreeable, to observe the indelible characters of nature. The
      name of Asia Minor is attributed with some propriety to the
      peninsula, which, confined betwixt the Euxine and the
      Mediterranean, advances from the Euphrates towards Europe. The
      most extensive and flourishing district, westward of Mount Taurus
      and the River Halys, was dignified by the Romans with the
      exclusive title of Asia. The jurisdiction of that province
      extended over the ancient monarchies of Troy, Lydia, and Phrygia,
      the maritime countries of the Pamphylians, Lycians, and Carians,
      and the Grecian colonies of Ionia, which equalled in arts, though
      not in arms, the glory of their parent. The kingdoms of Bithynia
      and Pontus possessed the northern side of the peninsula from
      Constantinople to Trebizond. On the opposite side, the province
      of Cilicia was terminated by the mountains of Syria: the inland
      country, separated from the Roman Asia by the River Halys, and
      from Armenia by the Euphrates, had once formed the independent
      kingdom of Cappadocia. In this place we may observe, that the
      northern shores of the Euxine, beyond Trebizond in Asia, and
      beyond the Danube in Europe, acknowledged the sovereignty of the
      emperors, and received at their hands either tributary princes or
      Roman garrisons. Budzak, Crim Tartary, Circassia, and Mingrelia,
      are the modern appellations of those savage countries. 82

      82 (return) [ See the Periplus of Arrian. He examined the coasts
      of the Euxine, when he was governor of Cappadocia.]

      Under the successors of Alexander, Syria was the seat of the
      Seleucidæ, who reigned over Upper Asia, till the successful
      revolt of the Parthians confined their dominions between the
      Euphrates and the Mediterranean. When Syria became subject to the
      Romans, it formed the eastern frontier of their empire: nor did
      that province, in its utmost latitude, know any other bounds than
      the mountains of Cappadocia to the north, and towards the south,
      the confines of Egypt, and the Red Sea. Phœnicia and Palestine
      were sometimes annexed to, and sometimes separated from, the
      jurisdiction of Syria. The former of these was a narrow and rocky
      coast; the latter was a territory scarcely superior to Wales,
      either in fertility or extent. 821 Yet Phœnicia and Palestine
      will forever live in the memory of mankind; since America, as
      well as Europe, has received letters from the one, and religion
      from the other. 83 A sandy desert, alike destitute of wood and
      water, skirts along the doubtful confine of Syria, from the
      Euphrates to the Red Sea. The wandering life of the Arabs was
      inseparably connected with their independence; and wherever, on
      some spots less barren than the rest, they ventured to for many
      settled habitations, they soon became subjects to the Roman
      empire. 84

      821 (return) [ This comparison is exaggerated, with the
      intention, no doubt, of attacking the authority of the Bible,
      which boasts of the fertility of Palestine. Gibbon’s only
      authorities were that of Strabo (l. xvi. 1104) and the present
      state of the country. But Strabo only speaks of the neighborhood
      of Jerusalem, which he calls barren and arid to the extent of
      sixty stadia round the city: in other parts he gives a favorable
      testimony to the fertility of many parts of Palestine: thus he
      says, “Near Jericho there is a grove of palms, and a country of a
      hundred stadia, full of springs, and well peopled.” Moreover,
      Strabo had never seen Palestine; he spoke only after reports,
      which may be as inaccurate as those according to which he has
      composed that description of Germany, in which Gluverius has
      detected so many errors. (Gluv. Germ. iii. 1.) Finally, his
      testimony is contradicted and refuted by that of other ancient
      authors, and by medals. Tacitus says, in speaking of Palestine,
      “The inhabitants are healthy and robust; the rains moderate; the
      soil fertile.” (Hist. v. 6.) Ammianus Macellinus says also, “The
      last of the Syrias is Palestine, a country of considerable
      extent, abounding in clean and well-cultivated land, and
      containing some fine cities, none of which yields to the other;
      but, as it were, being on a parallel, are rivals.”—xiv. 8. See
      also the historian Josephus, Hist. vi. 1. Procopius of Cæserea,
      who lived in the sixth century, says that Chosroes, king of
      Persia, had a great desire to make himself master of Palestine,
      _on account of its_ extraordinary fertility, its opulence, and
      the great number of its inhabitants. The Saracens thought the
      same, and were afraid that Omar. when he went to Jerusalem,
      charmed with the fertility of the soil and the purity of the air,
      would never return to Medina. (Ockley, Hist. of Sarac. i. 232.)
      The importance attached by the Romans to the conquest of
      Palestine, and the obstacles they encountered, prove also the
      richness and population of the country. Vespasian and Titus
      caused medals to be struck with trophies, in which Palestine is
      represented by a female under a palm-tree, to signify the
      richness of he country, with this legend: _Judæa capta_. Other
      medals also indicate this fertility; for instance, that of Herod
      holding a bunch of grapes, and that of the young Agrippa
      displaying fruit. As to the present state of he country, one
      perceives that it is not fair to draw any inference against its
      ancient fertility: the disasters through which it has passed, the
      government to which it is subject, the disposition of the
      inhabitants, explain sufficiently the wild and uncultivated
      appearance of the land, where, nevertheless, fertile and
      cultivated districts are still found, according to the testimony
      of travellers; among others, of Shaw, Maundrel, La Rocque, &c.—G.
      The Abbé Guénée, in his _Lettres de quelques Juifs à Mons. de
      Voltaire_, has exhausted the subject of the fertility of
      Palestine; for Voltaire had likewise indulged in sarcasm on this
      subject. Gibbon was assailed on this point, not, indeed, by Mr.
      Davis, who, he slyly insinuates, was prevented by his patriotism
      as a Welshman from resenting the comparison with Wales, but by
      other writers. In his Vindication, he first established the
      correctness of his measurement of Palestine, which he estimates
      as 7600 square English miles, while Wales is about 7011. As to
      fertility, he proceeds in the following dexterously composed and
      splendid passage: “The emperor Frederick II., the enemy and the
      victim of the clergy, is accused of saying, after his return from
      his crusade, that the God of the Jews would have despised his
      promised land, if he had once seen the fruitful realms of Sicily
      and Naples.” (See Giannone, Istor. Civ. del R. di Napoli, ii.
      245.) This raillery, which malice has, perhaps, falsely imputed
      to Frederick, is inconsistent with truth and piety; yet it must
      be confessed that the soil of Palestine does not contain that
      inexhaustible, and, as it were, spontaneous principle of
      fertility, which, under the most unfavorable circumstances, has
      covered with rich harvests the banks of the Nile, the fields of
      Sicily, or the plains of Poland. The Jordan is the only navigable
      river of Palestine: a considerable part of the narrow space is
      occupied, or rather lost, in the _Dead Sea_ whose horrid aspect
      inspires every sensation of disgust, and countenances every tale
      of horror. The districts which border on Arabia partake of the
      sandy quality of the adjacent desert. The face of the country,
      except the sea-coast, and the valley of the Jordan, is covered
      with mountains, which appear, for the most part, as naked and
      barren rocks; and in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, there is a
      real scarcity of the two elements of earth and water. (See
      Maundrel’s Travels, p. 65, and Reland’s Palestin. i. 238, 395.)
      These disadvantages, which now operate in their fullest extent,
      were formerly corrected by the labors of a numerous people, and
      the active protection of a wise government. The hills were
      clothed with rich beds of artificial mould, the rain was
      collected in vast cisterns, a supply of fresh water was conveyed
      by pipes and aqueducts to the dry lands. The breed of cattle was
      encouraged in those parts which were not adapted for tillage, and
      almost every spot was compelled to yield some production for the
      use of the inhabitants.

      Pater ispe colendi Haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque par
      artem Movit agros; curis acuens mortalia corda, Nec torpere gravi
      passus sua Regna veterno. Gibbon, Misc. Works, iv. 540.

      But Gibbon has here eluded the question about the land “flowing
      with milk and honey.” He is describing Judæa only, without
      comprehending Galilee, or the rich pastures beyond the Jordan,
      even now proverbial for their flocks and herds. (See Burckhardt’s
      Travels, and Hist of Jews, i. 178.) The following is believed to
      be a fair statement: “The extraordinary fertility of the whole
      country must be taken into the account. No part was waste; very
      little was occupied by unprofitable wood; the more fertile hills
      were cultivated in artificial terraces, others were hung with
      orchards of fruit trees the more rocky and barren districts were
      covered with vineyards.” Even in the present day, the wars and
      misgovernment of ages have not exhausted the natural richness of
      the soil. “Galilee,” says Malte Brun, “would be a paradise were
      it inhabited by an industrious people under an enlightened
      government. No land could be less dependent on foreign
      importation; it bore within itself every thing that could be
      necessary for the subsistence and comfort of a simple
      agricultural people. The climate was healthy, the seasons
      regular; the former rains, which fell about October, after the
      vintage, prepared the ground for the seed; that latter, which
      prevailed during March and the beginning of April, made it grow
      rapidly. Directly the rains ceased, the grain ripened with still
      greater rapidity, and was gathered in before the end of May. The
      summer months were dry and very hot, but the nights cool and
      refreshed by copious dews. In September, the vintage was
      gathered. Grain of all kinds, wheat, barley, millet, zea, and
      other sorts, grew in abundance; the wheat commonly yielded thirty
      for one. Besides the vine and the olive, the almond, the date,
      figs of many kinds, the orange, the pomegranate, and many other
      fruit trees, flourished in the greatest luxuriance. Great
      quantity of honey was collected. The balm-tree, which produced
      the opobalsamum, a great object of trade, was probably introduced
      from Arabia, in the time of Solomon. It flourished about Jericho
      and in Gilead.”—Milman’s Hist. of Jews. i. 177.—M.]

      83 (return) [ The progress of religion is well known. The use of
      letter was introduced among the savages of Europe about fifteen
      hundred years before Christ; and the Europeans carried them to
      America about fifteen centuries after the Christian Æra. But in a
      period of three thousand years, the Phœnician alphabet received
      considerable alterations, as it passed through the hands of the
      Greeks and Romans.]

      84 (return) [ Dion Cassius, lib. lxviii. p. 1131.]

      The geographers of antiquity have frequently hesitated to what
      portion of the globe they should ascribe Egypt. 85 By its
      situation that celebrated kingdom is included within the immense
      peninsula of Africa; but it is accessible only on the side of
      Asia, whose revolutions, in almost every period of history, Egypt
      has humbly obeyed. A Roman præfect was seated on the splendid
      throne of the Ptolemies; and the iron sceptre of the Mamelukes is
      now in the hands of a Turkish pacha. The Nile flows down the
      country, above five hundred miles from the tropic of Cancer to
      the Mediterranean, and marks on either side the extent of
      fertility by the measure of its inundations. Cyrene, situate
      towards the west, and along the sea-coast, was first a Greek
      colony, afterwards a province of Egypt, and is now lost in the
      desert of Barca. 851

      85 (return) [ Ptolemy and Strabo, with the modern geographers,
      fix the Isthmus of Suez as the boundary of Asia and Africa.
      Dionysius, Mela, Pliny, Sallust, Hirtius, and Solinus, have
      preferred for that purpose the western branch of the Nile, or
      even the great Catabathmus, or descent, which last would assign
      to Asia, not only Egypt, but part of Libya.]

      851 (return) [ The French editor has a long and unnecessary note
      on the History of Cyrene. For the present state of that coast and
      country, the volume of Captain Beechey is full of interesting
      details. Egypt, now an independent and improving kingdom,
      appears, under the enterprising rule of Mahommed Ali, likely to
      revenge its former oppression upon the decrepit power of the
      Turkish empire.—M.—This note was written in 1838. The future
      destiny of Egypt is an important problem, only to be solved by
      time. This observation will also apply to the new French colony
      in Algiers.—M. 1845.]

      From Cyrene to the ocean, the coast of Africa extends above
      fifteen hundred miles; yet so closely is it pressed between the
      Mediterranean and the Sahara, or sandy desert, that its breadth
      seldom exceeds fourscore or a hundred miles. The eastern division
      was considered by the Romans as the more peculiar and proper
      province of Africa. Till the arrival of the Phœnician colonies,
      that fertile country was inhabited by the Libyans, the most
      savage of mankind. Under the immediate jurisdiction of Carthage,
      it became the centre of commerce and empire; but the republic of
      Carthage is now degenerated into the feeble and disorderly states
      of Tripoli and Tunis. The military government of Algiers
      oppresses the wide extent of Numidia, as it was once united under
      Massinissa and Jugurtha; but in the time of Augustus, the limits
      of Numidia were contracted; and, at least, two thirds of the
      country acquiesced in the name of Mauritania, with the epithet of
      Cæsariensis. The genuine Mauritania, or country of the Moors,
      which, from the ancient city of Tingi, or Tangier, was
      distinguished by the appellation of Tingitana, is represented by
      the modern kingdom of Fez. Salle, on the Ocean, so infamous at
      present for its piratical depredations, was noticed by the
      Romans, as the extreme object of their power, and almost of their
      geography. A city of their foundation may still be discovered
      near Mequinez, the residence of the barbarian whom we condescend
      to style the Emperor of Morocco; but it does not appear, that his
      more southern dominions, Morocco itself, and Segelmessa, were
      ever comprehended within the Roman province. The western parts of
      Africa are intersected by the branches of Mount Atlas, a name so
      idly celebrated by the fancy of poets; 86 but which is now
      diffused over the immense ocean that rolls between the ancient
      and the new continent. 87

      86 (return) [ The long range, moderate height, and gentle
      declivity of Mount Atlas, (see Shaw’s Travels, p. 5,) are very
      unlike a solitary mountain which rears its head into the clouds,
      and seems to support the heavens. The peak of Teneriff, on the
      contrary, rises a league and a half above the surface of the sea;
      and, as it was frequently visited by the Phœnicians, might engage
      the notice of the Greek poets. See Buffon, Histoire Naturelle,
      tom. i. p. 312. Histoire des Voyages, tom. ii.]

      87 (return) [ M. de Voltaire, tom. xiv. p. 297, unsupported by
      either fact or probability, has generously bestowed the Canary
      Islands on the Roman empire.]

      Having now finished the circuit of the Roman empire, we may
      observe, that Africa is divided from Spain by a narrow strait of
      about twelve miles, through which the Atlantic flows into the
      Mediterranean. The columns of Hercules, so famous among the
      ancients, were two mountains which seemed to have been torn
      asunder by some convulsion of the elements; and at the foot of
      the European mountain, the fortress of Gibraltar is now seated.
      The whole extent of the Mediterranean Sea, its coasts and its
      islands, were comprised within the Roman dominion. Of the larger
      islands, the two Baleares, which derive their name of Majorca and
      Minorca from their respective size, are subject at present, the
      former to Spain, the latter to Great Britain. 871 It is easier to
      deplore the fate, than to describe the actual condition, of
      Corsica. 872 Two Italian sovereigns assume a regal title from
      Sardinia and Sicily. Crete, or Candia, with Cyprus, and most of
      the smaller islands of Greece and Asia, have been subdued by the
      Turkish arms, whilst the little rock of Malta defies their power,
      and has emerged, under the government of its military Order, into
      fame and opulence. 873

      871 (return) [ Minorca was lost to Great Britain in 1782. Ann.
      Register for that year.—M.]

      872 (return) [ The gallant struggles of the Corsicans for their
      independence, under Paoli, were brought to a close in the year
      1769. This volume was published in 1776. See Botta, Storia
      d’Italia, vol. xiv.—M.]

      873 (return) [ Malta, it need scarcely be said, is now in the
      possession of the English. We have not, however, thought it
      necessary to notice every change in the political state of the
      world, since the time of Gibbon.—M]

      This long enumeration of provinces, whose broken fragments have
      formed so many powerful kingdoms, might almost induce us to
      forgive the vanity or ignorance of the ancients. Dazzled with the
      extensive sway, the irresistible strength, and the real or
      affected moderation of the emperors, they permitted themselves to
      despise, and sometimes to forget, the outlying countries which
      had been left in the enjoyment of a barbarous independence; and
      they gradually usurped the license of confounding the Roman
      monarchy with the globe of the earth. 88 But the temper, as well
      as knowledge, of a modern historian, require a more sober and
      accurate language. He may impress a juster image of the greatness
      of Rome, by observing that the empire was above two thousand
      miles in breadth, from the wall of Antoninus and the northern
      limits of Dacia, to Mount Atlas and the tropic of Cancer; that it
      extended in length more than three thousand miles from the
      Western Ocean to the Euphrates; that it was situated in the
      finest part of the Temperate Zone, between the twenty-fourth and
      fifty-sixth degrees of northern latitude; and that it was
      supposed to contain above sixteen hundred thousand square miles,
      for the most part of fertile and well-cultivated land. 89

      88 (return) [ Bergier, Hist. des Grands Chemins, l. iii. c. 1, 2,
      3, 4, a very useful collection.]

      89 (return) [ See Templeman’s Survey of the Globe; but I distrust
      both the Doctor’s learning and his maps.]




      Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
      Antonines.—Part I.

     Of The Union And Internal Prosperity Of The Roman Empire, In The
     Age Of The Antonines.

      It is not alone by the rapidity, or extent of conquest, that we
      should estimate the greatness of Rome. The sovereign of the
      Russian deserts commands a larger portion of the globe. In the
      seventh summer after his passage of the Hellespont, Alexander
      erected the Macedonian trophies on the banks of the Hyphasis. 1
      Within less than a century, the irresistible Zingis, and the
      Mogul princes of his race, spread their cruel devastations and
      transient empire from the Sea of China, to the confines of Egypt
      and Germany. 2 But the firm edifice of Roman power was raised and
      preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient provinces of Trajan
      and the Antonines were united by laws, and adorned by arts. They
      might occasionally suffer from the partial abuse of delegated
      authority; but the general principle of government was wise,
      simple, and beneficent. They enjoyed the religion of their
      ancestors, whilst in civil honors and advantages they were
      exalted, by just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors.

      1 (return) [ They were erected about the midway between Lahor and
      Delhi. The conquests of Alexander in Hindostan were confined to
      the Punjab, a country watered by the five great streams of the
      Indus. * Note: The Hyphasis is one of the five rivers which join
      the Indus or the Sind, after having traversed the province of the
      Pendj-ab—a name which in Persian, signifies _five rivers_. * * *
      G. The five rivers were, 1. The Hydaspes, now the Chelum, Behni,
      or Bedusta, (_Sanscrit_, Vitashà, Arrow-swift.) 2. The Acesines,
      the Chenab, (_Sanscrit_, Chandrabhágâ, Moon-gift.) 3. Hydraotes,
      the Ravey, or Iraoty, (_Sanscrit_, Irâvatî.) 4. Hyphasis, the
      Beyah, (_Sanscrit_, Vepâsà, Fetterless.) 5. The Satadru,
      (_Sanscrit_, the Hundred Streamed,) the Sutledj, known first to
      the Greeks in the time of Ptolemy. Rennel. Vincent, Commerce of
      Anc. book 2. Lassen, Pentapotam. Ind. Wilson’s Sanscrit Dict.,
      and the valuable memoir of Lieut. Burnes, Journal of London
      Geogr. Society, vol. iii. p. 2, with the travels of that very
      able writer. Compare Gibbon’s own note, c. lxv. note 25.—M
      substit. for G.]

      2 (return) [ See M. de Guignes, Histoire des Huns, l. xv. xvi.
      and xvii.]

      I. The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it
      concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of
      the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of
      their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in
      the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally
      true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the
      magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not
      only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

      The superstition of the people was not imbittered by any mixture
      of theological rancor; nor was it confined by the chains of any
      speculative system. The devout polytheist, though fondly attached
      to his national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different
      religions of the earth. 3 Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream
      or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey,
      perpetually disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief,
      and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture of
      the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but not
      discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that sages and
      heroes, who had lived or who had died for the benefit of their
      country, were exalted to a state of power and immortality, it was
      universally confessed, that they deserved, if not the adoration,
      at least the reverence, of all mankind. The deities of a thousand
      groves and a thousand streams possessed, in peace, their local
      and respective influence; nor could the Romans who deprecated the
      wrath of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his
      offering to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers
      of nature, the planets, and the elements were the same throughout
      the universe. The invisible governors of the moral world were
      inevitably cast in a similar mould of fiction and allegory. Every
      virtue, and even vice, acquired its divine representative; every
      art and profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most
      distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived from the
      character of their peculiar votaries. A republic of gods of such
      opposite tempers and interests required, in every system, the
      moderating hand of a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of
      knowledge and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime
      perfections of an Eternal Parent, and an Omnipotent Monarch. 4
      Such was the mild spirit of antiquity, that the nations were less
      attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance, of their
      religious worship. The Greek, the Roman, and the Barbarian, as
      they met before their respective altars, easily persuaded
      themselves, that under various names, and with various
      ceremonies, they adored the same deities. 5 The elegant mythology
      of Homer gave a beautiful, and almost a regular form, to the
      polytheism of the ancient world.

      3 (return) [ There is not any writer who describes in so lively a
      manner as Herodotus the true genius of polytheism. The best
      commentary may be found in Mr. Hume’s Natural History of
      Religion; and the best contrast in Bossuet’s Universal History.
      Some obscure traces of an intolerant spirit appear in the conduct
      of the Egyptians, (see Juvenal, Sat. xv.;) and the Christians, as
      well as Jews, who lived under the Roman empire, formed a very
      important exception; so important indeed, that the discussion
      will require a distinct chapter of this work. * Note: M.
      Constant, in his very learned and eloquent work, “Sur la
      Religion,” with the two additional volumes, “Du Polytheisme
      Romain,” has considered the whole history of polytheism in a tone
      of philosophy, which, without subscribing to all his opinions, we
      may be permitted to admire. “The boasted tolerance of polytheism
      did not rest upon the respect due from society to the freedom of
      individual opinion. The polytheistic nations, tolerant as they
      were towards each other, as separate states, were not the less
      ignorant of the eternal principle, the only basis of enlightened
      toleration, that every one has a right to worship God in the
      manner which seems to him the best. Citizens, on the contrary,
      were bound to conform to the religion of the state; they had not
      the liberty to adopt a foreign religion, though that religion
      might be legally recognized in their own city, for the strangers
      who were its votaries.” —Sur la Religion, v. 184. Du. Polyth.
      Rom. ii. 308. At this time, the growing religious indifference,
      and the general administration of the empire by Romans, who,
      being strangers, would do no more than protect, not enlist
      themselves in the cause of the local superstitions, had
      introduced great laxity. But intolerance was clearly the theory
      both of the Greek and Roman law. The subject is more fully
      considered in another place.—M.]

      4 (return) [ The rights, powers, and pretensions of the sovereign
      of Olympus are very clearly described in the xvth book of the
      Iliad; in the Greek original, I mean; for Mr. Pope, without
      perceiving it, has improved the theology of Homer. * Note: There
      is a curious coincidence between Gibbon’s expressions and those
      of the newly-recovered “De Republica” of Cicero, though the
      argument is rather the converse, lib. i. c. 36. “Sive hæc ad
      utilitatem vitæ constitute sint a principibus rerum publicarum,
      ut rex putaretur unus esse in cœlo, qui nutu, ut ait Homerus,
      totum Olympum converteret, idemque et rex et patos haberetur
      omnium.”—M.]

      5 (return) [ See, for instance, Cæsar de Bell. Gall. vi. 17.
      Within a century or two, the Gauls themselves applied to their
      gods the names of Mercury, Mars, Apollo, &c.]

      The philosophers of Greece deduced their morals from the nature
      of man, rather than from that of God. They meditated, however, on
      the Divine Nature, as a very curious and important speculation;
      and in the profound inquiry, they displayed the strength and
      weakness of the human understanding. 6 Of the four most
      celebrated schools, the Stoics and the Platonists endeavored to
      reconcile the jaring interests of reason and piety. They have
      left us the most sublime proofs of the existence and perfections
      of the first cause; but, as it was impossible for them to
      conceive the creation of matter, the workman in the Stoic
      philosophy was not sufficiently distinguished from the work;
      whilst, on the contrary, the spiritual God of Plato and his
      disciples resembled an idea, rather than a substance. The
      opinions of the Academics and Epicureans were of a less religious
      cast; but whilst the modest science of the former induced them to
      doubt, the positive ignorance of the latter urged them to deny,
      the providence of a Supreme Ruler. The spirit of inquiry,
      prompted by emulation, and supported by freedom, had divided the
      public teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending sects;
      but the ingenious youth, who, from every part, resorted to
      Athens, and the other seats of learning in the Roman empire, were
      alike instructed in every school to reject and to despise the
      religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it possible that a
      philosopher should accept, as divine truths, the idle tales of
      the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity; or that he
      should adore, as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have
      despised, as men? Against such unworthy adversaries, Cicero
      condescended to employ the arms of reason and eloquence; but the
      satire of Lucian was a much more adequate, as well as more
      efficacious, weapon. We may be well assured, that a writer,
      conversant with the world, would never have ventured to expose
      the gods of his country to public ridicule, had they not already
      been the objects of secret contempt among the polished and
      enlightened orders of society. 7

      6 (return) [ The admirable work of Cicero de Natura Deorum is the
      best clew we have to guide us through the dark and profound
      abyss. He represents with candor, and confutes with subtlety, the
      opinions of the philosophers.]

      7 (return) [ I do not pretend to assert, that, in this
      irreligious age, the natural terrors of superstition, dreams,
      omens, apparitions, &c., had lost their efficacy.]

      Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which prevailed in the
      age of the Antonines, both the interest of the priests and the
      credulity of the people were sufficiently respected. In their
      writings and conversation, the philosophers of antiquity asserted
      the independent dignity of reason; but they resigned their
      actions to the commands of law and of custom. Viewing, with a
      smile of pity and indulgence, the various errors of the vulgar,
      they diligently practised the ceremonies of their fathers,
      devoutly frequented the temples of the gods; and sometimes
      condescending to act a part on the theatre of superstition, they
      concealed the sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal
      robes. Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to
      wrangle about their respective modes of faith, or of worship. It
      was indifferent to them what shape the folly of the multitude
      might choose to assume; and they approached with the same inward
      contempt, and the same external reverence, the altars of the
      Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline Jupiter. 8

      8 (return) [ Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, and Plutarch always
      inculcated a decent reverence for the religion of their own
      country, and of mankind. The devotion of Epicurus was assiduous
      and exemplary. Diogen. Lært. x. 10.]

      It is not easy to conceive from what motives a spirit of
      persecution could introduce itself into the Roman councils. The
      magistrates could not be actuated by a blind, though honest
      bigotry, since the magistrates were themselves philosophers; and
      the schools of Athens had given laws to the senate. They could
      not be impelled by ambition or avarice, as the temporal and
      ecclesiastical powers were united in the same hands. The pontiffs
      were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators; and the
      office of Supreme Pontiff was constantly exercised by the
      emperors themselves. They knew and valued the advantages of
      religion, as it is connected with civil government. They
      encouraged the public festivals which humanize the manners of the
      people. They managed the arts of divination as a convenient
      instrument of policy; and they respected, as the firmest bond of
      society, the useful persuasion, that, either in this or in a
      future life, the crime of perjury is most assuredly punished by
      the avenging gods. 9 But whilst they acknowledged the general
      advantages of religion, they were convinced that the various
      modes of worship contributed alike to the same salutary purposes;
      and that, in every country, the form of superstition, which had
      received the sanction of time and experience, was the best
      adapted to the climate, and to its inhabitants. Avarice and taste
      very frequently despoiled the vanquished nations of the elegant
      statues of their gods, and the rich ornaments of their temples;
      10 but, in the exercise of the religion which they derived from
      their ancestors, they uniformly experienced the indulgence, and
      even protection, of the Roman conquerors. The province of Gaul
      seems, and indeed only seems, an exception to this universal
      toleration. Under the specious pretext of abolishing human
      sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the
      dangerous power of the Druids: 11 but the priests themselves,
      their gods and their altars, subsisted in peaceful obscurity till
      the final destruction of Paganism. 12

      9 (return) [ Polybius, l. vi. c. 53, 54. Juvenal, Sat. xiii.
      laments that in his time this apprehension had lost much of its
      effect.]

      10 (return) [ See the fate of Syracuse, Tarentum, Ambracia,
      Corinth, &c., the conduct of Verres, in Cicero, (Actio ii. Orat.
      4,) and the usual practice of governors, in the viiith Satire of
      Juvenal.]

      11 (return) [ Seuton. in Claud.—Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 1.]

      12 (return) [ Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes, tom. vi. p.
      230—252.]

      Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled
      with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, 13 who
      all introduced and enjoyed the favorite superstitions of their
      native country. 14 Every city in the empire was justified in
      maintaining the purity of its ancient ceremonies; and the Roman
      senate, using the common privilege, sometimes interposed, to
      check this inundation of foreign rites. 141 The Egyptian
      superstition, of all the most contemptible and abject, was
      frequently prohibited: the temples of Serapis and Isis
      demolished, and their worshippers banished from Rome and Italy.
      15 But the zeal of fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble
      efforts of policy. The exiles returned, the proselytes
      multiplied, the temples were restored with increasing splendor,
      and Isis and Serapis at length assumed their place among the
      Roman Deities. 151 16 Nor was this indulgence a departure from
      the old maxims of government. In the purest ages of the
      commonwealth, Cybele and Æsculapius had been invited by solemn
      embassies; 17 and it was customary to tempt the protectors of
      besieged cities, by the promise of more distinguished honors than
      they possessed in their native country. 18 Rome gradually became
      the common temple of her subjects; and the freedom of the city
      was bestowed on all the gods of mankind. 19

      13 (return) [ Seneca, Consolat. ad Helviam, p. 74. Edit., Lips.]

      14 (return) [ Dionysius Halicarn. Antiquitat. Roman. l. ii. (vol.
      i. p. 275, edit. Reiske.)]

      141 (return) [ Yet the worship of foreign gods at Rome was only
      guarantied to the natives of those countries from whence they
      came. The Romans administered the priestly offices only to the
      gods of their fathers. Gibbon, throughout the whole preceding
      sketch of the opinions of the Romans and their subjects, has
      shown through what causes they were free from religious hatred
      and its consequences. But, on the other hand the internal state
      of these religions, the infidelity and hypocrisy of the upper
      orders, the indifference towards all religion, in even the better
      part of the common people, during the last days of the republic,
      and under the Cæsars, and the corrupting principles of the
      philosophers, had exercised a very pernicious influence on the
      manners, and even on the constitution.—W.]

      15 (return) [ In the year of Rome 701, the temple of Isis and
      Serapis was demolished by the order of the Senate, (Dion Cassius,
      l. xl. p. 252,) and even by the hands of the consul, (Valerius
      Maximus, l. 3.) After the death of Cæsar it was restored at the
      public expense, (Dion. l. xlvii. p. 501.) When Augustus was in
      Egypt, he revered the majesty of Serapis, (Dion, l. li. p. 647;)
      but in the Pomærium of Rome, and a mile round it, he prohibited
      the worship of the Egyptian gods, (Dion, l. liii. p. 679; l. liv.
      p. 735.) They remained, however, very fashionable under his reign
      (Ovid. de Art. Amand. l. i.) and that of his successor, till the
      justice of Tiberius was provoked to some acts of severity. (See
      Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. Joseph. Antiquit. l. xviii. c. 3.) * Note:
      See, in the pictures from the walls of Pompeii, the
      representation of an Isiac temple and worship. Vestiges of
      Egyptian worship have been traced in Gaul, and, I am informed,
      recently in Britain, in excavations at York.— M.]

      151 (return) [ Gibbon here blends into one, two events, distant a
      hundred and sixty-six years from each other. It was in the year
      of Rome 535, that the senate having ordered the destruction of
      the temples of Isis and Serapis, the workman would lend his hand;
      and the consul, L. Paulus himself (Valer. Max. 1, 3) seized the
      axe, to give the first blow. Gibbon attribute this circumstance
      to the second demolition, which took place in the year 701 and
      which he considers as the first.—W.]

      16 (return) [ Tertullian in Apologetic. c. 6, p. 74. Edit.
      Havercamp. I am inclined to attribute their establishment to the
      devotion of the Flavian family.]

      17 (return) [ See Livy, l. xi. [Suppl.] and xxix.]

      18 (return) [ Macrob. Saturnalia, l. iii. c. 9. He gives us a
      form of evocation.]

      19 (return) [ Minutius Fælix in Octavio, p. 54. Arnobius, l. vi.
      p. 115.]

      II. The narrow policy of preserving, without any foreign mixture,
      the pure blood of the ancient citizens, had checked the fortune,
      and hastened the ruin, of Athens and Sparta. The aspiring genius
      of Rome sacrificed vanity to ambition, and deemed it more
      prudent, as well as honorable, to adopt virtue and merit for her
      own wheresoever they were found, among slaves or strangers,
      enemies or barbarians. 20 During the most flourishing æra of the
      Athenian commonwealth, the number of citizens gradually decreased
      from about thirty 21 to twenty-one thousand. 22 If, on the
      contrary, we study the growth of the Roman republic, we may
      discover, that, notwithstanding the incessant demands of wars and
      colonies, the citizens, who, in the first census of Servius
      Tullius, amounted to no more than eighty-three thousand, were
      multiplied, before the commencement of the social war, to the
      number of four hundred and sixty-three thousand men, able to bear
      arms in the service of their country. 23 When the allies of Rome
      claimed an equal share of honors and privileges, the senate
      indeed preferred the chance of arms to an ignominious concession.
      The Samnites and the Lucanians paid the severe penalty of their
      rashness; but the rest of the Italian states, as they
      successively returned to their duty, were admitted into the bosom
      of the republic, 24 and soon contributed to the ruin of public
      freedom. Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise
      the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused,
      and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy
      multitude. But when the popular assemblies had been suppressed by
      the administration of the emperors, the conquerors were
      distinguished from the vanquished nations, only as the first and
      most honorable order of subjects; and their increase, however
      rapid, was no longer exposed to the same dangers. Yet the wisest
      princes, who adopted the maxims of Augustus, guarded with the
      strictest care the dignity of the Roman name, and diffused the
      freedom of the city with a prudent liberality. 25

      20 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 24. The Orbis Romanus of the
      learned Spanheim is a complete history of the progressive
      admission of Latium, Italy, and the provinces, to the freedom of
      Rome. * Note: Democratic states, observes Denina, (delle Revoluz.
      d’ Italia, l. ii. c. l.), are most jealous of communication the
      privileges of citizenship; monarchies or oligarchies willingly
      multiply the numbers of their free subjects. The most remarkable
      accessions to the strength of Rome, by the aggregation of
      conquered and foreign nations, took place under the regal and
      patrician—we may add, the Imperial government.—M.]

      21 (return) [ Herodotus, v. 97. It should seem, however, that he
      followed a large and popular estimation.]

      22 (return) [ Athenæus, Deipnosophist. l. vi. p. 272. Edit.
      Casaubon. Meursius de Fortunâ Atticâ, c. 4. * Note: On the number
      of citizens in Athens, compare Bœckh, Public Economy of Athens,
      (English Tr.,) p. 45, et seq. Fynes Clinton, Essay in Fasti Hel
      lenici, vol. i. 381.—M.]

      23 (return) [ See a very accurate collection of the numbers of
      each Lustrum in M. de Beaufort, Republique Romaine, l. iv. c. 4.
      Note: All these questions are placed in an entirely new point of
      view by Niebuhr, (Römische Geschichte, vol. i. p. 464.) He
      rejects the census of Servius fullius as unhistoric, (vol. ii. p.
      78, et seq.,) and he establishes the principle that the census
      comprehended all the confederate cities which had the right of
      Isopolity.—M.]

      24 (return) [ Appian. de Bell. Civil. l. i. Velleius Paterculus,
      l. ii. c. 15, 16, 17.]

      25 (return) [ Mæcenas had advised him to declare, by one edict,
      all his subjects citizens. But we may justly suspect that the
      historian Dion was the author of a counsel so much adapted to the
      practice of his own age, and so little to that of Augustus.]




      Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
      Antonines.—Part II.

      Till the privileges of Romans had been progressively extended to
      all the inhabitants of the empire, an important distinction was
      preserved between Italy and the provinces. The former was
      esteemed the centre of public unity, and the firm basis of the
      constitution. Italy claimed the birth, or at least the residence,
      of the emperors and the senate. 26 The estates of the Italians
      were exempt from taxes, their persons from the arbitrary
      jurisdiction of governors. Their municipal corporations, formed
      after the perfect model of the capital, 261 were intrusted, under
      the immediate eye of the supreme power, with the execution of the
      laws. From the foot of the Alps to the extremity of Calabria, all
      the natives of Italy were born citizens of Rome. Their partial
      distinctions were obliterated, and they insensibly coalesced into
      one great nation, united by language, manners, and civil
      institutions, and equal to the weight of a powerful empire. The
      republic gloried in her generous policy, and was frequently
      rewarded by the merit and services of her adopted sons. Had she
      always confined the distinction of Romans to the ancient families
      within the walls of the city, that immortal name would have been
      deprived of some of its noblest ornaments. Virgil was a native of
      Mantua; Horace was inclined to doubt whether he should call
      himself an Apulian or a Lucanian; it was in Padua that an
      historian was found worthy to record the majestic series of Roman
      victories. The patriot family of the Catos emerged from Tusculum;
      and the little town of Arpinum claimed the double honor of
      producing Marius and Cicero, the former of whom deserved, after
      Romulus and Camillus, to be styled the Third Founder of Rome; and
      the latter, after saving his country from the designs of
      Catiline, enabled her to contend with Athens for the palm of
      eloquence. 27

      26 (return) [ The senators were obliged to have one third of
      their own landed property in Italy. See Plin. l. vi. ep. 19. The
      qualification was reduced by Marcus to one fourth. Since the
      reign of Trajan, Italy had sunk nearer to the level of the
      provinces.]

      261 (return) [ It may be doubted whether the municipal government
      of the cities was not the old Italian constitution rather than a
      transcript from that of Rome. The free government of the cities,
      observes Savigny, was the leading characteristic of Italy.
      Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, i. p. G.—M.]

      27 (return) [ The first part of the Verona Illustrata of the
      Marquis Maffei gives the clearest and most comprehensive view of
      the state of Italy under the Cæsars. * Note: Compare Denina,
      Revol. d’ Italia, l. ii. c. 6, p. 100, 4 to edit.]

      The provinces of the empire (as they have been described in the
      preceding chapter) were destitute of any public force, or
      constitutional freedom. In Etruria, in Greece, 28 and in Gaul, 29
      it was the first care of the senate to dissolve those dangerous
      confederacies, which taught mankind that, as the Roman arms
      prevailed by division, they might be resisted by union. Those
      princes, whom the ostentation of gratitude or generosity
      permitted for a while to hold a precarious sceptre, were
      dismissed from their thrones, as soon as they had performed their
      appointed task of fashioning to the yoke the vanquished nations.
      The free states and cities which had embraced the cause of Rome
      were rewarded with a nominal alliance, and insensibly sunk into
      real servitude. The public authority was everywhere exercised by
      the ministers of the senate and of the emperors, and that
      authority was absolute, and without control. 291 But the same
      salutary maxims of government, which had secured the peace and
      obedience of Italy were extended to the most distant conquests. A
      nation of Romans was gradually formed in the provinces, by the
      double expedient of introducing colonies, and of admitting the
      most faithful and deserving of the provincials to the freedom of
      Rome.

      28 (return) [ See Pausanias, l. vii. The Romans condescended to
      restore the names of those assemblies, when they could no longer
      be dangerous.]

      29 (return) [ They are frequently mentioned by Cæsar. The Abbé
      Dubos attempts, with very little success, to prove that the
      assemblies of Gaul were continued under the emperors. Histoire de
      l’Etablissement de la Monarchie Francoise, l. i. c. 4.]

      291 (return) [ This is, perhaps, rather overstated. Most cities
      retained the choice of their municipal officers: some retained
      valuable privileges; Athens, for instance, in form was still a
      confederate city. (Tac. Ann. ii. 53.) These privileges, indeed,
      depended entirely on the arbitrary will of the emperor, who
      revoked or restored them according to his caprice. See Walther
      Geschichte des Römischen Rechts, i. 324—an admirable summary of
      the Roman constitutional history.—M.]

      “Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits,” is a very just
      observation of Seneca, 30 confirmed by history and experience.
      The natives of Italy, allured by pleasure or by interest,
      hastened to enjoy the advantages of victory; and we may remark,
      that, about forty years after the reduction of Asia, eighty
      thousand Romans were massacred in one day, by the cruel orders of
      Mithridates. 31 These voluntary exiles were engaged, for the most
      part, in the occupations of commerce, agriculture, and the farm
      of the revenue. But after the legions were rendered permanent by
      the emperors, the provinces were peopled by a race of soldiers;
      and the veterans, whether they received the reward of their
      service in land or in money, usually settled with their families
      in the country, where they had honorably spent their youth.
      Throughout the empire, but more particularly in the western
      parts, the most fertile districts, and the most convenient
      situations, were reserved for the establishment of colonies; some
      of which were of a civil, and others of a military nature. In
      their manners and internal policy, the colonies formed a perfect
      representation of their great parent; and they were soon endeared
      to the natives by the ties of friendship and alliance, they
      effectually diffused a reverence for the Roman name, and a
      desire, which was seldom disappointed, of sharing, in due time,
      its honors and advantages. 32 The municipal cities insensibly
      equalled the rank and splendor of the colonies; and in the reign
      of Hadrian, it was disputed which was the preferable condition,
      of those societies which had issued from, or those which had been
      received into, the bosom of Rome. 33 The right of Latium, as it
      was called, 331 conferred on the cities to which it had been
      granted, a more partial favor. The magistrates only, at the
      expiration of their office, assumed the quality of Roman
      citizens; but as those offices were annual, in a few years they
      circulated round the principal families. 34 Those of the
      provincials who were permitted to bear arms in the legions; 35
      those who exercised any civil employment; all, in a word, who
      performed any public service, or displayed any personal talents,
      were rewarded with a present, whose value was continually
      diminished by the increasing liberality of the emperors. Yet
      even, in the age of the Antonines, when the freedom of the city
      had been bestowed on the greater number of their subjects, it was
      still accompanied with very solid advantages. The bulk of the
      people acquired, with that title, the benefit of the Roman laws,
      particularly in the interesting articles of marriage, testaments,
      and inheritances; and the road of fortune was open to those whose
      pretensions were seconded by favor or merit. The grandsons of the
      Gauls, who had besieged Julius Cæsar in Alesia, commanded
      legions, governed provinces, and were admitted into the senate of
      Rome. 36 Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity
      of the state, was intimately connected with its safety and
      greatness.

      30 (return) [ Seneca in Consolat. ad Helviam, c. 6.]

      31 (return) [ Memnon apud Photium, (c. 33,) [c. 224, p. 231, ed
      Bekker.] Valer. Maxim. ix. 2. Plutarch and Dion Cassius swell the
      massacre to 150,000 citizens; but I should esteem the smaller
      number to be more than sufficient.]

      32 (return) [ Twenty-five colonies were settled in Spain, (see
      Plin. Hist. Nat. iii. 3, 4; iv. 35;) and nine in Britain, of
      which London, Colchester, Lincoln, Chester, Gloucester, and Bath
      still remain considerable cities. (See Richard of Cirencester, p.
      36, and Whittaker’s History of Manchester, l. i. c. 3.)]

      33 (return) [ Aul. Gel. Noctes Atticæ, xvi 13. The Emperor
      Hadrian expressed his surprise, that the cities of Utica, Gades,
      and Italica, which already enjoyed the rights of _Municipia_,
      should solicit the title of _colonies_. Their example, however,
      became fashionable, and the empire was filled with honorary
      colonies. See Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum Dissertat. xiii.]

      331 (return) [ The right of Latium conferred an exemption from
      the government of the Roman præfect. Strabo states this
      distinctly, l. iv. p. 295, edit. Cæsar’s. See also Walther, p.
      233.—M]

      34 (return) [ Spanheim, Orbis Roman. c. 8, p. 62.]

      35 (return) [ Aristid. in Romæ Encomio. tom. i. p. 218, edit.
      Jebb.]

      36 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 23, 24. Hist. iv. 74.]

      So sensible were the Romans of the influence of language over
      national manners, that it was their most serious care to extend,
      with the progress of their arms, the use of the Latin tongue. 37
      The ancient dialects of Italy, the Sabine, the Etruscan, and the
      Venetian, sunk into oblivion; but in the provinces, the east was
      less docile than the west to the voice of its victorious
      preceptors. This obvious difference marked the two portions of
      the empire with a distinction of colors, which, though it was in
      some degree concealed during the meridian splendor of prosperity,
      became gradually more visible, as the shades of night descended
      upon the Roman world. The western countries were civilized by the
      same hands which subdued them. As soon as the barbarians were
      reconciled to obedience, their minds were open to any new
      impressions of knowledge and politeness. The language of Virgil
      and Cicero, though with some inevitable mixture of corruption,
      was so universally adopted in Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain, and
      Pannonia, 38 that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms
      were preserved only in the mountains, or among the peasants. 39
      Education and study insensibly inspired the natives of those
      countries with the sentiments of Romans; and Italy gave fashions,
      as well as laws, to her Latin provincials. They solicited with
      more ardor, and obtained with more facility, the freedom and
      honors of the state; supported the national dignity in letters 40
      and in arms; and at length, in the person of Trajan, produced an
      emperor whom the Scipios would not have disowned for their
      countryman. The situation of the Greeks was very different from
      that of the barbarians. The former had been long since civilized
      and corrupted. They had too much taste to relinquish their
      language, and too much vanity to adopt any foreign institutions.
      Still preserving the prejudices, after they had lost the virtues,
      of their ancestors, they affected to despise the unpolished
      manners of the Roman conquerors, whilst they were compelled to
      respect their superior wisdom and power. 41 Nor was the influence
      of the Grecian language and sentiments confined to the narrow
      limits of that once celebrated country. Their empire, by the
      progress of colonies and conquest, had been diffused from the
      Adriatic to the Euphrates and the Nile. Asia was covered with
      Greek cities, and the long reign of the Macedonian kings had
      introduced a silent revolution into Syria and Egypt. In their
      pompous courts, those princes united the elegance of Athens with
      the luxury of the East, and the example of the court was
      imitated, at an humble distance, by the higher ranks of their
      subjects. Such was the general division of the Roman empire into
      the Latin and Greek languages. To these we may add a third
      distinction for the body of the natives in Syria, and especially
      in Egypt, the use of their ancient dialects, by secluding them
      from the commerce of mankind, checked the improvements of those
      barbarians. 42 The slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them
      to the contempt, the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited
      the aversion, of the conquerors. 43 Those nations had submitted
      to the Roman power, but they seldom desired or deserved the
      freedom of the city: and it was remarked, that more than two
      hundred and thirty years elapsed after the ruin of the Ptolemies,
      before an Egyptian was admitted into the senate of Rome. 44

      37 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5. Augustin. de
      Civitate Dei, xix 7 Lipsius de Pronunciatione Linguæ Latinæ, c.
      3.]

      38 (return) [ Apuleius and Augustin will answer for Africa;
      Strabo for Spain and Gaul; Tacitus, in the life of Agricola, for
      Britain; and Velleius Paterculus, for Pannonia. To them we may
      add the language of the Inscriptions. * Note: Mr. Hallam contests
      this assertion as regards Britain. “Nor did the Romans ever
      establish their language—I know not whether they wished to do
      so—in this island, as we perceive by that stubborn British tongue
      which has survived two conquests.” In his note, Mr. Hallam
      examines the passage from Tacitus (Agric. xxi.) to which Gibbon
      refers. It merely asserts the progress of Latin studies among the
      higher orders. (Midd. Ages, iii. 314.) Probably it was a kind of
      court language, and that of public affairs and prevailed in the
      Roman colonies.—M.]

      39 (return) [ The Celtic was preserved in the mountains of Wales,
      Cornwall, and Armorica. We may observe, that Apuleius reproaches
      an African youth, who lived among the populace, with the use of
      the Punic; whilst he had almost forgot Greek, and neither could
      nor would speak Latin, (Apolog. p. 596.) The greater part of St.
      Austin’s congregations were strangers to the Punic.]

      40 (return) [ Spain alone produced Columella, the Senecas, Lucan,
      Martial, and Quintilian.]

      41 (return) [ There is not, I believe, from Dionysius to Libanus,
      a single Greek critic who mentions Virgil or Horace. They seem
      ignorant that the Romans had any good writers.]

      42 (return) [ The curious reader may see in Dupin, (Bibliotheque
      Ecclesiastique, tom. xix. p. 1, c. 8,) how much the use of the
      Syriac and Egyptian languages was still preserved.]

      43 (return) [ See Juvenal, Sat. iii. and xv. Ammian. Marcellin.
      xxii. 16.]

      44 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxvii. p. 1275. The first
      instance happened under the reign of Septimius Severus.]

      It is a just though trite observation, that victorious Rome was
      herself subdued by the arts of Greece. Those immortal writers who
      still command the admiration of modern Europe, soon became the
      favorite object of study and imitation in Italy and the western
      provinces. But the elegant amusements of the Romans were not
      suffered to interfere with their sound maxims of policy. Whilst
      they acknowledged the charms of the Greek, they asserted the
      dignity of the Latin tongue, and the exclusive use of the latter
      was inflexibly maintained in the administration of civil as well
      as military government. 45 The two languages exercised at the
      same time their separate jurisdiction throughout the empire: the
      former, as the natural idiom of science; the latter, as the legal
      dialect of public transactions. Those who united letters with
      business were equally conversant with both; and it was almost
      impossible, in any province, to find a Roman subject, of a
      liberal education, who was at once a stranger to the Greek and to
      the Latin language.

      45 (return) [ See Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 2, n. 2. The
      emperor Claudius disfranchised an eminent Grecian for not
      understanding Latin. He was probably in some public office.
      Suetonius in Claud. c. 16. * Note: Causes seem to have been
      pleaded, even in the senate, in both languages. Val. Max. _loc.
      cit_. Dion. l. lvii. c. 15.—M]

      It was by such institutions that the nations of the empire
      insensibly melted away into the Roman name and people. But there
      still remained, in the centre of every province and of every
      family, an unhappy condition of men who endured the weight,
      without sharing the benefits, of society. In the free states of
      antiquity, the domestic slaves were exposed to the wanton rigor
      of despotism. The perfect settlement of the Roman empire was
      preceded by ages of violence and rapine. The slaves consisted,
      for the most part, of barbarian captives, 451 taken in thousands
      by the chance of war, purchased at a vile price, 46 accustomed to
      a life of independence, and impatient to break and to revenge
      their fetters. Against such internal enemies, whose desperate
      insurrections had more than once reduced the republic to the
      brink of destruction, 47 the most severe 471 regulations, 48 and
      the most cruel treatment, seemed almost justified by the great
      law of self-preservation. But when the principal nations of
      Europe, Asia, and Africa were united under the laws of one
      sovereign, the source of foreign supplies flowed with much less
      abundance, and the Romans were reduced to the milder but more
      tedious method of propagation. 481 In their numerous families,
      and particularly in their country estates, they encouraged the
      marriage of their slaves. 482 The sentiments of nature, the
      habits of education, and the possession of a dependent species of
      property, contributed to alleviate the hardships of servitude. 49
      The existence of a slave became an object of greater value, and
      though his happiness still depended on the temper and
      circumstances of the master, the humanity of the latter, instead
      of being restrained by fear, was encouraged by the sense of his
      own interest. The progress of manners was accelerated by the
      virtue or policy of the emperors; and by the edicts of Hadrian
      and the Antonines, the protection of the laws was extended to the
      most abject part of mankind. The jurisdiction of life and death
      over the slaves, a power long exercised and often abused, was
      taken out of private hands, and reserved to the magistrates
      alone. The subterraneous prisons were abolished; and, upon a just
      complaint of intolerable treatment, the injured slave obtained
      either his deliverance, or a less cruel master. 50

      451 (return) [ It was this which rendered the wars so sanguinary,
      and the battles so obstinate. The immortal Robertson, in an
      excellent discourse on the state of the world at the period of
      the establishment of Christianity, has traced a picture of the
      melancholy effects of slavery, in which we find all the depth of
      his views and the strength of his mind. I shall oppose
      successively some passages to the reflections of Gibbon. The
      reader will see, not without interest, the truths which Gibbon
      appears to have mistaken or voluntarily neglected, developed by
      one of the best of modern historians. It is important to call
      them to mind here, in order to establish the facts and their
      consequences with accuracy. I shall more than once have occasion
      to employ, for this purpose, the discourse of Robertson.
      “Captives taken in war were, in all probability, the first
      persons subjected to perpetual servitude; and, when the
      necessities or luxury of mankind increased the demand for slaves,
      every new war recruited their number, by reducing the vanquished
      to that wretched condition. Hence proceeded the fierce and
      desperate spirit with which wars were carried on among ancient
      nations. While chains and slavery were the certain lot of the
      conquered, battles were fought, and towns defended with a rage
      and obstinacy which nothing but horror at such a fate could have
      inspired; but, putting an end to the cruel institution of
      slavery, Christianity extended its mild influences to the
      practice of war, and that barbarous art, softened by its humane
      spirit, ceased to be so destructive. Secure, in every event, of
      personal liberty, the resistance of the vanquished became less
      obstinate, and the triumph of the victor less cruel. Thus
      humanity was introduced into the exercise of war, with which it
      appears to be almost incompatible; and it is to the merciful
      maxims of Christianity, much more than to any other cause, that
      we must ascribe the little ferocity and bloodshed which accompany
      modern victories.”—G.]

      46 (return) [ In the camp of Lucullus, an ox sold for a drachma,
      and a slave for four drachmæ, or about three shillings. Plutarch.
      in Lucull. p. 580. * Note: Above 100,000 prisoners were taken in
      the Jewish war.—G. Hist. of Jews, iii. 71. According to a
      tradition preserved by S. Jerom, after the insurrection in the
      time of Hadrian, they were sold as cheap as horse. Ibid. 124.
      Compare Blair on Roman Slavery, p. 19.—M., and Dureau de la
      blalle, Economie Politique des Romains, l. i. c. 15. But I cannot
      think that this writer has made out his case as to the common
      price of an agricultural slave being from 2000 to 2500 francs,
      (80l. to 100l.) He has overlooked the passages which show the
      ordinary prices, (i. e. Hor. Sat. ii. vii. 45,) and argued from
      extraordinary and exceptional cases.—M. 1845.]

      47 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus in Eclog. Hist. l. xxxiv. and
      xxxvi. Florus, iii. 19, 20.]

      471 (return) [ The following is the example: we shall see whether
      the word “severe” is here in its place. “At the time in which L.
      Domitius was prætor in Sicily, a slave killed a wild boar of
      extraordinary size. The prætor, struck by the dexterity and
      courage of the man, desired to see him. The poor wretch, highly
      gratified with the distinction, came to present himself before
      the prætor, in hopes, no doubt, of praise and reward; but
      Domitius, on learning that he had only a javelin to attack and
      kill the boar, ordered him to be instantly crucified, under the
      barbarous pretext that the law prohibited the use of this weapon,
      as of all others, to slaves.” Perhaps the cruelty of Domitius is
      less astonishing than the indifference with which the Roman
      orator relates this circumstance, which affects him so little
      that he thus expresses himself: “Durum hoc fortasse videatur,
      neque ego in ullam partem disputo.” “This may appear harsh, nor
      do I give any opinion on the subject.” And it is the same orator
      who exclaims in the same oration, “Facinus est cruciare civem
      Romanum; scelus verberare; prope parricidium necare: quid dicam
      in crucem tollere?” “It is a crime to imprison a Roman citizen;
      wickedness to scourge; next to parricide to put to death, what
      shall I call it to crucify?”

      In general, this passage of Gibbon on slavery, is full, not only
      of blamable indifference, but of an exaggeration of impartiality
      which resembles dishonesty. He endeavors to extenuate all that is
      appalling in the condition and treatment of the slaves; he would
      make us consider those cruelties as possibly “justified by
      necessity.” He then describes, with minute accuracy, the
      slightest mitigations of their deplorable condition; he
      attributes to the virtue or the policy of the emperors the
      progressive amelioration in the lot of the slaves; and he passes
      over in silence the most influential cause, that which, after
      rendering the slaves less miserable, has contributed at length
      entirely to enfranchise them from their sufferings and their
      chains,—Christianity. It would be easy to accumulate the most
      frightful, the most agonizing details, of the manner in which the
      Romans treated their slaves; whole works have been devoted to the
      description. I content myself with referring to them. Some
      reflections of Robertson, taken from the discourse already
      quoted, will make us feel that Gibbon, in tracing the mitigation
      of the condition of the slaves, up to a period little later than
      that which witnessed the establishment of Christianity in the
      world, could not have avoided the acknowledgment of the influence
      of that beneficent cause, if he had not already determined not to
      speak of it.

      “Upon establishing despotic government in the Roman empire,
      domestic tyranny rose, in a short time, to an astonishing height.
      In that rank soil, every vice, which power nourishes in the
      great, or oppression engenders in the mean, thrived and grew up
      apace. * * * It is not the authority of any single detached
      precept in the gospel, but the spirit and genius of the Christian
      religion, more powerful than any particular command, which hath
      abolished the practice of slavery throughout the world. The
      temper which Christianity inspired was mild and gentle; and the
      doctrines it taught added such dignity and lustre to human
      nature, as rescued it from the dishonorable servitude into which
      it was sunk.”

      It is in vain, then, that Gibbon pretends to attribute solely to
      the desire of keeping up the number of slaves, the milder conduct
      which the Romans began to adopt in their favor at the time of the
      emperors. This cause had hitherto acted in an opposite direction;
      how came it on a sudden to have a different influence? “The
      masters,” he says, “encouraged the marriage of their slaves; * *
      * the sentiments of nature, the habits of education, contributed
      to alleviate the hardships of servitude.” The children of slaves
      were the property of their master, who could dispose of or
      alienate them like the rest of his property. Is it in such a
      situation, with such notions, that the sentiments of nature
      unfold themselves, or habits of education become mild and
      peaceful? We must not attribute to causes inadequate or
      altogether without force, effects which require to explain them a
      reference to more influential causes; and even if these slighter
      causes had in effect a manifest influence, we must not forget
      that they are themselves the effect of a primary, a higher, and
      more extensive cause, which, in giving to the mind and to the
      character a more disinterested and more humane bias, disposed men
      to second or themselves to advance, by their conduct, and by the
      change of manners, the happy results which it tended to
      produce.—G.

      I have retained the whole of M. Guizot’s note, though, in his
      zeal for the invaluable blessings of freedom and Christianity, he
      has done Gibbon injustice. The condition of the slaves was
      undoubtedly improved under the emperors. What a great authority
      has said, “The condition of a slave is better under an arbitrary
      than under a free government,” (Smith’s Wealth of Nations, iv.
      7,) is, I believe, supported by the history of all ages and
      nations. The protecting edicts of Hadrian and the Antonines are
      historical facts, and can as little be attributed to the
      influence of Christianity, as the milder language of heathen
      writers, of Seneca, (particularly Ep. 47,) of Pliny, and of
      Plutarch. The latter influence of Christianity is admitted by
      Gibbon himself. The subject of Roman slavery has recently been
      investigated with great diligence in a very modest but valuable
      volume, by Wm. Blair, Esq., Edin. 1833. May we be permitted,
      while on the subject, to refer to the most splendid passage
      extant of Mr. Pitt’s eloquence, the description of the Roman
      slave-dealer. on the shores of Britain, condemning the island to
      irreclaimable barbarism, as a perpetual and prolific nursery of
      slaves? Speeches, vol. ii. p. 80.

      Gibbon, it should be added, was one of the first and most
      consistent opponents of the African slave-trade. (See Hist. ch.
      xxv. and Letters to Lor Sheffield, Misc. Works)—M.]

      48 (return) [ See a remarkable instance of severity in Cicero in
      Verrem, v. 3.]

      481 (return) [ An active slave-trade, which was carried on in
      many quarters, particularly the Euxine, the eastern provinces,
      the coast of Africa, and British must be taken into the account.
      Blair, 23—32.—M.]

      482 (return) [ The Romans, as well in the first ages of the
      republic as later, allowed to their slaves a kind of marriage,
      (contubernium: ) notwithstanding this, luxury made a greater
      number of slaves in demand. The increase in their population was
      not sufficient, and recourse was had to the purchase of slaves,
      which was made even in the provinces of the East subject to the
      Romans. It is, moreover, known that slavery is a state little
      favorable to population. (See Hume’s Essay, and Malthus on
      population, i. 334.—G.) The testimony of Appian (B.C. l. i. c. 7)
      is decisive in favor of the rapid multiplication of the
      agricultural slaves; it is confirmed by the numbers engaged in
      the servile wars. Compare also Blair, p. 119; likewise Columella
      l. viii.—M.]

      49 (return) [ See in Gruter, and the other collectors, a great
      number of inscriptions addressed by slaves to their wives,
      children, fellow-servants, masters, &c. They are all most
      probably of the Imperial age.]

      50 (return) [ See the Augustan History, and a Dissertation of M.
      de Burigny, in the xxxvth volume of the Academy of Inscriptions,
      upon the Roman slaves.]

      Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied
      to the Roman slave; and if he had any opportunity of rendering
      himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally
      expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be
      rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom. The benevolence of
      the master was so frequently prompted by the meaner suggestions
      of vanity and avarice, that the laws found it more necessary to
      restrain than to encourage a profuse and undistinguishing
      liberality, which might degenerate into a very dangerous abuse.
      51 It was a maxim of ancient jurisprudence, that a slave had not
      any country of his own; he acquired with his liberty an admission
      into the political society of which his patron was a member. The
      consequences of this maxim would have prostituted the privileges
      of the Roman city to a mean and promiscuous multitude. Some
      seasonable exceptions were therefore provided; and the honorable
      distinction was confined to such slaves only as, for just causes,
      and with the approbation of the magistrate, should receive a
      solemn and legal manumission. Even these chosen freedmen obtained
      no more than the private rights of citizens, and were rigorously
      excluded from civil or military honors. Whatever might be the
      merit or fortune of their sons, _they_ likewise were esteemed
      unworthy of a seat in the senate; nor were the traces of a
      servile origin allowed to be completely obliterated till the
      third or fourth generation. 52 Without destroying the distinction
      of ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honors was presented,
      even to those whom pride and prejudice almost disdained to number
      among the human species.

      51 (return) [ See another Dissertation of M. de Burigny, in the
      xxxviith volume, on the Roman freedmen.]

      52 (return) [ Spanheim, Orbis Roman. l. i. c. 16, p. 124, &c.] It
      was once proposed to discriminate the slaves by a peculiar habit;
      but it was justly apprehended that there might be some danger in
      acquainting them with their own numbers. 53 Without interpreting,
      in their utmost strictness, the liberal appellations of legions
      and myriads, 54 we may venture to pronounce, that the proportion
      of slaves, who were valued as property, was more considerable
      than that of servants, who can be computed only as an expense. 55
      The youths of a promising genius were instructed in the arts and
      sciences, and their price was ascertained by the degree of their
      skill and talents. 56 Almost every profession, either liberal 57
      or mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent
      senator. The ministers of pomp and sensuality were multiplied
      beyond the conception of modern luxury. 58 It was more for the
      interest of the merchant or manufacturer to purchase, than to
      hire his workmen; and in the country, slaves were employed as the
      cheapest and most laborious instruments of agriculture. To
      confirm the general observation, and to display the multitude of
      slaves, we might allege a variety of particular instances. It was
      discovered, on a very melancholy occasion, that four hundred
      slaves were maintained in a single palace of Rome. 59 The same
      number of four hundred belonged to an estate which an African
      widow, of a very private condition, resigned to her son, whilst
      she reserved for herself a much larger share of her property. 60
      A freedman, under the name of Augustus, though his fortune had
      suffered great losses in the civil wars, left behind him three
      thousand six hundred yoke of oxen, two hundred and fifty thousand
      head of smaller cattle, and what was almost included in the
      description of cattle, four thousand one hundred and sixteen
      slaves. 61

      53 (return) [ Seneca de Clementia, l. i. c. 24. The original is
      much stronger, “Quantum periculum immineret si servi nostri
      numerare nos cœpissent.”]

      54 (return) [ See Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii.) and Athenæus
      (Deipnosophist. l. vi. p. 272.) The latter boldly asserts, that
      he knew very many Romans who possessed, not for use, but
      ostentation, ten and even twenty thousand slaves.]

      55 (return) [ In Paris there are not more than 43,000 domestics
      of every sort, and not a twelfth part of the inhabitants.
      Messange, Recherches sui la Population, p. 186.]

      56 (return) [ A learned slave sold for many hundred pounds
      sterling: Atticus always bred and taught them himself. Cornel.
      Nepos in Vit. c. 13, [on the prices of slaves. Blair, 149.]—M.]

      57 (return) [ Many of the Roman physicians were slaves. See Dr.
      Middleton’s Dissertation and Defence.]

      58 (return) [ Their ranks and offices are very copiously
      enumerated by Pignorius de Servis.]

      59 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiv. 43. They were all executed for
      not preventing their master’s murder. * Note: The remarkable
      speech of Cassius shows the proud feelings of the Roman
      aristocracy on this subject.—M]

      60 (return) [ Apuleius in Apolog. p. 548. edit. Delphin]

      61 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. 47.]

      The number of subjects who acknowledged the laws of Rome, of
      citizens, of provincials, and of slaves, cannot now be fixed with
      such a degree of accuracy, as the importance of the object would
      deserve. We are informed, that when the Emperor Claudius
      exercised the office of censor, he took an account of six
      millions nine hundred and forty-five thousand Roman citizens,
      who, with the proportion of women and children, must have
      amounted to about twenty millions of souls. The multitude of
      subjects of an inferior rank was uncertain and fluctuating. But,
      after weighing with attention every circumstance which could
      influence the balance, it seems probable that there existed, in
      the time of Claudius, about twice as many provincials as there
      were citizens, of either sex, and of every age; and that the
      slaves were at least equal in number to the free inhabitants of
      the Roman world.611 The total amount of this imperfect
      calculation would rise to about one hundred and twenty millions
      of persons; a degree of population which possibly exceeds that of
      modern Europe, 62 and forms the most numerous society that has
      ever been united under the same system of government.

      611] ( return)
      [ According to Robertson, there were twice as many slaves as free
      citizens.—G. Mr. Blair (p. 15) estimates three slaves to one
      freeman, between the conquest of Greece, B.C. 146, and the reign
      of Alexander Severus, A. D. 222, 235. The proportion was probably
      larger in Italy than in the provinces.—M. On the other hand,
      Zumpt, in his Dissertation quoted below, (p. 86,) asserts it to
      be a gross error in Gibbon to reckon the number of slaves equal
      to that of the free population. The luxury and magnificence of
      the great, (he observes,) at the commencement of the empire, must
      not be taken as the groundwork of calculations for the whole
      Roman world. “The agricultural laborer, and the artisan, in
      Spain, Gaul, Britain, Syria, and Egypt, maintained himself, as in
      the present day, by his own labor and that of his household,
      without possessing a single slave.” The latter part of my note
      was intended to suggest this consideration. Yet so completely was
      slavery rooted in the social system, both in the east and the
      west, that in the great diffusion of wealth at this time, every
      one, I doubt not, who could afford a domestic slave, kept one;
      and generally, the number of slaves was in proportion to the
      wealth. I do not believe that the cultivation of the soil by
      slaves was confined to Italy; the holders of large estates in the
      provinces would probably, either from choice or necessity, adopt
      the same mode of cultivation. The latifundia, says Pliny, had
      ruined Italy, and had begun to ruin the provinces. Slaves were no
      doubt employed in agricultural labor to a great extent in Sicily,
      and were the estates of those six enormous landholders who were
      said to have possessed the whole province of Africa, cultivated
      altogether by free coloni? Whatever may have been the case in the
      rural districts, in the towns and cities the household duties
      were almost entirely discharged by slaves, and vast numbers
      belonged to the public establishments. I do not, however, differ
      so far from Zumpt, and from M. Dureau de la Malle, as to adopt
      the higher and bolder estimate of Robertson and Mr. Blair, rather
      than the more cautious suggestions of Gibbon. I would reduce
      rather than increase the proportion of the slave population. The
      very ingenious and elaborate calculations of the French writer,
      by which he deduces the amount of the population from the produce
      and consumption of corn in Italy, appear to me neither precise
      nor satisfactory bases for such complicated political arithmetic.
      I am least satisfied with his views as to the population of the
      city of Rome; but this point will be more fitly reserved for a
      note on the thirty-first chapter of Gibbon. The work, however, of
      M. Dureau de la Malle is very curious and full on some of the
      minuter points of Roman statistics.—M. 1845.]

      62 (return) [ Compute twenty millions in France, twenty-two in
      Germany, four in Hungary, ten in Italy with its islands, eight in
      Great Britain and Ireland, eight in Spain and Portugal, ten or
      twelve in the European Russia, six in Poland, six in Greece and
      Turkey, four in Sweden, three in Denmark and Norway, four in the
      Low Countries. The whole would amount to one hundred and five, or
      one hundred and seven millions. See Voltaire, de l’Histoire
      Generale. * Note: The present population of Europe is estimated
      at 227,700,000. Malts Bran, Geogr. Trans edit. 1832 See details
      in the different volumes Another authority, (Almanach de Gotha,)
      quoted in a recent English publication, gives the following
      details:—

      France, 32,897,521 Germany, (including Hungary, Prussian and
      Austrian Poland,) 56,136,213 Italy, 20,548,616 Great Britain and
      Ireland, 24,062,947 Spain and Portugal, 13,953,959. 3,144,000
      Russia, including Poland, 44,220,600 Cracow, 128,480 Turkey,
      (including Pachalic of Dschesair,) 9,545,300 Greece, 637,700
      Ionian Islands, 208,100 Sweden and Norway, 3,914,963 Denmark,
      2,012,998 Belgium, 3,533,538 Holland, 2,444,550 Switzerland,
      985,000. Total, 219,344,116

      Since the publication of my first annotated edition of Gibbon,
      the subject of the population of the Roman empire has been
      investigated by two writers of great industry and learning; Mons.
      Dureau de la Malle, in his Economie Politique des Romains, liv.
      ii. c. 1. to 8, and M. Zumpt, in a dissertation printed in the
      Transactions of the Berlin Academy, 1840. M. Dureau de la Malle
      confines his inquiry almost entirely to the city of Rome, and
      Roman Italy. Zumpt examines at greater length the axiom, which he
      supposes to have been assumed by Gibbon as unquestionable, “that
      Italy and the Roman world was never so populous as in the time of
      the Antonines.” Though this probably was Gibbon’s opinion, he has
      not stated it so peremptorily as asserted by Mr. Zumpt. It had
      before been expressly laid down by Hume, and his statement was
      controverted by Wallace and by Malthus. Gibbon says (p. 84) that
      there is no reason to believe the country (of Italy) less
      populous in the age of the Antonines, than in that of Romulus;
      and Zumpt acknowledges that we have no satisfactory knowledge of
      the state of Italy at that early age. Zumpt, in my opinion with
      some reason, takes the period just before the first Punic war, as
      that in which Roman Italy (all south of the Rubicon) was most
      populous. From that time, the numbers began to diminish, at first
      from the enormous waste of life out of the free population in the
      foreign, and afterwards in the civil wars; from the cultivation
      of the soil by slaves; towards the close of the republic, from
      the repugnance to marriage, which resisted alike the dread of
      legal punishment and the offer of legal immunity and privilege;
      and from the depravity of manners, which interfered with the
      procreation, the birth, and the rearing of children. The
      arguments and the authorities of Zumpt are equally conclusive as
      to the decline of population in Greece. Still the details, which
      he himself adduces as to the prosperity and populousness of Asia
      Minor, and the whole of the Roman East, with the advancement of
      the European provinces, especially Gaul, Spain, and Britain, in
      civilization, and therefore in populousness, (for I have no
      confidence in the vast numbers sometimes assigned to the
      barbarous inhabitants of these countries,) may, I think, fairly
      compensate for any deduction to be made from Gibbon’s general
      estimate on account of Greece and Italy. Gibbon himself
      acknowledges his own estimate to be vague and conjectural; and I
      may venture to recommend the dissertation of Zumpt as deserving
      respectful consideration.—M 1815.]




      Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The
      Antonines.—Part III.

      Domestic peace and union were the natural consequences of the
      moderate and comprehensive policy embraced by the Romans. If we
      turn our eyes towards the monarchies of Asia, we shall behold
      despotism in the centre, and weakness in the extremities; the
      collection of the revenue, or the administration of justice,
      enforced by the presence of an army; hostile barbarians
      established in the heart of the country, hereditary satraps
      usurping the dominion of the provinces, and subjects inclined to
      rebellion, though incapable of freedom. But the obedience of the
      Roman world was uniform, voluntary, and permanent. The vanquished
      nations, blended into one great people, resigned the hope, nay,
      even the wish, of resuming their independence, and scarcely
      considered their own existence as distinct from the existence of
      Rome. The established authority of the emperors pervaded without
      an effort the wide extent of their dominions, and was exercised
      with the same facility on the banks of the Thames, or of the
      Nile, as on those of the Tyber. The legions were destined to
      serve against the public enemy, and the civil magistrate seldom
      required the aid of a military force. 63 In this state of general
      security, the leisure, as well as opulence, both of the prince
      and people, were devoted to improve and to adorn the Roman
      empire.

      63 (return) [ Joseph. de Bell. Judaico, l. ii. c. 16. The oration
      of Agrippa, or rather of the historian, is a fine picture of the
      Roman empire.]

      Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by
      the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few
      have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet, even
      the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the
      provinces, would be sufficient to prove that those countries were
      once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. Their greatness
      alone, or their beauty, might deserve our attention: but they are
      rendered more interesting, by two important circumstances, which
      connect the agreeable history of the arts with the more useful
      history of human manners. Many of those works were erected at
      private expense, and almost all were intended for public benefit.

      It is natural to suppose that the greatest number, as well as the
      most considerable of the Roman edifices, were raised by the
      emperors, who possessed so unbounded a command both of men and
      money. Augustus was accustomed to boast that he had found his
      capital of brick, and that he had left it of marble. 64 The
      strict economy of Vespasian was the source of his magnificence.
      The works of Trajan bear the stamp of his genius. The public
      monuments with which Hadrian adorned every province of the
      empire, were executed not only by his orders, but under his
      immediate inspection. He was himself an artist; and he loved the
      arts, as they conduced to the glory of the monarch. They were
      encouraged by the Antonines, as they contributed to the happiness
      of the people. But if the emperors were the first, they were not
      the only architects of their dominions. Their example was
      universally imitated by their principal subjects, who were not
      afraid of declaring to the world that they had spirit to
      conceive, and wealth to accomplish, the noblest undertakings.
      Scarcely had the proud structure of the Coliseum been dedicated
      at Rome, before the edifices, of a smaller scale indeed, but of
      the same design and materials, were erected for the use, and at
      the expense, of the cities of Capua and Verona. 65 The
      inscription of the stupendous bridge of Alcantara attests that it
      was thrown over the Tagus by the contribution of a few Lusitanian
      communities. When Pliny was intrusted with the government of
      Bithynia and Pontus, provinces by no means the richest or most
      considerable of the empire, he found the cities within his
      jurisdiction striving with each other in every useful and
      ornamental work, that might deserve the curiosity of strangers,
      or the gratitude of their citizens. It was the duty of the
      proconsul to supply their deficiencies, to direct their taste,
      and sometimes to moderate their emulation. 66 The opulent
      senators of Rome and the provinces esteemed it an honor, and
      almost an obligation, to adorn the splendor of their age and
      country; and the influence of fashion very frequently supplied
      the want of taste or generosity. Among a crowd of these private
      benefactors, we may select Herodes Atticus, an Athenian citizen,
      who lived in the age of the Antonines. Whatever might be the
      motive of his conduct, his magnificence would have been worthy of
      the greatest kings.

      64 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 28. Augustus built in Rome
      the temple and forum of Mars the Avenger; the temple of Jupiter
      Tonans in the Capitol; that of Apollo Palatine, with public
      libraries; the portico and basilica of Caius and Lucius; the
      porticos of Livia and Octavia; and the theatre of Marcellus. The
      example of the sovereign was imitated by his ministers and
      generals; and his friend Agrippa left behind him the immortal
      monument of the Pantheon.]

      65 (return) [ See Maffei, Veroni Illustrata, l. iv. p. 68.]

      66 (return) [Footnote 66: See the xth book of Pliny’s Epistles.
      He mentions the following works carried on at the expense of the
      cities. At Nicomedia, a new forum, an aqueduct, and a canal, left
      unfinished by a king; at Nice, a gymnasium, and a theatre, which
      had already cost near ninety thousand pounds; baths at Prusa and
      Claudiopolis, and an aqueduct of sixteen miles in length for the
      use of Sinope.]

      The family of Herod, at least after it had been favored by
      fortune, was lineally descended from Cimon and Miltiades, Theseus
      and Cecrops, Æacus and Jupiter. But the posterity of so many gods
      and heroes was fallen into the most abject state. His grandfather
      had suffered by the hands of justice, and Julius Atticus, his
      father, must have ended his life in poverty and contempt, had he
      not discovered an immense treasure buried under an old house, the
      last remains of his patrimony. According to the rigor of the law,
      the emperor might have asserted his claim, and the prudent
      Atticus prevented, by a frank confession, the officiousness of
      informers. But the equitable Nerva, who then filled the throne,
      refused to accept any part of it, and commanded him to use,
      without scruple, the present of fortune. The cautious Athenian
      still insisted, that the treasure was too considerable for a
      subject, and that he knew not how to _use it. Abuse it then_,
      replied the monarch, with a good-natured peevishness; for it is
      your own. 67 Many will be of opinion, that Atticus literally
      obeyed the emperor’s last instructions; since he expended the
      greatest part of his fortune, which was much increased by an
      advantageous marriage, in the service of the public. He had
      obtained for his son Herod the prefecture of the free cities of
      Asia; and the young magistrate, observing that the town of Troas
      was indifferently supplied with water, obtained from the
      munificence of Hadrian three hundred myriads of drachms, (about a
      hundred thousand pounds,) for the construction of a new aqueduct.
      But in the execution of the work, the charge amounted to more
      than double the estimate, and the officers of the revenue began
      to murmur, till the generous Atticus silenced their complaints,
      by requesting that he might be permitted to take upon himself the
      whole additional expense. 68

      67 (return) [ Hadrian afterwards made a very equitable
      regulation, which divided all treasure-trove between the right of
      property and that of discovery. Hist. August. p. 9.]

      68 (return) [ Philostrat. in Vit. Sophist. l. ii. p. 548.]

      The ablest preceptors of Greece and Asia had been invited by
      liberal rewards to direct the education of young Herod. Their
      pupil soon became a celebrated orator, according to the useless
      rhetoric of that age, which, confining itself to the schools,
      disdained to visit either the Forum or the Senate.

      He was honored with the consulship at Rome: but the greatest part
      of his life was spent in a philosophic retirement at Athens, and
      his adjacent villas; perpetually surrounded by sophists, who
      acknowledged, without reluctance, the superiority of a rich and
      generous rival. 69 The monuments of his genius have perished;
      some considerable ruins still preserve the fame of his taste and
      munificence: modern travellers have measured the remains of the
      stadium which he constructed at Athens. It was six hundred feet
      in length, built entirely of white marble, capable of admitting
      the whole body of the people, and finished in four years, whilst
      Herod was president of the Athenian games. To the memory of his
      wife Regilla he dedicated a theatre, scarcely to be paralleled in
      the empire: no wood except cedar, very curiously carved, was
      employed in any part of the building. The Odeum, 691 designed by
      Pericles for musical performances, and the rehearsal of new
      tragedies, had been a trophy of the victory of the arts over
      barbaric greatness; as the timbers employed in the construction
      consisted chiefly of the masts of the Persian vessels.
      Notwithstanding the repairs bestowed on that ancient edifice by a
      king of Cappadocia, it was again fallen to decay. Herod restored
      its ancient beauty and magnificence. Nor was the liberality of
      that illustrious citizen confined to the walls of Athens. The
      most splendid ornaments bestowed on the temple of Neptune in the
      Isthmus, a theatre at Corinth, a stadium at Delphi, a bath at
      Thermopylæ, and an aqueduct at Canusium in Italy, were
      insufficient to exhaust his treasures. The people of Epirus,
      Thessaly, Eubœa, Bœotia, and Peloponnesus, experienced his
      favors; and many inscriptions of the cities of Greece and Asia
      gratefully style Herodes Atticus their patron and benefactor. 70

      69 (return) [ Aulus Gellius, in Noct. Attic. i. 2, ix. 2, xviii.
      10, xix. 12. Phil ostrat. p. 564.]

      691 (return) [ The Odeum served for the rehearsal of new comedies
      as well as tragedies; they were read or repeated, before
      representation, without music or decorations, &c. No piece could
      be represented in the theatre if it had not been previously
      approved by judges for this purpose. The king of Cappadocia who
      restored the Odeum, which had been burnt by Sylla, was
      Araobarzanes. See Martini, Dissertation on the Odeons of the
      Ancients, Leipsic. 1767, p. 10—91.—W.]

      70 (return) [ See Philostrat. l. ii. p. 548, 560. Pausanias, l.
      i. and vii. 10. The life of Herodes, in the xxxth volume of the
      Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions.]

      In the commonwealths of Athens and Rome, the modest simplicity of
      private houses announced the equal condition of freedom; whilst
      the sovereignty of the people was represented in the majestic
      edifices designed to the public use; 71 nor was this republican
      spirit totally extinguished by the introduction of wealth and
      monarchy. It was in works of national honor and benefit, that the
      most virtuous of the emperors affected to display their
      magnificence. The golden palace of Nero excited a just
      indignation, but the vast extent of ground which had been usurped
      by his selfish luxury was more nobly filled under the succeeding
      reigns by the Coliseum, the baths of Titus, the Claudian portico,
      and the temples dedicated to the goddess of Peace, and to the
      genius of Rome. 72 These monuments of architecture, the property
      of the Roman people, were adorned with the most beautiful
      productions of Grecian painting and sculpture; and in the temple
      of Peace, a very curious library was open to the curiosity of the
      learned. 721 At a small distance from thence was situated the
      Forum of Trajan. It was surrounded by a lofty portico, in the
      form of a quadrangle, into which four triumphal arches opened a
      noble and spacious entrance: in the centre arose a column of
      marble, whose height, of one hundred and ten feet, denoted the
      elevation of the hill that had been cut away. This column, which
      still subsists in its ancient beauty, exhibited an exact
      representation of the Dacian victories of its founder. The
      veteran soldier contemplated the story of his own campaigns, and
      by an easy illusion of national vanity, the peaceful citizen
      associated himself to the honors of the triumph. All the other
      quarters of the capital, and all the provinces of the empire,
      were embellished by the same liberal spirit of public
      magnificence, and were filled with amphitheatres, theatres,
      temples, porticoes, triumphal arches, baths and aqueducts, all
      variously conducive to the health, the devotion, and the
      pleasures of the meanest citizen. The last mentioned of those
      edifices deserve our peculiar attention. The boldness of the
      enterprise, the solidity of the execution, and the uses to which
      they were subservient, rank the aqueducts among the noblest
      monuments of Roman genius and power. The aqueducts of the capital
      claim a just preeminence; but the curious traveller, who, without
      the light of history, should examine those of Spoleto, of Metz,
      or of Segovia, would very naturally conclude that those
      provincial towns had formerly been the residence of some potent
      monarch. The solitudes of Asia and Africa were once covered with
      flourishing cities, whose populousness, and even whose existence,
      was derived from such artificial supplies of a perennial stream
      of fresh water. 73

      71 (return) [ It is particularly remarked of Athens by
      Dicæarchus, de Statu Græciæ, p. 8, inter Geographos Minores,
      edit. Hudson.]

      72 (return) [ Donatus de Roma Vetere, l. iii. c. 4, 5, 6. Nardini
      Roma Antica, l. iii. 11, 12, 13, and a Ms. description of ancient
      Rome, by Bernardus Oricellarius, or Rucellai, of which I obtained
      a copy from the library of the Canon Ricardi at Florence. Two
      celebrated pictures of Timanthes and of Protogenes are mentioned
      by Pliny, as in the Temple of Peace; and the Laocoon was found in
      the baths of Titus.]

      721 (return) [ The Emperor Vespasian, who had caused the Temple
      of Peace to be built, transported to it the greatest part of the
      pictures, statues, and other works of art which had escaped the
      civil tumults. It was there that every day the artists and the
      learned of Rome assembled; and it is on the site of this temple
      that a multitude of antiques have been dug up. See notes of
      Reimar on Dion Cassius, lxvi. c. 15, p. 1083.—W.]

      73 (return) [ Montfaucon l’Antiquite Expliquee, tom. iv. p. 2, l.
      i. c. 9. Fabretti has composed a very learned treatise on the
      aqueducts of Rome.]

      We have computed the inhabitants, and contemplated the public
      works, of the Roman empire. The observation of the number and
      greatness of its cities will serve to confirm the former, and to
      multiply the latter. It may not be unpleasing to collect a few
      scattered instances relative to that subject without forgetting,
      however, that from the vanity of nations and the poverty of
      language, the vague appellation of city has been indifferently
      bestowed on Rome and upon Laurentum.

      I. _Ancient_ Italy is said to have contained eleven hundred and
      ninety-seven cities; and for whatsoever æra of antiquity the
      expression might be intended, 74 there is not any reason to
      believe the country less populous in the age of the Antonines,
      than in that of Romulus. The petty states of Latium were
      contained within the metropolis of the empire, by whose superior
      influence they had been attracted. 741 Those parts of Italy which
      have so long languished under the lazy tyranny of priests and
      viceroys, had been afflicted only by the more tolerable
      calamities of war; and the first symptoms of decay which _they_
      experienced, were amply compensated by the rapid improvements of
      the Cisalpine Gaul. The splendor of Verona may be traced in its
      remains: yet Verona was less celebrated than Aquileia or Padua,
      Milan or Ravenna. II. The spirit of improvement had passed the
      Alps, and been felt even in the woods of Britain, which were
      gradually cleared away to open a free space for convenient and
      elegant habitations. York was the seat of government; London was
      already enriched by commerce; and Bath was celebrated for the
      salutary effects of its medicinal waters. Gaul could boast of her
      twelve hundred cities; 75 and though, in the northern parts, many
      of them, without excepting Paris itself, were little more than
      the rude and imperfect townships of a rising people, the southern
      provinces imitated the wealth and elegance of Italy. 76 Many were
      the cities of Gaul, Marseilles, Arles, Nismes, Narbonne,
      Thoulouse, Bourdeaux, Autun, Vienna, Lyons, Langres, and Treves,
      whose ancient condition might sustain an equal, and perhaps
      advantageous comparison with their present state. With regard to
      Spain, that country flourished as a province, and has declined as
      a kingdom. Exhausted by the abuse of her strength, by America,
      and by superstition, her pride might possibly be confounded, if
      we required such a list of three hundred and sixty cities, as
      Pliny has exhibited under the reign of Vespasian. 77 III. Three
      hundred African cities had once acknowledged the authority of
      Carthage, 78 nor is it likely that their numbers diminished under
      the administration of the emperors: Carthage itself rose with new
      splendor from its ashes; and that capital, as well as Capua and
      Corinth, soon recovered all the advantages which can be separated
      from independent sovereignty. IV. The provinces of the East
      present the contrast of Roman magnificence with Turkish
      barbarism. The ruins of antiquity scattered over uncultivated
      fields, and ascribed, by ignorance, to the power of magic,
      scarcely afford a shelter to the oppressed peasant or wandering
      Arab. Under the reign of the Cæsars, the proper Asia alone
      contained five hundred populous cities, 79 enriched with all the
      gifts of nature, and adorned with all the refinements of art.
      Eleven cities of Asia had once disputed the honor of dedicating a
      temple of Tiberius, and their respective merits were examined by
      the senate. 80 Four of them were immediately rejected as unequal
      to the burden; and among these was Laodicea, whose splendor is
      still displayed in its ruins. 81 Laodicea collected a very
      considerable revenue from its flocks of sheep, celebrated for the
      fineness of their wool, and had received, a little before the
      contest, a legacy of above four hundred thousand pounds by the
      testament of a generous citizen. 82 If such was the poverty of
      Laodicea, what must have been the wealth of those cities, whose
      claim appeared preferable, and particularly of Pergamus, of
      Smyrna, and of Ephesus, who so long disputed with each other the
      titular primacy of Asia? 83 The capitals of Syria and Egypt held
      a still superior rank in the empire; Antioch and Alexandria
      looked down with disdain on a crowd of dependent cities, 84 and
      yielded, with reluctance, to the majesty of Rome itself.

      74 (return) [ Ælian. Hist. Var. lib. ix. c. 16. He lived in the
      time of Alexander Severus. See Fabricius, Biblioth. Græca, l. iv.
      c. 21.]

      741 (return) [ This may in some degree account for the difficulty
      started by Livy, as to the incredibly numerous armies raised by
      the small states around Rome where, in his time, a scanty stock
      of free soldiers among a larger population of Roman slaves broke
      the solitude. Vix seminario exiguo militum relicto servitia
      Romana ab solitudine vindicant, Liv. vi. vii. Compare Appian Bel
      Civ. i. 7.—M. subst. for G.]

      75 (return) [ Joseph. de Bell. Jud. ii. 16. The number, however,
      is mentioned, and should be received with a degree of latitude.
      Note: Without doubt no reliance can be placed on this passage of
      Josephus. The historian makes Agrippa give advice to the Jews, as
      to the power of the Romans; and the speech is full of declamation
      which can furnish no conclusions to history. While enumerating
      the nations subject to the Romans, he speaks of the Gauls as
      submitting to 1200 soldiers, (which is false, as there were eight
      legions in Gaul, Tac. iv. 5,) while there are nearly twelve
      hundred cities.—G. Josephus (infra) places these eight legions on
      the Rhine, as Tacitus does.—M.]

      76 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5.]

      77 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 3, 4, iv. 35. The list
      seems authentic and accurate; the division of the provinces, and
      the different condition of the cities, are minutely
      distinguished.]

      78 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1189.]

      79 (return) [ Joseph. de Bell. Jud. ii. 16. Philostrat. in Vit.
      Sophist. l. ii. p. 548, edit. Olear.]

      80 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iv. 55. I have taken some pains in
      consulting and comparing modern travellers, with regard to the
      fate of those eleven cities of Asia. Seven or eight are totally
      destroyed: Hypæpe, Tralles, Laodicea, Hium, Halicarnassus,
      Miletus, Ephesus, and we may add Sardes. Of the remaining three,
      Pergamus is a straggling village of two or three thousand
      inhabitants; Magnesia, under the name of Guzelhissar, a town of
      some consequence; and Smyrna, a great city, peopled by a hundred
      thousand souls. But even at Smyrna, while the Franks have
      maintained a commerce, the Turks have ruined the arts.]

      81 (return) [ See a very exact and pleasing description of the
      ruins of Laodicea, in Chandler’s Travels through Asia Minor, p.
      225, &c.]

      82 (return) [ Strabo, l. xii. p. 866. He had studied at Tralles.]

      83 (return) [ See a Dissertation of M. de Boze, Mem. de
      l’Academie, tom. xviii. Aristides pronounced an oration, which is
      still extant, to recommend concord to the rival cities.]

      84 (return) [ The inhabitants of Egypt, exclusive of Alexandria,
      amounted to seven millions and a half, (Joseph. de Bell. Jud. ii.
      16.) Under the military government of the Mamelukes, Syria was
      supposed to contain sixty thousand villages, (Histoire de Timur
      Bec, l. v. c. 20.)]




      Chapter II: The Internal Prosperity In The Age Of The Antonines.
      Part IV.

      All these cities were connected with each other, and with the
      capital, by the public highways, which, issuing from the Forum of
      Rome, traversed Italy, pervaded the provinces, and were
      terminated only by the frontiers of the empire. If we carefully
      trace the distance from the wall of Antoninus to Rome, and from
      thence to Jerusalem, it will be found that the great chain of
      communication, from the north-west to the south-east point of the
      empire, was drawn out to the length of four thousand and eighty
      Roman miles. 85 The public roads were accurately divided by
      mile-stones, and ran in a direct line from one city to another,
      with very little respect for the obstacles either of nature or
      private property. Mountains were perforated, and bold arches
      thrown over the broadest and most rapid streams. 86 The middle
      part of the road was raised into a terrace which commanded the
      adjacent country, consisted of several strata of sand, gravel,
      and cement, and was paved with large stones, or, in some places
      near the capital, with granite. 87 Such was the solid
      construction of the Roman highways, whose firmness has not
      entirely yielded to the effort of fifteen centuries. They united
      the subjects of the most distant provinces by an easy and
      familiar intercourse; but their primary object had been to
      facilitate the marches of the legions; nor was any country
      considered as completely subdued, till it had been rendered, in
      all its parts, pervious to the arms and authority of the
      conqueror. The advantage of receiving the earliest intelligence,
      and of conveying their orders with celerity, induced the emperors
      to establish, throughout their extensive dominions, the regular
      institution of posts. 88 Houses were everywhere erected at the
      distance only of five or six miles; each of them was constantly
      provided with forty horses, and by the help of these relays, it
      was easy to travel a hundred miles in a day along the Roman
      roads. 89 891 The use of posts was allowed to those who claimed
      it by an Imperial mandate; but though originally intended for the
      public service, it was sometimes indulged to the business or
      conveniency of private citizens. 90 Nor was the communication of
      the Roman empire less free and open by sea than it was by land.
      The provinces surrounded and enclosed the Mediterranean: and
      Italy, in the shape of an immense promontory, advanced into the
      midst of that great lake. The coasts of Italy are, in general,
      destitute of safe harbors; but human industry had corrected the
      deficiencies of nature; and the artificial port of Ostia, in
      particular, situate at the mouth of the Tyber, and formed by the
      emperor Claudius, was a useful monument of Roman greatness. 91
      From this port, which was only sixteen miles from the capital, a
      favorable breeze frequently carried vessels in seven days to the
      columns of Hercules, and in nine or ten, to Alexandria in Egypt.
      92

      85 (return) [ The following Itinerary may serve to convey some
      idea of the direction of the road, and of the distance between
      the principal towns. I. From the wall of Antoninus to York, 222
      Roman miles. II. London, 227. III. Rhutupiæ or Sandwich, 67. IV.
      The navigation to Boulogne, 45. V. Rheims, 174. VI. Lyons, 330.
      VII. Milan, 324. VIII. Rome, 426. IX. Brundusium, 360. X. The
      navigation to Dyrrachium, 40. XI. Byzantium, 711. XII. Ancyra,
      283. XIII. Tarsus, 301. XIV. Antioch, 141. XV. Tyre, 252. XVI.
      Jerusalem, 168. In all 4080 Roman, or 3740 English miles. See the
      Itineraries published by Wesseling, his annotations; Gale and
      Stukeley for Britain, and M. d’Anville for Gaul and Italy.]

      86 (return) [ Montfaucon, l’Antiquite Expliquee, (tom. 4, p. 2,
      l. i. c. 5,) has described the bridges of Narni, Alcantara,
      Nismes, &c.]

      87 (return) [ Bergier, Histoire des grands Chemins de l’Empire
      Romain, l. ii. c. l. l—28.]

      88 (return) [ Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 30. Bergier, Hist.
      des grands Chemins, l. iv. Codex Theodosian. l. viii. tit. v.
      vol. ii. p. 506—563 with Godefroy’s learned commentary.]

      89 (return) [ In the time of Theodosius, Cæsarius, a magistrate
      of high rank, went post from Antioch to Constantinople. He began
      his journey at night, was in Cappadocia (165 miles from Antioch)
      the ensuing evening, and arrived at Constantinople the sixth day
      about noon. The whole distance was 725 Roman, or 665 English
      miles. See Libanius, Orat. xxii., and the Itineria, p. 572—581.
      Note: A courier is mentioned in Walpole’s Travels, ii. 335, who
      was to travel from Aleppo to Constantinople, more than 700 miles,
      in eight days, an unusually short journey.—M.]

      891 (return) [ Posts for the conveyance of intelligence were
      established by Augustus. Suet. Aug. 49. The couriers travelled
      with amazing speed. Blair on Roman Slavery, note, p. 261. It is
      probable that the posts, from the time of Augustus, were confined
      to the public service, and supplied by impressment Nerva, as it
      appears from a coin of his reign, made an important change; “he
      established posts upon all the public roads of Italy, and made
      the service chargeable upon his own exchequer. Hadrian,
      perceiving the advantage of this improvement, extended it to all
      the provinces of the empire.” Cardwell on Coins, p. 220.—M.]

      90 (return) [ Pliny, though a favorite and a minister, made an
      apology for granting post-horses to his wife on the most urgent
      business. Epist. x. 121, 122.]

      91 (return) [ Bergier, Hist. des grands Chemins, l. iv. c. 49.]

      92 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xix. i. [In Proœm.] * Note:
      Pliny says Puteoli, which seems to have been the usual landing
      place from the East. See the voyages of St. Paul, Acts xxviii.
      13, and of Josephus, Vita, c. 3—M.]

      Whatever evils either reason or declamation have imputed to
      extensive empire, the power of Rome was attended with some
      beneficial consequences to mankind; and the same freedom of
      intercourse which extended the vices, diffused likewise the
      improvements, of social life. In the more remote ages of
      antiquity, the world was unequally divided. The East was in the
      immemorial possession of arts and luxury; whilst the West was
      inhabited by rude and warlike barbarians, who either disdained
      agriculture, or to whom it was totally unknown. Under the
      protection of an established government, the productions of
      happier climates, and the industry of more civilized nations,
      were gradually introduced into the western countries of Europe;
      and the natives were encouraged, by an open and profitable
      commerce, to multiply the former, as well as to improve the
      latter. It would be almost impossible to enumerate all the
      articles, either of the animal or the vegetable reign, which were
      successively imported into Europe from Asia and Egypt: 93 but it
      will not be unworthy of the dignity, and much less of the
      utility, of an historical work, slightly to touch on a few of the
      principal heads. 1. Almost all the flowers, the herbs, and the
      fruits, that grow in our European gardens, are of foreign
      extraction, which, in many cases, is betrayed even by their
      names: the apple was a native of Italy, and when the Romans had
      tasted the richer flavor of the apricot, the peach, the
      pomegranate, the citron, and the orange, they contented
      themselves with applying to all these new fruits the common
      denomination of apple, discriminating them from each other by the
      additional epithet of their country. 2. In the time of Homer, the
      vine grew wild in the island of Sicily, and most probably in the
      adjacent continent; but it was not improved by the skill, nor did
      it afford a liquor grateful to the taste, of the savage
      inhabitants. 94 A thousand years afterwards, Italy could boast,
      that of the fourscore most generous and celebrated wines, more
      than two thirds were produced from her soil. 95 The blessing was
      soon communicated to the Narbonnese province of Gaul; but so
      intense was the cold to the north of the Cevennes, that, in the
      time of Strabo, it was thought impossible to ripen the grapes in
      those parts of Gaul. 96 This difficulty, however, was gradually
      vanquished; and there is some reason to believe, that the
      vineyards of Burgundy are as old as the age of the Antonines. 97
      3. The olive, in the western world, followed the progress of
      peace, of which it was considered as the symbol. Two centuries
      after the foundation of Rome, both Italy and Africa were
      strangers to that useful plant: it was naturalized in those
      countries; and at length carried into the heart of Spain and
      Gaul. The timid errors of the ancients, that it required a
      certain degree of heat, and could only flourish in the
      neighborhood of the sea, were insensibly exploded by industry and
      experience. 4. The cultivation of flax was transported from Egypt
      to Gaul, and enriched the whole country, however it might
      impoverish the particular lands on which it was sown. 99 5. The
      use of artificial grasses became familiar to the farmers both of
      Italy and the provinces, particularly the Lucerne, which derived
      its name and origin from Media. 100 The assured supply of
      wholesome and plentiful food for the cattle during winter,
      multiplied the number of the docks and herds, which in their turn
      contributed to the fertility of the soil. To all these
      improvements may be added an assiduous attention to mines and
      fisheries, which, by employing a multitude of laborious hands,
      serve to increase the pleasures of the rich and the subsistence
      of the poor. The elegant treatise of Columella describes the
      advanced state of the Spanish husbandry under the reign of
      Tiberius; and it may be observed, that those famines, which so
      frequently afflicted the infant republic, were seldom or never
      experienced by the extensive empire of Rome. The accidental
      scarcity, in any single province, was immediately relieved by the
      plenty of its more fortunate neighbors.

      93 (return) [ It is not improbable that the Greeks and Phœnicians
      introduced some new arts and productions into the neighborhood of
      Marseilles and Gades.]

      94 (return) [ See Homer, Odyss. l. ix. v. 358.]

      95 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xiv.]

      96 (return) [ Strab. Geograph. l. iv. p. 269. The intense cold of
      a Gallic winter was almost proverbial among the ancients. * Note:
      Strabo only says that the grape does not ripen. Attempts had been
      made in the time of Augustus to naturalize the vine in the north
      of Gaul; but the cold was too great. Diod. Sic. edit. Rhodom. p.
      304.—W. Diodorus (lib. v. 26) gives a curious picture of the
      Italian traders bartering, with the savages of Gaul, a cask of
      wine for a slave.—M. —It appears from the newly discovered
      treatise of Cicero de Republica, that there was a law of the
      republic prohibiting the culture of the vine and olive beyond the
      Alps, in order to keep up the value of those in Italy. Nos
      justissimi homines, qui transalpinas gentes oleam et vitem serere
      non sinimus, quo pluris sint nostra oliveta nostræque vineæ. Lib.
      iii. 9. The restrictive law of Domitian was veiled under the
      decent pretext of encouraging the cultivation of grain. Suet.
      Dom. vii. It was repealed by Probus Vopis Strobus, 18.—M.]

      97 (return) [ In the beginning of the fourth century, the orator
      Eumenius (Panegyr. Veter. viii. 6, edit. Delphin.) speaks of the
      vines in the territory of Autun, which were decayed through age,
      and the first plantation of which was totally unknown. The Pagus
      Arebrignus is supposed by M. d’Anville to be the district of
      Beaune, celebrated, even at present for one of the first growths
      of Burgundy. * Note: This is proved by a passage of Pliny the
      Elder, where he speaks of a certain kind of grape (vitis picata.
      vinum picatum) which grows naturally to the district of Vienne,
      and had recently been transplanted into the country of the
      Arverni, (Auvergne,) of the Helvii, (the Vivarias.) and the
      Burgundy and Franche Compte. Pliny wrote A.D. 77. Hist. Nat. xiv.
      1.— W.]

      99 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xix.]

      100 (return) [ See the agreeable Essays on Agriculture by Mr.
      Harte, in which he has collected all that the ancients and
      moderns have said of Lucerne.]

      Agriculture is the foundation of manufactures; since the
      productions of nature are the materials of art. Under the Roman
      empire, the labor of an industrious and ingenious people was
      variously, but incessantly, employed in the service of the rich.
      In their dress, their table, their houses, and their furniture,
      the favorites of fortune united every refinement of conveniency,
      of elegance, and of splendor, whatever could soothe their pride
      or gratify their sensuality. Such refinements, under the odious
      name of luxury, have been severely arraigned by the moralists of
      every age; and it might perhaps be more conducive to the virtue,
      as well as happiness, of mankind, if all possessed the
      necessaries, and none the superfluities, of life. But in the
      present imperfect condition of society, luxury, though it may
      proceed from vice or folly, seems to be the only means that can
      correct the unequal distribution of property. The diligent
      mechanic, and the skilful artist, who have obtained no share in
      the division of the earth, receive a voluntary tax from the
      possessors of land; and the latter are prompted, by a sense of
      interest, to improve those estates, with whose produce they may
      purchase additional pleasures. This operation, the particular
      effects of which are felt in every society, acted with much more
      diffusive energy in the Roman world. The provinces would soon
      have been exhausted of their wealth, if the manufactures and
      commerce of luxury had not insensibly restored to the industrious
      subjects the sums which were exacted from them by the arms and
      authority of Rome. As long as the circulation was confined within
      the bounds of the empire, it impressed the political machine with
      a new degree of activity, and its consequences, sometimes
      beneficial, could never become pernicious.

      But it is no easy task to confine luxury within the limits of an
      empire. The most remote countries of the ancient world were
      ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. The forests of
      Scythia afforded some valuable furs. Amber was brought over land
      from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube; and the barbarians
      were astonished at the price which they received in exchange for
      so useless a commodity. 101 There was a considerable demand for
      Babylonian carpets, and other manufactures of the East; but the
      most important and unpopular branch of foreign trade was carried
      on with Arabia and India. Every year, about the time of the
      summer solstice, a fleet of a hundred and twenty vessels sailed
      from Myos-hormos, a port of Egypt, on the Red Sea. By the
      periodical assistance of the monsoons, they traversed the ocean
      in about forty days. The coast of Malabar, or the island of
      Ceylon, 102 was the usual term of their navigation, and it was in
      those markets that the merchants from the more remote countries
      of Asia expected their arrival. The return of the fleet of Egypt
      was fixed to the months of December or January; and as soon as
      their rich cargo had been transported on the backs of camels,
      from the Red Sea to the Nile, and had descended that river as far
      as Alexandria, it was poured, without delay, into the capital of
      the empire. 103 The objects of oriental traffic were splendid and
      trifling; silk, a pound of which was esteemed not inferior in
      value to a pound of gold; 104 precious stones, among which the
      pearl claimed the first rank after the diamond; 105 and a variety
      of aromatics, that were consumed in religious worship and the
      pomp of funerals. The labor and risk of the voyage was rewarded
      with almost incredible profit; but the profit was made upon Roman
      subjects, and a few individuals were enriched at the expense of
      the public. As the natives of Arabia and India were contented
      with the productions and manufactures of their own country,
      silver, on the side of the Romans, was the principal, if not the
      only 1051 instrument of commerce. It was a complaint worthy of
      the gravity of the senate, that, in the purchase of female
      ornaments, the wealth of the state was irrecoverably given away
      to foreign and hostile nations. 106 The annual loss is computed,
      by a writer of an inquisitive but censorious temper, at upwards
      of eight hundred thousand pounds sterling. 107 Such was the style
      of discontent, brooding over the dark prospect of approaching
      poverty. And yet, if we compare the proportion between gold and
      silver, as it stood in the time of Pliny, and as it was fixed in
      the reign of Constantine, we shall discover within that period a
      very considerable increase. 108 There is not the least reason to
      suppose that gold was become more scarce; it is therefore evident
      that silver was grown more common; that whatever might be the
      amount of the Indian and Arabian exports, they were far from
      exhausting the wealth of the Roman world; and that the produce of
      the mines abundantly supplied the demands of commerce.

      101 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 45. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvii.
      13. The latter observed, with some humor, that even fashion had
      not yet found out the use of amber. Nero sent a Roman knight to
      purchase great quantities on the spot where it was produced, the
      coast of modern Prussia.]

      102 (return) [ Called Taprobana by the Romans, and Serindib by
      the Arabs. It was discovered under the reign of Claudius, and
      gradually became the principal mart of the East.]

      103 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. vi. Strabo, l. xvii.]

      104 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 224. A silk garment was
      considered as an ornament to a woman, but as a disgrace to a
      man.]

      105 (return) [ The two great pearl fisheries were the same as at
      present, Ormuz and Cape Comorin. As well as we can compare
      ancient with modern geography, Rome was supplied with diamonds
      from the mine of Jumelpur, in Bengal, which is described in the
      Voyages de Tavernier, tom. ii. p. 281.]

      1051 (return) [ Certainly not the only one. The Indians were not
      so contented with regard to foreign productions. Arrian has a
      long list of European wares, which they received in exchange for
      their own; Italian and other wines, brass, tin, lead, coral,
      chrysolith, storax, glass, dresses of one or many colors, zones,
      &c. See Periplus Maris Erythræi in Hudson, Geogr. Min. i. p.
      27.—W. The German translator observes that Gibbon has confined
      the use of aromatics to religious worship and funerals. His error
      seems the omission of other spices, of which the Romans must have
      consumed great quantities in their cookery. Wenck, however,
      admits that silver was the chief article of exchange.—M. In 1787,
      a peasant (near Nellore in the Carnatic) struck, in digging, on
      the remains of a Hindu temple; he found, also, a pot which
      contained Roman coins and medals of the second century, mostly
      Trajans, Adrians, and Faustinas, all of gold, many of them fresh
      and beautiful, others defaced or perforated, as if they had been
      worn as ornaments. (Asiatic Researches, ii. 19.)—M.]

      106 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iii. 53. In a speech of Tiberius.]

      107 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. xii. 18. In another place he
      computes half that sum; Quingenties H. S. for India exclusive of
      Arabia.]

      108 (return) [ The proportion, which was 1 to 10, and 12 1/2,
      rose to 14 2/5, the legal regulation of Constantine. See
      Arbuthnot’s Tables of ancient Coins, c. 5.]

      Notwithstanding the propensity of mankind to exalt the past, and
      to depreciate the present, the tranquil and prosperous state of
      the empire was warmly felt, and honestly confessed, by the
      provincials as well as Romans. “They acknowledged that the true
      principles of social life, laws, agriculture, and science, which
      had been first invented by the wisdom of Athens, were now firmly
      established by the power of Rome, under whose auspicious
      influence the fiercest barbarians were united by an equal
      government and common language. They affirm, that with the
      improvement of arts, the human species were visibly multiplied.
      They celebrate the increasing splendor of the cities, the
      beautiful face of the country, cultivated and adorned like an
      immense garden; and the long festival of peace which was enjoyed
      by so many nations, forgetful of the ancient animosities, and
      delivered from the apprehension of future danger.” 109 Whatever
      suspicions may be suggested by the air of rhetoric and
      declamation, which seems to prevail in these passages, the
      substance of them is perfectly agreeable to historic truth.

      109 (return) [ Among many other passages, see Pliny, (Hist.
      Natur. iii. 5.) Aristides, (de Urbe Roma,) and Tertullian, (de
      Anima, c. 30.)]

      It was scarcely possible that the eyes of contemporaries should
      discover in the public felicity the latent causes of decay and
      corruption. This long peace, and the uniform government of the
      Romans, introduced a slow and secret poison into the vitals of
      the empire. The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same
      level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military
      spirit evaporated. The natives of Europe were brave and robust.
      Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum supplied the legions with
      excellent soldiers, and constituted the real strength of the
      monarchy. Their personal valor remained, but they no longer
      possessed that public courage which is nourished by the love of
      independence, the sense of national honor, the presence of
      danger, and the habit of command. They received laws and
      governors from the will of their sovereign, and trusted for their
      defence to a mercenary army. The posterity of their boldest
      leaders was contented with the rank of citizens and subjects. The
      most aspiring spirits resorted to the court or standard of the
      emperors; and the deserted provinces, deprived of political
      strength or union, insensibly sunk into the languid indifference
      of private life.

      The love of letters, almost inseparable from peace and
      refinement, was fashionable among the subjects of Hadrian and the
      Antonines, who were themselves men of learning and curiosity. It
      was diffused over the whole extent of their empire; the most
      northern tribes of Britons had acquired a taste for rhetoric;
      Homer as well as Virgil were transcribed and studied on the banks
      of the Rhine and Danube; and the most liberal rewards sought out
      the faintest glimmerings of literary merit. 110 The sciences of
      physic and astronomy were successfully cultivated by the Greeks;
      the observations of Ptolemy and the writings of Galen are studied
      by those who have improved their discoveries and corrected their
      errors; but if we except the inimitable Lucian, this age of
      indolence passed away without having produced a single writer of
      original genius, or who excelled in the arts of elegant
      composition.1101 The authority of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeno
      and Epicurus, still reigned in the schools; and their systems,
      transmitted with blind deference from one generation of disciples
      to another, precluded every generous attempt to exercise the
      powers, or enlarge the limits, of the human mind. The beauties of
      the poets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own,
      inspired only cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to
      deviate from those models, they deviated at the same time from
      good sense and propriety. On the revival of letters, the youthful
      vigor of the imagination, after a long repose, national
      emulation, a new religion, new languages, and a new world, called
      forth the genius of Europe. But the provincials of Rome, trained
      by a uniform artificial foreign education, were engaged in a very
      unequal competition with those bold ancients, who, by expressing
      their genuine feelings in their native tongue, had already
      occupied every place of honor. The name of Poet was almost
      forgotten; that of Orator was usurped by the sophists. A cloud of
      critics, of compilers, of commentators, darkened the face of
      learning, and the decline of genius was soon followed by the
      corruption of taste.

      110 (return) [ Herodes Atticus gave the sophist Polemo above
      eight thousand pounds for three declamations. See Philostrat. l.
      i. p. 538. The Antonines founded a school at Athens, in which
      professors of grammar, rhetoric, politics, and the four great
      sects of philosophy were maintained at the public expense for the
      instruction of youth. The salary of a philosopher was ten
      thousand drachmæ, between three and four hundred pounds a year.
      Similar establishments were formed in the other great cities of
      the empire. See Lucian in Eunuch. tom. ii. p. 352, edit. Reitz.
      Philostrat. l. ii. p. 566. Hist. August. p. 21. Dion Cassius, l.
      lxxi. p. 1195. Juvenal himself, in a morose satire, which in
      every line betrays his own disappointment and envy, is obliged,
      however, to say,—“—O Juvenes, circumspicit et stimulat vos.
      Materiamque sibi Ducis indulgentia quærit.”—Satir. vii. 20. Note:
      Vespasian first gave a salary to professors: he assigned to each
      professor of rhetoric, Greek and Roman, centena sestertia.
      (Sueton. in Vesp. 18). Hadrian and the Antonines, though still
      liberal, were less profuse.—G. from W. Suetonius wrote annua
      centena L. 807, 5, 10.—M.]

      1101 (return) [ This judgment is rather severe: besides the
      physicians, astronomers, and grammarians, among whom there were
      some very distinguished men, there were still, under Hadrian,
      Suetonius, Florus, Plutarch; under the Antonines, Arrian,
      Pausanias, Appian, Marcus Aurelius himself, Sextus Empiricus, &c.
      Jurisprudence gained much by the labors of Salvius Julianus,
      Julius Celsus, Sex. Pomponius, Caius, and others.—G. from W. Yet
      where, among these, is the writer of original genius, unless,
      perhaps Plutarch? or even of a style really elegant?— M.]

      The sublime Longinus, who, in somewhat a later period, and in the
      court of a Syrian queen, preserved the spirit of ancient Athens,
      observes and laments this degeneracy of his contemporaries, which
      debased their sentiments, enervated their courage, and depressed
      their talents. “In the same manner,” says he, “as some children
      always remain pygmies, whose infant limbs have been too closely
      confined, thus our tender minds, fettered by the prejudices and
      habits of a just servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or
      to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we admire in the
      ancients; who, living under a popular government, wrote with the
      same freedom as they acted.” 111 This diminutive stature of
      mankind, if we pursue the metaphor, was daily sinking below the
      old standard, and the Roman world was indeed peopled by a race of
      pygmies; when the fierce giants of the north broke in, and mended
      the puny breed. They restored a manly spirit of freedom; and
      after the revolution of ten centuries, freedom became the happy
      parent of taste and science.

      111 (return) [ Longin. de Sublim. c. 44, p. 229, edit. Toll.
      Here, too, we may say of Longinus, “his own example strengthens
      all his laws.” Instead of proposing his sentiments with a manly
      boldness, he insinuates them with the most guarded caution; puts
      them into the mouth of a friend, and as far as we can collect
      from a corrupted text, makes a show of refuting them himself.]




      Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
      I.

     Of The Constitution Of The Roman Empire, In The Age Of The
     Antonines.

      The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state,
      in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be
      distinguished, is intrusted with the execution of the laws, the
      management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But,
      unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant
      guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon
      degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age
      of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights
      of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne
      and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been
      seen on the side of the people. 101 A martial nobility and
      stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and
      collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance
      capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of
      an aspiring prince.

      101 (return) [ Often enough in the ages of superstition, but not
      in the interest of the people or the state, but in that of the
      church to which all others were subordinate. Yet the power of the
      pope has often been of great service in repressing the excesses
      of sovereigns, and in softening manners.—W. The history of the
      Italian republics proves the error of Gibbon, and the justice of
      his German translator’s comment.—M.]

      Every barrier of the Roman constitution had been levelled by the
      vast ambition of the dictator; every fence had been extirpated by
      the cruel hand of the triumvir. After the victory of Actium, the
      fate of the Roman world depended on the will of Octavianus,
      surnamed Cæsar, by his uncle’s adoption, and afterwards Augustus,
      by the flattery of the senate. The conqueror was at the head of
      forty-four veteran legions, 1 conscious of their own strength,
      and of the weakness of the constitution, habituated, during
      twenty years’ civil war, to every act of blood and violence, and
      passionately devoted to the house of Cæsar, from whence alone
      they had received, and expected the most lavish rewards. The
      provinces, long oppressed by the ministers of the republic,
      sighed for the government of a single person, who would be the
      master, not the accomplice, of those petty tyrants. The people of
      Rome, viewing, with a secret pleasure, the humiliation of the
      aristocracy, demanded only bread and public shows; and were
      supplied with both by the liberal hand of Augustus. The rich and
      polite Italians, who had almost universally embraced the
      philosophy of Epicurus, enjoyed the present blessings of ease and
      tranquillity, and suffered not the pleasing dream to be
      interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom. With
      its power, the senate had lost its dignity; many of the most
      noble families were extinct. The republicans of spirit and
      ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the
      proscription. The door of the assembly had been designedly left
      open, for a mixed multitude of more than a thousand persons, who
      reflected disgrace upon their rank, instead of deriving honor
      from it. 2

      1 (return) [ Orosius, vi. 18. * Note: Dion says twenty-five, (or
      three,) (lv. 23.) The united triumvirs had but forty-three.
      (Appian. Bell. Civ. iv. 3.) The testimony of Orosius is of little
      value when more certain may be had.—W. But all the legions,
      doubtless, submitted to Augustus after the battle of Actium.—M.]

      2 (return) [ Julius Cæsar introduced soldiers, strangers, and
      half-barbarians into the senate (Sueton. in Cæsar. c. 77, 80.)
      The abuse became still more scandalous after his death.]

      The reformation of the senate was one of the first steps in which
      Augustus laid aside the tyrant, and professed himself the father
      of his country. He was elected censor; and, in concert with his
      faithful Agrippa, he examined the list of the senators, expelled
      a few members, 201 whose vices or whose obstinacy required a
      public example, persuaded near two hundred to prevent the shame
      of an expulsion by a voluntary retreat, raised the qualification
      of a senator to about ten thousand pounds, created a sufficient
      number of patrician families, and accepted for himself the
      honorable title of Prince of the Senate, 202 which had always
      been bestowed, by the censors, on the citizen the most eminent
      for his honors and services. 3 But whilst he thus restored the
      dignity, he destroyed the independence, of the senate. The
      principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when
      the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

      201 (return) [ Of these Dion and Suetonius knew nothing.—W. Dion
      says the contrary.—M.]

      202 (return) [ But Augustus, then Octavius, was censor, and in
      virtue of that office, even according to the constitution of the
      free republic, could reform the senate, expel unworthy members,
      name the Princeps Senatus, &c. That was called, as is well known,
      Senatum legere. It was customary, during the free republic, for
      the censor to be named Princeps Senatus, (S. Liv. l. xxvii. c.
      11, l. xl. c. 51;) and Dion expressly says, that this was done
      according to ancient usage. He was empowered by a decree of the
      senate to admit a number of families among the patricians.
      Finally, the senate was not the legislative power.—W]

      3 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. liii. p. 693. Suetonius in August.
      c. 35.]

      Before an assembly thus modelled and prepared, Augustus
      pronounced a studied oration, which displayed his patriotism, and
      disguised his ambition. “He lamented, yet excused, his past
      conduct. Filial piety had required at his hands the revenge of
      his father’s murder; the humanity of his own nature had sometimes
      given way to the stern laws of necessity, and to a forced
      connection with two unworthy colleagues: as long as Antony lived,
      the republic forbade him to abandon her to a degenerate Roman,
      and a barbarian queen. He was now at liberty to satisfy his duty
      and his inclination. He solemnly restored the senate and people
      to all their ancient rights; and wished only to mingle with the
      crowd of his fellow-citizens, and to share the blessings which he
      had obtained for his country.” 4

      4 (return) [ Dion (l. liii. p. 698) gives us a prolix and bombast
      speech on this great occasion. I have borrowed from Suetonius and
      Tacitus the general language of Augustus.]

      It would require the pen of Tacitus (if Tacitus had assisted at
      this assembly) to describe the various emotions of the senate,
      those that were suppressed, and those that were affected. It was
      dangerous to trust the sincerity of Augustus; to seem to distrust
      it was still more dangerous. The respective advantages of
      monarchy and a republic have often divided speculative inquirers;
      the present greatness of the Roman state, the corruption of
      manners, and the license of the soldiers, supplied new arguments
      to the advocates of monarchy; and these general views of
      government were again warped by the hopes and fears of each
      individual. Amidst this confusion of sentiments, the answer of
      the senate was unanimous and decisive. They refused to accept the
      resignation of Augustus; they conjured him not to desert the
      republic, which he had saved. After a decent resistance, the
      crafty tyrant submitted to the orders of the senate; and
      consented to receive the government of the provinces, and the
      general command of the Roman armies, under the well-known names
      of PROCONSUL and IMPERATOR. 5 But he would receive them only for
      ten years. Even before the expiration of that period, he hope
      that the wounds of civil discord would be completely healed, and
      that the republic, restored to its pristine health and vigor,
      would no longer require the dangerous interposition of so
      extraordinary a magistrate. The memory of this comedy, repeated
      several times during the life of Augustus, was preserved to the
      last ages of the empire, by the peculiar pomp with which the
      perpetual monarchs of Rome always solemnized the tenth years of
      their reign. 6

      5 (return) [ Imperator (from which we have derived Emperor)
      signified under her republic no more than general, and was
      emphatically bestowed by the soldiers, when on the field of
      battle they proclaimed their victorious leader worthy of that
      title. When the Roman emperors assumed it in that sense, they
      placed it after their name, and marked how often they had taken
      it.]

      6 (return) [ Dion. l. liii. p. 703, &c.]

      Without any violation of the principles of the constitution, the
      general of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an
      authority almost despotic over the soldiers, the enemies, and the
      subjects of the republic. With regard to the soldiers, the
      jealousy of freedom had, even from the earliest ages of Rome,
      given way to the hopes of conquest, and a just sense of military
      discipline. The dictator, or consul, had a right to command the
      service of the Roman youth; and to punish an obstinate or
      cowardly disobedience by the most severe and ignominious
      penalties, by striking the offender out of the list of citizens,
      by confiscating his property, and by selling his person into
      slavery. 7 The most sacred rights of freedom, confirmed by the
      Porcian and Sempronian laws, were suspended by the military
      engagement. In his camp the general exercised an absolute power
      of life and death; his jurisdiction was not confined by any forms
      of trial, or rules of proceeding, and the execution of the
      sentence was immediate and without appeal. 8 The choice of the
      enemies of Rome was regularly decided by the legislative
      authority. The most important resolutions of peace and war were
      seriously debated in the senate, and solemnly ratified by the
      people. But when the arms of the legions were carried to a great
      distance from Italy, the general assumed the liberty of directing
      them against whatever people, and in whatever manner, they judged
      most advantageous for the public service. It was from the
      success, not from the justice, of their enterprises, that they
      expected the honors of a triumph. In the use of victory,
      especially after they were no longer controlled by the
      commissioners of the senate, they exercised the most unbounded
      despotism. When Pompey commanded in the East, he rewarded his
      soldiers and allies, dethroned princes, divided kingdoms, founded
      colonies, and distributed the treasures of Mithridates. On his
      return to Rome, he obtained, by a single act of the senate and
      people, the universal ratification of all his proceedings. 9 Such
      was the power over the soldiers, and over the enemies of Rome,
      which was either granted to, or assumed by, the generals of the
      republic. They were, at the same time, the governors, or rather
      monarchs, of the conquered provinces, united the civil with the
      military character, administered justice as well as the finances,
      and exercised both the executive and legislative power of the
      state.

      7 (return) [ Livy Epitom. l. xiv. [c. 27.] Valer. Maxim. vi. 3.]

      8 (return) [ See, in the viiith book of Livy, the conduct of
      Manlius Torquatus and Papirius Cursor. They violated the laws of
      nature and humanity, but they asserted those of military
      discipline; and the people, who abhorred the action, was obliged
      to respect the principle.]

      9 (return) [ By the lavish but unconstrained suffrages of the
      people, Pompey had obtained a military command scarcely inferior
      to that of Augustus. Among the extraordinary acts of power
      executed by the former we may remark the foundation of
      twenty-nine cities, and the distribution of three or four
      millions sterling to his troops. The ratification of his acts met
      with some opposition and delays in the senate See Plutarch,
      Appian, Dion Cassius, and the first book of the epistles to
      Atticus.]

      From what has already been observed in the first chapter of this
      work, some notion may be formed of the armies and provinces thus
      intrusted to the ruling hand of Augustus. But as it was
      impossible that he could personally command the regions of so
      many distant frontiers, he was indulged by the senate, as Pompey
      had already been, in the permission of devolving the execution of
      his great office on a sufficient number of lieutenants. In rank
      and authority these officers seemed not inferior to the ancient
      proconsuls; but their station was dependent and precarious. They
      received and held their commissions at the will of a superior, to
      whose auspicious influence the merit of their action was legally
      attributed. 10 They were the representatives of the emperor. The
      emperor alone was the general of the republic, and his
      jurisdiction, civil as well as military, extended over all the
      conquests of Rome. It was some satisfaction, however, to the
      senate, that he always delegated his power to the members of
      their body. The imperial lieutenants were of consular or
      prætorian dignity; the legions were commanded by senators, and
      the præfecture of Egypt was the only important trust committed to
      a Roman knight.

      10 (return) [ Under the commonwealth, a triumph could only be
      claimed by the general, who was authorized to take the Auspices
      in the name of the people. By an exact consequence, drawn from
      this principle of policy and religion, the triumph was reserved
      to the emperor; and his most successful lieutenants were
      satisfied with some marks of distinction, which, under the name
      of triumphal honors, were invented in their favor.]

      Within six days after Augustus had been compelled to accept so
      very liberal a grant, he resolved to gratify the pride of the
      senate by an easy sacrifice. He represented to them, that they
      had enlarged his powers, even beyond that degree which might be
      required by the melancholy condition of the times. They had not
      permitted him to refuse the laborious command of the armies and
      the frontiers; but he must insist on being allowed to restore the
      more peaceful and secure provinces to the mild administration of
      the civil magistrate. In the division of the provinces, Augustus
      provided for his own power and for the dignity of the republic.
      The proconsuls of the senate, particularly those of Asia, Greece,
      and Africa, enjoyed a more honorable character than the
      lieutenants of the emperor, who commanded in Gaul or Syria. The
      former were attended by lictors, the latter by soldiers. 105 A
      law was passed, that wherever the emperor was present, his
      extraordinary commission should supersede the ordinary
      jurisdiction of the governor; a custom was introduced, that the
      new conquests belonged to the imperial portion; and it was soon
      discovered that the authority of the _Prince_, the favorite
      epithet of Augustus, was the same in every part of the empire.

      105 (return) [ This distinction is without foundation. The
      lieutenants of the emperor, who were called Proprætors, whether
      they had been prætors or consuls, were attended by six lictors;
      those who had the right of the sword, (of life and death over the
      soldiers.—M.) bore the military habit (paludamentum) and the
      sword. The provincial governors commissioned by the senate, who,
      whether they had been consuls or not, were called Pronconsuls,
      had twelve lictors when they had been consuls, and six only when
      they had but been prætors. The provinces of Africa and Asia were
      only given to ex-consuls. See, on the Organization of the
      Provinces, Dion, liii. 12, 16 Strabo, xvii 840.—W]

      In return for this imaginary concession, Augustus obtained an
      important privilege, which rendered him master of Rome and Italy.
      By a dangerous exception to the ancient maxims, he was authorized
      to preserve his military command, supported by a numerous body of
      guards, even in time of peace, and in the heart of the capital.
      His command, indeed, was confined to those citizens who were
      engaged in the service by the military oath; but such was the
      propensity of the Romans to servitude, that the oath was
      voluntarily taken by the magistrates, the senators, and the
      equestrian order, till the homage of flattery was insensibly
      converted into an annual and solemn protestation of fidelity.

      Although Augustus considered a military force as the firmest
      foundation, he wisely rejected it, as a very odious instrument of
      government. It was more agreeable to his temper, as well as to
      his policy, to reign under the venerable names of ancient
      magistracy, and artfully to collect, in his own person, all the
      scattered rays of civil jurisdiction. With this view, he
      permitted the senate to confer upon him, for his life, the powers
      of the consular 11 and tribunitian offices, 12 which were, in the
      same manner, continued to all his successors. The consuls had
      succeeded to the kings of Rome, and represented the dignity of
      the state. They superintended the ceremonies of religion, levied
      and commanded the legions, gave audience to foreign ambassadors,
      and presided in the assemblies both of the senate and people. The
      general control of the finances was intrusted to their care; and
      though they seldom had leisure to administer justice in person,
      they were considered as the supreme guardians of law, equity, and
      the public peace. Such was their ordinary jurisdiction; but
      whenever the senate empowered the first magistrate to consult the
      safety of the commonwealth, he was raised by that decree above
      the laws, and exercised, in the defence of liberty, a temporary
      despotism. 13 The character of the tribunes was, in every
      respect, different from that of the consuls. The appearance of
      the former was modest and humble; but their persons were sacred
      and inviolable. Their force was suited rather for opposition than
      for action. They were instituted to defend the oppressed, to
      pardon offences, to arraign the enemies of the people, and, when
      they judged it necessary, to stop, by a single word, the whole
      machine of government. As long as the republic subsisted, the
      dangerous influence, which either the consul or the tribune might
      derive from their respective jurisdiction, was diminished by
      several important restrictions. Their authority expired with the
      year in which they were elected; the former office was divided
      between two, the latter among ten persons; and, as both in their
      private and public interest they were averse to each other, their
      mutual conflicts contributed, for the most part, to strengthen
      rather than to destroy the balance of the constitution. 131 But
      when the consular and tribunitian powers were united, when they
      were vested for life in a single person, when the general of the
      army was, at the same time, the minister of the senate and the
      representative of the Roman people, it was impossible to resist
      the exercise, nor was it easy to define the limits, of his
      imperial prerogative.

      11 (return) [ Cicero (de Legibus, iii. 3) gives the consular
      office the name of egia potestas; and Polybius (l. vi. c. 3)
      observes three powers in the Roman constitution. The monarchical
      was represented and exercised by the consuls.]

      12 (return) [ As the tribunitian power (distinct from the annual
      office) was first invented by the dictator Cæsar, (Dion, l. xliv.
      p. 384,) we may easily conceive, that it was given as a reward
      for having so nobly asserted, by arms, the sacred rights of the
      tribunes and people. See his own Commentaries, de Bell. Civil. l.
      i.]

      13 (return) [ Augustus exercised nine annual consulships without
      interruption. He then most artfully refused the magistracy, as
      well as the dictatorship, absented himself from Rome, and waited
      till the fatal effects of tumult and faction forced the senate to
      invest him with a perpetual consulship. Augustus, as well as his
      successors, affected, however, to conceal so invidious a title.]

      131 (return) [ The note of M. Guizot on the tribunitian power
      applies to the French translation rather than to the original.
      The former has, maintenir la balance toujours egale, which
      implies much more than Gibbon’s general expression. The note
      belongs rather to the history of the Republic than that of the
      Empire.—M]

      To these accumulated honors, the policy of Augustus soon added
      the splendid as well as important dignities of supreme pontiff,
      and of censor. By the former he acquired the management of the
      religion, and by the latter a legal inspection over the manners
      and fortunes, of the Roman people. If so many distinct and
      independent powers did not exactly unite with each other, the
      complaisance of the senate was prepared to supply every
      deficiency by the most ample and extraordinary concessions. The
      emperors, as the first ministers of the republic, were exempted
      from the obligation and penalty of many inconvenient laws: they
      were authorized to convoke the senate, to make several motions in
      the same day, to recommend candidates for the honors of the
      state, to enlarge the bounds of the city, to employ the revenue
      at their discretion, to declare peace and war, to ratify
      treaties; and by a most comprehensive clause, they were empowered
      to execute whatsoever they should judge advantageous to the
      empire, and agreeable to the majesty of things private or public,
      human of divine. 14

      14 (return) [ See a fragment of a Decree of the Senate,
      conferring on the emperor Vespasian all the powers granted to his
      predecessors, Augustus, Tiberius, and Claudius. This curious and
      important monument is published in Gruter’s Inscriptions, No.
      ccxlii. * Note: It is also in the editions of Tacitus by Ryck,
      (Annal. p. 420, 421,) and Ernesti, (Excurs. ad lib. iv. 6;) but
      this fragment contains so many inconsistencies, both in matter
      and form, that its authenticity may be doubted—W.]

      When all the various powers of executive government were
      committed to the _Imperial magistrate_, the ordinary magistrates
      of the commonwealth languished in obscurity, without vigor, and
      almost without business. The names and forms of the ancient
      administration were preserved by Augustus with the most anxious
      care. The usual number of consuls, prætors, and tribunes, 15 were
      annually invested with their respective ensigns of office, and
      continued to discharge some of their least important functions.
      Those honors still attracted the vain ambition of the Romans; and
      the emperors themselves, though invested for life with the powers
      of the consulship, frequently aspired to the title of that annual
      dignity, which they condescended to share with the most
      illustrious of their fellow-citizens. 16 In the election of these
      magistrates, the people, during the reign of Augustus, were
      permitted to expose all the inconveniences of a wild democracy.
      That artful prince, instead of discovering the least symptom of
      impatience, humbly solicited their suffrages for himself or his
      friends, and scrupulously practised all the duties of an ordinary
      candidate. 17 But we may venture to ascribe to his councils the
      first measure of the succeeding reign, by which the elections
      were transferred to the senate. 18 The assemblies of the people
      were forever abolished, and the emperors were delivered from a
      dangerous multitude, who, without restoring liberty, might have
      disturbed, and perhaps endangered, the established government.

      15 (return) [ Two consuls were created on the Calends of January;
      but in the course of the year others were substituted in their
      places, till the annual number seems to have amounted to no less
      than twelve. The prætors were usually sixteen or eighteen,
      (Lipsius in Excurs. D. ad Tacit. Annal. l. i.) I have not
      mentioned the Ædiles or Quæstors Officers of the police or
      revenue easily adapt themselves to any form of government. In the
      time of Nero, the tribunes legally possessed the right of
      intercession, though it might be dangerous to exercise it (Tacit.
      Annal. xvi. 26.) In the time of Trajan, it was doubtful whether
      the tribuneship was an office or a name, (Plin. Epist. i. 23.)]

      16 (return) [ The tyrants themselves were ambitious of the
      consulship. The virtuous princes were moderate in the pursuit,
      and exact in the discharge of it. Trajan revived the ancient
      oath, and swore before the consul’s tribunal that he would
      observe the laws, (Plin. Panegyric c. 64.)]

      17 (return) [ Quoties Magistratuum Comitiis interesset. Tribus
      cum candidatis suis circunbat: supplicabatque more solemni.
      Ferebat et ipse suffragium in tribubus, ut unus e populo.
      Suetonius in August c. 56.]

      18 (return) [ Tum primum Comitia e campo ad patres translata
      sunt. Tacit. Annal. i. 15. The word primum seems to allude to
      some faint and unsuccessful efforts which were made towards
      restoring them to the people. Note: The emperor Caligula made the
      attempt: he rest red the Comitia to the people, but, in a short
      time, took them away again. Suet. in Caio. c. 16. Dion. lix. 9,
      20. Nevertheless, at the time of Dion, they preserved still the
      form of the Comitia. Dion. lviii. 20.—W.]

      By declaring themselves the protectors of the people, Marius and
      Cæsar had subverted the constitution of their country. But as
      soon as the senate had been humbled and disarmed, such an
      assembly, consisting of five or six hundred persons, was found a
      much more tractable and useful instrument of dominion. It was on
      the dignity of the senate that Augustus and his successors
      founded their new empire; and they affected, on every occasion,
      to adopt the language and principles of Patricians. In the
      administration of their own powers, they frequently consulted the
      great national council, and _seemed_ to refer to its decision the
      most important concerns of peace and war. Rome, Italy, and the
      internal provinces, were subject to the immediate jurisdiction of
      the senate. With regard to civil objects, it was the supreme
      court of appeal; with regard to criminal matters, a tribunal,
      constituted for the trial of all offences that were committed by
      men in any public station, or that affected the peace and majesty
      of the Roman people. The exercise of the judicial power became
      the most frequent and serious occupation of the senate; and the
      important causes that were pleaded before them afforded a last
      refuge to the spirit of ancient eloquence. As a council of state,
      and as a court of justice, the senate possessed very considerable
      prerogatives; but in its legislative capacity, in which it was
      supposed virtually to represent the people, the rights of
      sovereignty were acknowledged to reside in that assembly. Every
      power was derived from their authority, every law was ratified by
      their sanction. Their regular meetings were held on three stated
      days in every month, the Calends, the Nones, and the Ides. The
      debates were conducted with decent freedom; and the emperors
      themselves, who gloried in the name of senators, sat, voted, and
      divided with their equals. To resume, in a few words, the system
      of the Imperial government; as it was instituted by Augustus, and
      maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and
      that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy
      disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the
      Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed
      their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the
      accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they
      dictated and obeyed. 19

      19 (return) [Dion Cassius (l. liii. p. 703—714) has given a very
      loose and partial sketch of the Imperial system. To illustrate
      and often to correct him, I have meditated Tacitus, examined
      Suetonius, and consulted the following moderns: the Abbé de la
      Bleterie, in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom.
      xix. xxi. xxiv. xxv. xxvii. Beaufort Republique Romaine, tom. i.
      p. 255—275. The Dissertations of Noodt and Gronovius de lege
      Regia, printed at Leyden, in the year 1731 Gravina de Imperio
      Romano, p. 479—544 of his Opuscula. Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p.
      i. p. 245, &c.]

      The face of the court corresponded with the forms of the
      administration. The emperors, if we except those tyrants whose
      capricious folly violated every law of nature and decency,
      disdained that pomp and ceremony which might offend their
      countrymen, but could add nothing to their real power. In all the
      offices of life, they affected to confound themselves with their
      subjects, and maintained with them an equal intercourse of visits
      and entertainments. Their habit, their palace, their table, were
      suited only to the rank of an opulent senator. Their family,
      however numerous or splendid, was composed entirely of their
      domestic slaves and freedmen. 20 Augustus or Trajan would have
      blushed at employing the meanest of the Romans in those menial
      offices, which, in the household and bedchamber of a limited
      monarch, are so eagerly solicited by the proudest nobles of
      Britain.

      20 (return) [ A weak prince will always be governed by his
      domestics. The power of slaves aggravated the shame of the
      Romans; and the senate paid court to a Pallas or a Narcissus.
      There is a chance that a modern favorite may be a gentleman.]

      The deification of the emperors 21 is the only instance in which
      they departed from their accustomed prudence and modesty. The
      Asiatic Greeks were the first inventors, the successors of
      Alexander the first objects, of this servile and impious mode of
      adulation. 211 It was easily transferred from the kings to the
      governors of Asia; and the Roman magistrates very frequently were
      adored as provincial deities, with the pomp of altars and
      temples, of festivals and sacrifices. 22 It was natural that the
      emperors should not refuse what the proconsuls had accepted; and
      the divine honors which both the one and the other received from
      the provinces, attested rather the despotism than the servitude
      of Rome. But the conquerors soon imitated the vanquished nations
      in the arts of flattery; and the imperious spirit of the first
      Cæsar too easily consented to assume, during his lifetime, a
      place among the tutelar deities of Rome. The milder temper of his
      successor declined so dangerous an ambition, which was never
      afterwards revived, except by the madness of Caligula and
      Domitian. Augustus permitted indeed some of the provincial cities
      to erect temples to his honor, on condition that they should
      associate the worship of Rome with that of the sovereign; he
      tolerated private superstition, of which he might be the object;
      23 but he contented himself with being revered by the senate and
      the people in his human character, and wisely left to his
      successor the care of his public deification. A regular custom
      was introduced, that on the decease of every emperor who had
      neither lived nor died like a tyrant, the senate by a solemn
      decree should place him in the number of the gods: and the
      ceremonies of his apotheosis were blended with those of his
      funeral. 231 This legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious
      profanation, so abhorrent to our stricter principles, was
      received with a very faint murmur, 24 by the easy nature of
      Polytheism; but it was received as an institution, not of
      religion, but of policy. We should disgrace the virtues of the
      Antonines by comparing them with the vices of Hercules or
      Jupiter. Even the characters of Cæsar or Augustus were far
      superior to those of the popular deities. But it was the
      misfortune of the former to live in an enlightened age, and their
      actions were too faithfully recorded to admit of such a mixture
      of fable and mystery, as the devotion of the vulgar requires. As
      soon as their divinity was established by law, it sunk into
      oblivion, without contributing either to their own fame, or to
      the dignity of succeeding princes.

      21 (return) [ See a treatise of Vandale de Consecratione
      Principium. It would be easier for me to copy, than it has been
      to verify, the quotations of that learned Dutchman.]

      211 (return) [ This is inaccurate. The successors of Alexander
      were not the first deified sovereigns; the Egyptians had deified
      and worshipped many of their kings; the Olympus of the Greeks was
      peopled with divinities who had reigned on earth; finally,
      Romulus himself had received the honors of an apotheosis (Tit.
      Liv. i. 16) a long time before Alexander and his successors. It
      is also an inaccuracy to confound the honors offered in the
      provinces to the Roman governors, by temples and altars, with the
      true apotheosis of the emperors; it was not a religious worship,
      for it had neither priests nor sacrifices. Augustus was severely
      blamed for having permitted himself to be worshipped as a god in
      the provinces, (Tac. Ann. i. 10: ) he would not have incurred
      that blame if he had only done what the governors were accustomed
      to do.—G. from W. M. Guizot has been guilty of a still greater
      inaccuracy in confounding the deification of the living with the
      apotheosis of the dead emperors. The nature of the king-worship
      of Egypt is still very obscure; the hero-worship of the Greeks
      very different from the adoration of the “præsens numen” in the
      reigning sovereign.—M.]

      22 (return) [ See a dissertation of the Abbé Mongault in the
      first volume of the Academy of Inscriptions.]

      23 (return) [ Jurandasque tuum per nomen ponimus aras, says
      Horace to the emperor himself, and Horace was well acquainted
      with the court of Augustus. Note: The good princes were not those
      who alone obtained the honors of an apotheosis: it was conferred
      on many tyrants. See an excellent treatise of Schæpflin, de
      Consecratione Imperatorum Romanorum, in his Commentationes
      historicæ et criticæ. Bale, 1741, p. 184.—W.]

      231 (return) [ The curious satire in the works of Seneca, is the
      strongest remonstrance of profaned religion.—M.]

      24 (return) [ See Cicero in Philippic. i. 6. Julian in Cæsaribus.
      Inque Deum templis jurabit Roma per umbras, is the indignant
      expression of Lucan; but it is a patriotic rather than a devout
      indignation.]

      In the consideration of the Imperial government, we have
      frequently mentioned the artful founder, under his well-known
      title of Augustus, which was not, however, conferred upon him
      till the edifice was almost completed. The obscure name of
      Octavianus he derived from a mean family, in the little town of
      Aricia. 241 It was stained with the blood of the proscription;
      and he was desirous, had it been possible, to erase all memory of
      his former life. The illustrious surname of Cæsar he had assumed,
      as the adopted son of the dictator: but he had too much good
      sense, either to hope to be confounded, or to wish to be compared
      with that extraordinary man. It was proposed in the senate to
      dignify their minister with a new appellation; and after a
      serious discussion, that of Augustus was chosen, among several
      others, as being the most expressive of the character of peace
      and sanctity, which he uniformly affected. 25 _Augustus_ was
      therefore a personal, _Cæsar_ a family distinction. The former
      should naturally have expired with the prince on whom it was
      bestowed; and however the latter was diffused by adoption and
      female alliance, Nero was the last prince who could allege any
      hereditary claim to the honors of the Julian line. But, at the
      time of his death, the practice of a century had inseparably
      connected those appellations with the Imperial dignity, and they
      have been preserved by a long succession of emperors, Romans,
      Greeks, Franks, and Germans, from the fall of the republic to the
      present time. A distinction was, however, soon introduced. The
      sacred title of Augustus was always reserved for the monarch,
      whilst the name of Cæsar was more freely communicated to his
      relations; and, from the reign of Hadrian, at least, was
      appropriated to the second person in the state, who was
      considered as the presumptive heir of the empire. 251

      241 (return) [ Octavius was not of an obscure family, but of a
      considerable one of the equestrian order. His father, C.
      Octavius, who possessed great property, had been prætor, governor
      of Macedonia, adorned with the title of Imperator, and was on the
      point of becoming consul when he died. His mother Attia, was
      daughter of M. Attius Balbus, who had also been prætor. M.
      Anthony reproached Octavius with having been born in Aricia,
      which, nevertheless, was a considerable municipal city: he was
      vigorously refuted by Cicero. Philip. iii. c. 6.—W. Gibbon
      probably meant that the family had but recently emerged into
      notice.—M.]

      25 (return) [ Dion. Cassius, l. liii. p. 710, with the curious
      Annotations of Reimar.]

      251 (return) [ The princes who by their birth or their adoption
      belonged to the family of the Cæsars, took the name of Cæsar.
      After the death of Nero, this name designated the Imperial
      dignity itself, and afterwards the appointed successor. The time
      at which it was employed in the latter sense, cannot be fixed
      with certainty. Bach (Hist. Jurisprud. Rom. 304) affirms from
      Tacitus, H. i. 15, and Suetonius, Galba, 17, that Galba conferred
      on Piso Lucinianus the title of Cæsar, and from that time the
      term had this meaning: but these two historians simply say that
      he appointed Piso his successor, and do not mention the word
      Cæsar. Aurelius Victor (in Traj. 348, ed. Artzen) says that
      Hadrian first received this title on his adoption; but as the
      adoption of Hadrian is still doubtful, and besides this, as
      Trajan, on his death-bed, was not likely to have created a new
      title for his successor, it is more probable that Ælius Verus was
      the first who was called Cæsar when adopted by Hadrian. Spart. in
      Ælio Vero, 102.—W.]




      Chapter III: The Constitution In The Age Of The Antonines.—Part
      II.

      The tender respect of Augustus for a free constitution which he
      had destroyed, can only be explained by an attentive
      consideration of the character of that subtle tyrant. A cool
      head, an unfeeling heart, and a cowardly disposition, prompted
      him at the age of nineteen to assume the mask of hypocrisy, which
      he never afterwards laid aside. With the same hand, and probably
      with the same temper, he signed the proscription of Cicero, and
      the pardon of Cinna. His virtues, and even his vices, were
      artificial; and according to the various dictates of his
      interest, he was at first the enemy, and at last the father, of
      the Roman world. 26 When he framed the artful system of the
      Imperial authority, his moderation was inspired by his fears. He
      wished to deceive the people by an image of civil liberty, and
      the armies by an image of civil government.

      26 (return) [ As Octavianus advanced to the banquet of the
      Cæsars, his color changed like that of the chameleon; pale at
      first, then red, afterwards black, he at last assumed the mild
      livery of Venus and the Graces, (Cæsars, p. 309.) This image,
      employed by Julian in his ingenious fiction, is just and elegant;
      but when he considers this change of character as real and
      ascribes it to the power of philosophy, he does too much honor to
      philosophy and to Octavianus.]

      I. The death of Cæsar was ever before his eyes. He had lavished
      wealth and honors on his adherents; but the most favored friends
      of his uncle were in the number of the conspirators. The fidelity
      of the legions might defend his authority against open rebellion;
      but their vigilance could not secure his person from the dagger
      of a determined republican; and the Romans, who revered the
      memory of Brutus, 27 would applaud the imitation of his virtue.
      Cæsar had provoked his fate, as much as by the ostentation of his
      power, as by his power itself. The consul or the tribune might
      have reigned in peace. The title of king had armed the Romans
      against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed
      by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate
      and people would submit to slavery, provided they were
      respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient
      freedom. A feeble senate and enervated people cheerfully
      acquiesced in the pleasing illusion, as long as it was supported
      by the virtue, or even by the prudence, of the successors of
      Augustus. It was a motive of self-preservation, not a principle
      of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula,
      Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant,
      without aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor.

      27 (return) [ Two centuries after the establishment of monarchy,
      the emperor Marcus Antoninus recommends the character of Brutus
      as a perfect model of Roman virtue. * Note: In a very ingenious
      essay, Gibbon has ventured to call in question the preeminent
      virtue of Brutus. Misc Works, iv. 95.—M.]

      There appears, indeed, _one_ memorable occasion, in which the
      senate, after seventy years of patience, made an ineffectual
      attempt to re-assume its long-forgotten rights. When the throne
      was vacant by the murder of Caligula, the consuls convoked that
      assembly in the Capitol, condemned the memory of the Cæsars, gave
      the watchword _liberty_ to the few cohorts who faintly adhered to
      their standard, and during eight-and-forty hours acted as the
      independent chiefs of a free commonwealth. But while they
      deliberated, the prætorian guards had resolved. The stupid
      Claudius, brother of Germanicus, was already in their camp,
      invested with the Imperial purple, and prepared to support his
      election by arms. The dream of liberty was at an end; and the
      senate awoke to all the horrors of inevitable servitude. Deserted
      by the people, and threatened by a military force, that feeble
      assembly was compelled to ratify the choice of the prætorians,
      and to embrace the benefit of an amnesty, which Claudius had the
      prudence to offer, and the generosity to observe. 28

      28 (return) [ It is much to be regretted that we have lost the
      part of Tacitus which treated of that transaction. We are forced
      to content ourselves with the popular rumors of Josephus, and the
      imperfect hints of Dion and Suetonius.]

      II. The insolence of the armies inspired Augustus with fears of a
      still more alarming nature. The despair of the citizens could
      only attempt, what the power of the soldiers was, at any time,
      able to execute. How precarious was his own authority over men
      whom he had taught to violate every social duty! He had heard
      their seditious clamors; he dreaded their calmer moments of
      reflection. One revolution had been purchased by immense rewards;
      but a second revolution might double those rewards. The troops
      professed the fondest attachment to the house of Cæsar; but the
      attachments of the multitude are capricious and inconstant.
      Augustus summoned to his aid whatever remained in those fierce
      minds of Roman prejudices; enforced the rigor of discipline by
      the sanction of law; and, interposing the majesty of the senate
      between the emperor and the army, boldly claimed their
      allegiance, as the first magistrate of the republic.

      During a long period of two hundred and twenty years from the
      establishment of this artful system to the death of Commodus, the
      dangers inherent to a military government were, in a great
      measure, suspended. The soldiers were seldom roused to that fatal
      sense of their own strength, and of the weakness of the civil
      authority, which was, before and afterwards, productive of such
      dreadful calamities. Caligula and Domitian were assassinated in
      their palace by their own domestics: 281 the convulsions which
      agitated Rome on the death of the former, were confined to the
      walls of the city. But Nero involved the whole empire in his
      ruin. In the space of eighteen months, four princes perished by
      the sword; and the Roman world was shaken by the fury of the
      contending armies. Excepting only this short, though violent
      eruption of military license, the two centuries from Augustus 29
      to Commodus passed away unstained with civil blood, and
      undisturbed by revolutions. The emperor was elected by _the
      authority of the senate_, and _the consent of the soldiers_. 30
      The legions respected their oath of fidelity; and it requires a
      minute inspection of the Roman annals to discover three
      inconsiderable rebellions, which were all suppressed in a few
      months, and without even the hazard of a battle. 31

      281 (return) [ Caligula perished by a conspiracy formed by the
      officers of the prætorian troops, and Domitian would not,
      perhaps, have been assassinated without the participation of the
      two chiefs of that guard in his death.—W.]

      29 (return) [ Augustus restored the ancient severity of
      discipline. After the civil wars, he dropped the endearing name
      of Fellow-Soldiers, and called them only Soldiers, (Sueton. in
      August. c. 25.) See the use Tiberius made of the Senate in the
      mutiny of the Pannonian legions, (Tacit. Annal. i.)]

      30 (return) [ These words seem to have been the constitutional
      language. See Tacit. Annal. xiii. 4. * Note: This panegyric on
      the soldiery is rather too liberal. Claudius was obliged to
      purchase their consent to his coronation: the presents which he
      made, and those which the prætorians received on other occasions,
      considerably embarrassed the finances. Moreover, this formidable
      guard favored, in general, the cruelties of the tyrants. The
      distant revolts were more frequent than Gibbon thinks: already,
      under Tiberius, the legions of Germany would have seditiously
      constrained Germanicus to assume the Imperial purple. On the
      revolt of Claudius Civilis, under Vespasian, the legions of Gaul
      murdered their general, and offered their assistance to the Gauls
      who were in insurrection. Julius Sabinus made himself be
      proclaimed emperor, &c. The wars, the merit, and the severe
      discipline of Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines,
      established, for some time, a greater degree of subordination.—W]

      31 (return) [ The first was Camillus Scribonianus, who took up
      arms in Dalmatia against Claudius, and was deserted by his own
      troops in five days, the second, L. Antonius, in Germany, who
      rebelled against Domitian; and the third, Avidius Cassius, in the
      reign of M. Antoninus. The two last reigned but a few months, and
      were cut off by their own adherents. We may observe, that both
      Camillus and Cassius colored their ambition with the design of
      restoring the republic; a task, said Cassius peculiarly reserved
      for his name and family.]

      In elective monarchies, the vacancy of the throne is a moment big
      with danger and mischief. The Roman emperors, desirous to spare
      the legions that interval of suspense, and the temptation of an
      irregular choice, invested their designed successor with so large
      a share of present power, as should enable him, after their
      decease, to assume the remainder, without suffering the empire to
      perceive the change of masters. Thus Augustus, after all his
      fairer prospects had been snatched from him by untimely deaths,
      rested his last hopes on Tiberius, obtained for his adopted son
      the censorial and tribunitian powers, and dictated a law, by
      which the future prince was invested with an authority equal to
      his own, over the provinces and the armies. 32 Thus Vespasian
      subdued the generous mind of his eldest son. Titus was adored by
      the eastern legions, which, under his command, had recently
      achieved the conquest of Judæa. His power was dreaded, and, as
      his virtues were clouded by the intemperance of youth, his
      designs were suspected. Instead of listening to such unworthy
      suspicions, the prudent monarch associated Titus to the full
      powers of the Imperial dignity; and the grateful son ever
      approved himself the humble and faithful minister of so indulgent
      a father. 33

      32 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 121. Sueton. in
      Tiber. c. 26.]

      33 (return) [ Sueton. in Tit. c. 6. Plin. in Præfat. Hist.
      Natur.]

      The good sense of Vespasian engaged him indeed to embrace every
      measure that might confirm his recent and precarious elevation.
      The military oath, and the fidelity of the troops, had been
      consecrated, by the habits of a hundred years, to the name and
      family of the Cæsars; and although that family had been continued
      only by the fictitious rite of adoption, the Romans still
      revered, in the person of Nero, the grandson of Germanicus, and
      the lineal successor of Augustus. It was not without reluctance
      and remorse, that the prætorian guards had been persuaded to
      abandon the cause of the tyrant. 34 The rapid downfall of Galba,
      Otho, and Vitellus, taught the armies to consider the emperors as
      the creatures of _their_ will, and the instruments of _their_
      license. The birth of Vespasian was mean: his grandfather had
      been a private soldier, his father a petty officer of the
      revenue; 35 his own merit had raised him, in an advanced age, to
      the empire; but his merit was rather useful than shining, and his
      virtues were disgraced by a strict and even sordid parsimony.
      Such a prince consulted his true interest by the association of a
      son, whose more splendid and amiable character might turn the
      public attention from the obscure origin, to the future glories,
      of the Flavian house. Under the mild administration of Titus, the
      Roman world enjoyed a transient felicity, and his beloved memory
      served to protect, above fifteen years, the vices of his brother
      Domitian.

      34 (return) [ This idea is frequently and strongly inculcated by
      Tacitus. See Hist. i. 5, 16, ii. 76.]

      35 (return) [ The emperor Vespasian, with his usual good sense,
      laughed at the genealogists, who deduced his family from Flavius,
      the founder of Reate, (his native country,) and one of the
      companions of Hercules Suet in Vespasian, c. 12.]

      Nerva had scarcely accepted the purple from the assassins of
      Domitian, before he discovered that his feeble age was unable to
      stem the torrent of public disorders, which had multiplied under
      the long tyranny of his predecessor. His mild disposition was
      respected by the good; but the degenerate Romans required a more
      vigorous character, whose justice should strike terror into the
      guilty. Though he had several relations, he fixed his choice on a
      stranger. He adopted Trajan, then about forty years of age, and
      who commanded a powerful army in the Lower Germany; and
      immediately, by a decree of the senate, declared him his
      colleague and successor in the empire. 36 It is sincerely to be
      lamented, that whilst we are fatigued with the disgustful
      relation of Nero’s crimes and follies, we are reduced to collect
      the actions of Trajan from the glimmerings of an abridgment, or
      the doubtful light of a panegyric. There remains, however, one
      panegyric far removed beyond the suspicion of flattery. Above two
      hundred and fifty years after the death of Trajan, the senate, in
      pouring out the customary acclamations on the accession of a new
      emperor, wished that he might surpass the felicity of Augustus,
      and the virtue of Trajan. 37

      36 (return) [ Dion, l. lxviii. p. 1121. Plin. Secund. in
      Panegyric.]

      37 (return) [ Felicior Augusto, Melior Trajano. Eutrop. viii. 5.]

      We may readily believe, that the father of his country hesitated
      whether he ought to intrust the various and doubtful character of
      his kinsman Hadrian with sovereign power. In his last moments the
      arts of the empress Plotina either fixed the irresolution of
      Trajan, or boldly supposed a fictitious adoption; 38 the truth of
      which could not be safely disputed, and Hadrian was peaceably
      acknowledged as his lawful successor. Under his reign, as has
      been already mentioned, the empire flourished in peace and
      prosperity. He encouraged the arts, reformed the laws, asserted
      military discipline, and visited all his provinces in person. His
      vast and active genius was equally suited to the most enlarged
      views, and the minute details of civil policy. But the ruling
      passions of his soul were curiosity and vanity. As they
      prevailed, and as they were attracted by different objects,
      Hadrian was, by turns, an excellent prince, a ridiculous sophist,
      and a jealous tyrant. The general tenor of his conduct deserved
      praise for its equity and moderation. Yet in the first days of
      his reign, he put to death four consular senators, his personal
      enemies, and men who had been judged worthy of empire; and the
      tediousness of a painful illness rendered him, at last, peevish
      and cruel. The senate doubted whether they should pronounce him a
      god or a tyrant; and the honors decreed to his memory were
      granted to the prayers of the pious Antoninus. 39

      38 (return) [ Dion (l. lxix. p. 1249) affirms the whole to have
      been a fiction, on the authority of his father, who, being
      governor of the province where Trajan died, had very good
      opportunities of sifting this mysterious transaction. Yet Dodwell
      (Prælect. Camden. xvii.) has maintained that Hadrian was called
      to the certain hope of the empire, during the lifetime of
      Trajan.]

      39 (return) [ Dion, (l. lxx. p. 1171.) Aurel. Victor.]

      The caprice of Hadrian influenced his choice of a successor.

      After revolving in his mind several men of distinguished merit,
      whom he esteemed and hated, he adopted Ælius Verus a gay and
      voluptuous nobleman, recommended by uncommon beauty to the lover
      of Antinous. 40 But whilst Hadrian was delighting himself with
      his own applause, and the acclamations of the soldiers, whose
      consent had been secured by an immense donative, the new Cæsar 41
      was ravished from his embraces by an untimely death. He left only
      one son. Hadrian commended the boy to the gratitude of the
      Antonines. He was adopted by Pius; and, on the accession of
      Marcus, was invested with an equal share of sovereign power.
      Among the many vices of this younger Verus, he possessed one
      virtue; a dutiful reverence for his wiser colleague, to whom he
      willingly abandoned the ruder cares of empire. The philosophic
      emperor dissembled his follies, lamented his early death, and
      cast a decent veil over his memory.

      40 (return) [ The deification of Antinous, his medals, his
      statues, temples, city, oracles, and constellation, are well
      known, and still dishonor the memory of Hadrian. Yet we may
      remark, that of the first fifteen emperors, Claudius was the only
      one whose taste in love was entirely correct. For the honors of
      Antinous, see Spanheim, Commentaire sui les Cæsars de Julien, p.
      80.]

      41 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 13. Aurelius Victor in Epitom.]

      As soon as Hadrian’s passion was either gratified or
      disappointed, he resolved to deserve the thanks of posterity, by
      placing the most exalted merit on the Roman throne. His
      discerning eye easily discovered a senator about fifty years of
      age, blameless in all the offices of life; and a youth of about
      seventeen, whose riper years opened a fair prospect of every
      virtue: the elder of these was declared the son and successor of
      Hadrian, on condition, however, that he himself should
      immediately adopt the younger. The two Antonines (for it is of
      them that we are now speaking,) governed the Roman world
      forty-two years, with the same invariable spirit of wisdom and
      virtue. Although Pius had two sons, 42 he preferred the welfare
      of Rome to the interest of his family, gave his daughter
      Faustina, in marriage to young Marcus, obtained from the senate
      the tribunitian and proconsular powers, and, with a noble
      disdain, or rather ignorance of jealousy, associated him to all
      the labors of government. Marcus, on the other hand, revered the
      character of his benefactor, loved him as a parent, obeyed him as
      his sovereign, 43 and, after he was no more, regulated his own
      administration by the example and maxims of his predecessor.
      Their united reigns are possibly the only period of history in
      which the happiness of a great people was the sole object of
      government.

      42 (return) [ Without the help of medals and inscriptions, we
      should be ignorant of this fact, so honorable to the memory of
      Pius. Note: Gibbon attributes to Antoninus Pius a merit which he
      either did not possess, or was not in a situation to display.

      1. He was adopted only on the condition that he would adopt, in
      his turn, Marcus Aurelius and L. Verus.

      2. His two sons died children, and one of them, M. Galerius,
      alone, appears to have survived, for a few years, his father’s
      coronation. Gibbon is also mistaken when he says (note 42) that
      “without the help of medals and inscriptions, we should be
      ignorant that Antoninus had two sons.” Capitolinus says
      expressly, (c. 1,) Filii mares duo, duæ-fœminæ; we only owe
      their names to the medals. Pagi. Cont. Baron, i. 33, edit
      Paris.—W.]

      43 (return) [ During the twenty-three years of Pius’s reign,
      Marcus was only two nights absent from the palace, and even those
      were at different times. Hist. August. p. 25.]

      Titus Antoninus Pius has been justly denominated a second Numa.
      The same love of religion, justice, and peace, was the
      distinguishing characteristic of both princes. But the situation
      of the latter opened a much larger field for the exercise of
      those virtues. Numa could only prevent a few neighboring villages
      from plundering each other’s harvests. Antoninus diffused order
      and tranquillity over the greatest part of the earth. His reign
      is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials
      for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of
      the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. In private life,
      he was an amiable, as well as a good man. The native simplicity
      of his virtue was a stranger to vanity or affectation. He enjoyed
      with moderation the conveniences of his fortune, and the innocent
      pleasures of society; 44 and the benevolence of his soul
      displayed itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.

      44 (return) [ He was fond of the theatre, and not insensible to
      the charms of the fair sex. Marcus Antoninus, i. 16. Hist.
      August. p. 20, 21. Julian in Cæsar.]

      The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of severer and more
      laborious kind. 45 It was the well-earned harvest of many a
      learned conference, of many a patient lecture, and many a
      midnight lucubration. At the age of twelve years he embraced the
      rigid system of the Stoics, which taught him to submit his body
      to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as
      the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external as
      things indifferent. 46 His meditations, composed in the tumult of
      the camp, are still extant; and he even condescended to give
      lessons of philosophy, in a more public manner than was perhaps
      consistent with the modesty of sage, or the dignity of an
      emperor. 47 But his life was the noblest commentary on the
      precepts of Zeno. He was severe to himself, indulgent to the
      imperfections of others, just and beneficent to all mankind. He
      regretted that Avidius Cassius, who excited a rebellion in Syria,
      had disappointed him, by a voluntary death, 471 of the pleasure
      of converting an enemy into a friend;; and he justified the
      sincerity of that sentiment, by moderating the zeal of the senate
      against the adherents of the traitor. 48 War he detested, as the
      disgrace and calamity of human nature; 481 but when the necessity
      of a just defence called upon him to take up arms, he readily
      exposed his person to eight winter campaigns, on the frozen banks
      of the Danube, the severity of which was at last fatal to the
      weakness of his constitution. His memory was revered by a
      grateful posterity, and above a century after his death, many
      persons preserved the image of Marcus Antoninus among those of
      their household gods. 49

      45 (return) [ The enemies of Marcus charged him with hypocrisy,
      and with a want of that simplicity which distinguished Pius and
      even Verus. (Hist. August. 6, 34.) This suspicions, unjust as it
      was, may serve to account for the superior applause bestowed upon
      personal qualifications, in preference to the social virtues.
      Even Marcus Antoninus has been called a hypocrite; but the
      wildest scepticism never insinuated that Cæsar might probably be
      a coward, or Tully a fool. Wit and valor are qualifications more
      easily ascertained than humanity or the love of justice.]

      46 (return) [ Tacitus has characterized, in a few words, the
      principles of the portico: Doctores sapientiæ secutus est, qui
      sola bona quæ honesta, main tantum quæ turpia; potentiam,
      nobilitatem, æteraque extra... bonis neque malis adnumerant.
      Tacit. Hist. iv. 5.]

      47 (return) [ Before he went on the second expedition against the
      Germans, he read lectures of philosophy to the Roman people,
      during three days. He had already done the same in the cities of
      Greece and Asia. Hist. August. in Cassio, c. 3.]

      471 (return) [ Cassius was murdered by his own partisans. Vulcat.
      Gallic. in Cassio, c. 7. Dion, lxxi. c. 27.—W.]

      48 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1190. Hist. August. in Avid.
      Cassio. Note: See one of the newly discovered passages of Dion
      Cassius. Marcus wrote to the senate, who urged the execution of
      the partisans of Cassius, in these words: “I entreat and beseech
      you to preserve my reign unstained by senatorial blood. None of
      your order must perish either by your desire or mine.” Mai.
      Fragm. Vatican. ii. p. 224.—M.]

      481 (return) [ Marcus would not accept the services of any of the
      barbarian allies who crowded to his standard in the war against
      Avidius Cassius. “Barbarians,” he said, with wise but vain
      sagacity, “must not become acquainted with the dissensions of the
      Roman people.” Mai. Fragm Vatican l. 224.—M.]

      49 (return) [ Hist. August. in Marc. Antonin. c. 18.]

      If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the
      world, during which the condition of the human race was most
      happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that
      which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of
      Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by
      absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom. The
      armies were restrained by the firm but gentle hand of four
      successive emperors, whose characters and authority commanded
      involuntary respect. The forms of the civil administration were
      carefully preserved by Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines,
      who delighted in the image of liberty, and were pleased with
      considering themselves as the accountable ministers of the laws.
      Such princes deserved the honor of restoring the republic, had
      the Romans of their days been capable of enjoying a rational
      freedom.

      The labors of these monarchs were overpaid by the immense reward
      that inseparably waited on their success; by the honest pride of
      virtue, and by the exquisite delight of beholding the general
      happiness of which they were the authors. A just but melancholy
      reflection imbittered, however, the noblest of human enjoyments.
      They must often have recollected the instability of a happiness
      which depended on the character of single man. The fatal moment
      was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some
      jealous tyrant, would abuse, to the destruction, that absolute
      power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people.
      The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to
      display the virtues, but could never correct the vices, of the
      emperor. The military force was a blind and irresistible
      instrument of oppression; and the corruption of Roman manners
      would always supply flatterers eager to applaud, and ministers
      prepared to serve, the fear or the avarice, the lust or the
      cruelty, of their master. These gloomy apprehensions had been
      already justified by the experience of the Romans. The annals of
      the emperors exhibit a strong and various picture of human
      nature, which we should vainly seek among the mixed and doubtful
      characters of modern history. In the conduct of those monarchs we
      may trace the utmost lines of vice and virtue; the most exalted
      perfection, and the meanest degeneracy of our own species. The
      golden age of Trajan and the Antonines had been preceded by an
      age of iron. It is almost superfluous to enumerate the unworthy
      successors of Augustus. Their unparalleled vices, and the
      splendid theatre on which they were acted, have saved them from
      oblivion. The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula,
      the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly
      Vitellius, 50 and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to
      everlasting infamy. During fourscore years (excepting only the
      short and doubtful respite of Vespasian’s reign) 51 Rome groaned
      beneath an unremitting tyranny, which exterminated the ancient
      families of the republic, and was fatal to almost every virtue
      and every talent that arose in that unhappy period.

      50 (return) [ Vitellius consumed in mere eating at least six
      millions of our money in about seven months. It is not easy to
      express his vices with dignity, or even decency. Tacitus fairly
      calls him a hog, but it is by substituting for a coarse word a
      very fine image. “At Vitellius, umbraculis hortorum abditus, ut
      ignava animalia, quibus si cibum suggeras, jacent torpentque,
      præterita, instantia, futura, pari oblivione dimiserat. Atque
      illum nemore Aricino desidem et marcentum,” &c. Tacit. Hist. iii.
      36, ii. 95. Sueton. in Vitell. c. 13. Dion. Cassius, l xv. p.
      1062.]

      51 (return) [ The execution of Helvidius Priscus, and of the
      virtuous Eponina, disgraced the reign of Vespasian.]

      Under the reign of these monsters, the slavery of the Romans was
      accompanied with two peculiar circumstances, the one occasioned
      by their former liberty, the other by their extensive conquests,
      which rendered their condition more completely wretched than that
      of the victims of tyranny in any other age or country. From these
      causes were derived, 1. The exquisite sensibility of the
      sufferers; and, 2. The impossibility of escaping from the hand of
      the oppressor.

      I. When Persia was governed by the descendants of Sefi, a race of
      princes whose wanton cruelty often stained their divan, their
      table, and their bed, with the blood of their favorites, there is
      a saying recorded of a young nobleman, that he never departed
      from the sultan’s presence, without satisfying himself whether
      his head was still on his shoulders. The experience of every day
      might almost justify the scepticism of Rustan. 52 Yet the fatal
      sword, suspended above him by a single thread, seems not to have
      disturbed the slumbers, or interrupted the tranquillity, of the
      Persian. The monarch’s frown, he well knew, could level him with
      the dust; but the stroke of lightning or apoplexy might be
      equally fatal; and it was the part of a wise man to forget the
      inevitable calamities of human life in the enjoyment of the
      fleeting hour. He was dignified with the appellation of the
      king’s slave; had, perhaps, been purchased from obscure parents,
      in a country which he had never known; and was trained up from
      his infancy in the severe discipline of the seraglio. 53 His
      name, his wealth, his honors, were the gift of a master, who
      might, without injustice, resume what he had bestowed. Rustan’s
      knowledge, if he possessed any, could only serve to confirm his
      habits by prejudices. His language afforded not words for any
      form of government, except absolute monarchy. The history of the
      East informed him, that such had ever been the condition of
      mankind. 54 The Koran, and the interpreters of that divine book,
      inculcated to him, that the sultan was the descendant of the
      prophet, and the vicegerent of heaven; that patience was the
      first virtue of a Mussulman, and unlimited obedience the great
      duty of a subject.

      52 (return) [ Voyage de Chardin en Perse, vol. iii. p. 293.]

      53 (return) [ The practice of raising slaves to the great offices
      of state is still more common among the Turks than among the
      Persians. The miserable countries of Georgia and Circassia supply
      rulers to the greatest part of the East.]

      54 (return) [ Chardin says, that European travellers have
      diffused among the Persians some ideas of the freedom and
      mildness of our governments. They have done them a very ill
      office.]

      The minds of the Romans were very differently prepared for
      slavery. Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and
      of military violence, they for a long while preserved the
      sentiments, or at least the ideas, of their free-born ancestors.
      The education of Helvidius and Thrasea, of Tacitus and Pliny, was
      the same as that of Cato and Cicero. From Grecian philosophy,
      they had imbibed the justest and most liberal notions of the
      dignity of human nature, and the origin of civil society. The
      history of their own country had taught them to revere a free, a
      virtuous, and a victorious commonwealth; to abhor the successful
      crimes of Cæsar and Augustus; and inwardly to despise those
      tyrants whom they adored with the most abject flattery. As
      magistrates and senators they were admitted into the great
      council, which had once dictated laws to the earth, whose
      authority was so often prostituted to the vilest purposes of
      tyranny. Tiberius, and those emperors who adopted his maxims,
      attempted to disguise their murders by the formalities of
      justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in rendering the
      senate their accomplice as well as their victim. By this
      assembly, the last of the Romans were condemned for imaginary
      crimes and real virtues. Their infamous accusers assumed the
      language of independent patriots, who arraigned a dangerous
      citizen before the tribunal of his country; and the public
      service was rewarded by riches and honors. 55 The servile judges
      professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in
      the person of its first magistrate, 56 whose clemency they most
      applauded when they trembled the most at his inexorable and
      impending cruelty. 57 The tyrant beheld their baseness with just
      contempt, and encountered their secret sentiments of detestation
      with sincere and avowed hatred for the whole body of the senate.

      55 (return) [ They alleged the example of Scipio and Cato,
      (Tacit. Annal. iii. 66.) Marcellus Epirus and Crispus Vibius had
      acquired two millions and a half under Nero. Their wealth, which
      aggravated their crimes, protected them under Vespasian. See
      Tacit. Hist. iv. 43. Dialog. de Orator. c. 8. For one accusation,
      Regulus, the just object of Pliny’s satire, received from the
      senate the consular ornaments, and a present of sixty thousand
      pounds.]

      56 (return) [ The crime of majesty was formerly a treasonable
      offence against the Roman people. As tribunes of the people,
      Augustus and Tiberius applied tit to their own persons, and
      extended it to an infinite latitude. Note: It was Tiberius, not
      Augustus, who first took in this sense the words crimen læsæ
      majestatis. Bachii Trajanus, 27. —W.]

      57 (return) [ After the virtuous and unfortunate widow of
      Germanicus had been put to death, Tiberius received the thanks of
      the senate for his clemency. she had not been publicly strangled;
      nor was the body drawn with a hook to the Gemoniæ, where those of
      common male factors were exposed. See Tacit. Annal. vi. 25.
      Sueton. in Tiberio c. 53.]

      II. The division of Europe into a number of independent states,
      connected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of
      religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most
      beneficial consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern
      tyrant, who should find no resistance either in his own breast,
      or in his people, would soon experience a gentle restraint from
      the example of his equals, the dread of present censure, the
      advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his enemies. The
      object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow limits of his
      dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a secure
      refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of
      complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of
      the Romans filled the world, and when the empire fell into the
      hands of a single person, the world became a safe and dreary
      prison for his enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether
      he was condemned to drag his gilded chain in rome and the senate,
      or to were out a life of exile on the barren rock of Seriphus, or
      the frozen bank of the Danube, expected his fate in silent
      despair. 58 To resist was fatal, and it was impossible to fly. On
      every side he was encompassed with a vast extent of sea and land,
      which he could never hope to traverse without being discovered,
      seized, and restored to his irritated master. Beyond the
      frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing, except the
      ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians, of
      fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings, who
      would gladly purchase the emperor’s protection by the sacrifice
      of an obnoxious fugitive. 59 “Wherever you are,” said Cicero to
      the exiled Marcellus, “remember that you are equally within the
      power of the conqueror.” 60

      58 (return) [ Seriphus was a small rocky island in the Ægean Sea,
      the inhabitants of which were despised for their ignorance and
      obscurity. The place of Ovid’s exile is well known, by his just,
      but unmanly lamentations. It should seem, that he only received
      an order to leave rome in so many days, and to transport himself
      to Tomi. Guards and jailers were unnecessary.]

      59 (return) [ Under Tiberius, a Roman knight attempted to fly to
      the Parthians. He was stopped in the straits of Sicily; but so
      little danger did there appear in the example, that the most
      jealous of tyrants disdained to punish it. Tacit. Annal. vi. 14.]

      60 (return) [ Cicero ad Familiares, iv. 7.]




      Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part I.

     The Cruelty, Follies, And Murder Of Commodus—Election Of
     Pertinax—His Attempts To Reform The State—His Assassination By The
     Prætorian Guards.

      The mildness of Marcus, which the rigid discipline of the Stoics
      was unable to eradicate, formed, at the same time, the most
      amiable, and the only defective part of his character. His
      excellent understanding was often deceived by the unsuspecting
      goodness of his heart. Artful men, who study the passions of
      princes, and conceal their own, approached his person in the
      disguise of philosophic sanctity, and acquired riches and honors
      by affecting to despise them. 1 His excessive indulgence to his
      brother, 105 his wife, and his son, exceeded the bounds of
      private virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and
      consequences of their vices.

      1 (return) [ See the complaints of Avidius Cassius, Hist. August.
      p. 45. These are, it is true, the complaints of faction; but even
      faction exaggerates, rather than invents.]

      105 (return) [ His brother by adoption, and his colleague, L.
      Verus. Marcus Aurelius had no other brother.—W.]

      Faustina, the daughter of Pius and the wife of Marcus, has been
      as much celebrated for her gallantries as for her beauty. The
      grave simplicity of the philosopher was ill calculated to engage
      her wanton levity, or to fix that unbounded passion for variety,
      which often discovered personal merit in the meanest of mankind.
      2 The Cupid of the ancients was, in general, a very sensual
      deity; and the amours of an empress, as they exact on her side
      the plainest advances, are seldom susceptible of much sentimental
      delicacy. Marcus was the only man in the empire who seemed
      ignorant or insensible of the irregularities of Faustina; which,
      according to the prejudices of every age, reflected some disgrace
      on the injured husband. He promoted several of her lovers to
      posts of honor and profit, 3 and during a connection of thirty
      years, invariably gave her proofs of the most tender confidence,
      and of a respect which ended not with her life. In his
      Meditations, he thanks the gods, who had bestowed on him a wife
      so faithful, so gentle, and of such a wonderful simplicity of
      manners. 4 The obsequious senate, at his earnest request,
      declared her a goddess. She was represented in her temples, with
      the attributes of Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed,
      that, on the day of their nuptials, the youth of either sex
      should pay their vows before the altar of their chaste patroness.
      5

      2 (return) [ Faustinam satis constat apud Cajetam conditiones
      sibi et nauticas et gladiatorias, elegisse. Hist. August. p. 30.
      Lampridius explains the sort of merit which Faustina chose, and
      the conditions which she exacted. Hist. August. p. 102.]

      3 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 34.]

      4 (return) [ Meditat. l. i. The world has laughed at the
      credulity of Marcus but Madam Dacier assures us, (and we may
      credit a lady,) that the husband will always be deceived, if the
      wife condescends to dissemble.]

      5 (return) [Footnote 5: Dion Cassius, l. lxxi. [c. 31,] p. 1195.
      Hist. August. p. 33. Commentaire de Spanheim sur les Cæsars de
      Julien, p. 289. The deification of Faustina is the only defect
      which Julian’s criticism is able to discover in the
      all-accomplished character of Marcus.]

      The monstrous vices of the son have cast a shade on the purity of
      the father’s virtues. It has been objected to Marcus, that he
      sacrificed the happiness of millions to a fond partiality for a
      worthless boy; and that he chose a successor in his own family,
      rather than in the republic. Nothing however, was neglected by
      the anxious father, and by the men of virtue and learning whom he
      summoned to his assistance, to expand the narrow mind of young
      Commodus, to correct his growing vices, and to render him worthy
      of the throne for which he was designed. But the power of
      instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy
      dispositions where it is almost superfluous. The distasteful
      lesson of a grave philosopher was, in a moment, obliterated by
      the whisper of a profligate favorite; and Marcus himself blasted
      the fruits of this labored education, by admitting his son, at
      the age of fourteen or fifteen, to a full participation of the
      Imperial power. He lived but four years afterwards: but he lived
      long enough to repent a rash measure, which raised the impetuous
      youth above the restraint of reason and authority.

      Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society,
      are produced by the restraints which the necessary but unequal
      laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by
      confining to a few the possession of those objects that are
      coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of
      power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the
      pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the
      tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force,
      and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The
      ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of
      success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future
      dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the
      voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has
      been stained with civil blood; but these motives will not account
      for the unprovoked cruelties of Commodus, who had nothing to wish
      and every thing to enjoy. The beloved son of Marcus succeeded to
      his father, amidst the acclamations of the senate and armies; 6
      and when he ascended the throne, the happy youth saw round him
      neither competitor to remove, nor enemies to punish. In this
      calm, elevated station, it was surely natural that he should
      prefer the love of mankind to their detestation, the mild glories
      of his five predecessors to the ignominious fate of Nero and
      Domitian.

      6 (return) [ Commodus was the first _Porphyrogenitus_, (born
      since his father’s accession to the throne.) By a new strain of
      flattery, the Egyptian medals date by the years of his life; as
      if they were synonymous to those of his reign. Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. ii. p. 752.]

      Yet Commodus was not, as he has been represented, a tiger born
      with an insatiate thirst of human blood, and capable, from his
      infancy, of the most inhuman actions. 7 Nature had formed him of
      a weak rather than a wicked disposition. His simplicity and
      timidity rendered him the slave of his attendants, who gradually
      corrupted his mind. His cruelty, which at first obeyed the
      dictates of others, degenerated into habit, and at length became
      the ruling passion of his soul. 8

      7 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 46.]

      8 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1203.]

      Upon the death of his father, Commodus found himself embarrassed
      with the command of a great army, and the conduct of a difficult
      war against the Quadi and Marcomanni. 9 The servile and
      profligate youths whom Marcus had banished, soon regained their
      station and influence about the new emperor. They exaggerated the
      hardships and dangers of a campaign in the wild countries beyond
      the Danube; and they assured the indolent prince that the terror
      of his name, and the arms of his lieutenants, would be sufficient
      to complete the conquest of the dismayed barbarians, or to impose
      such conditions as were more advantageous than any conquest. By a
      dexterous application to his sensual appetites, they compared the
      tranquillity, the splendor, the refined pleasures of Rome, with
      the tumult of a Pannonian camp, which afforded neither leisure
      nor materials for luxury. 10 Commodus listened to the pleasing
      advice; but whilst he hesitated between his own inclination and
      the awe which he still retained for his father’s counsellors, the
      summer insensibly elapsed, and his triumphal entry into the
      capital was deferred till the autumn. His graceful person, 11
      popular address, and imagined virtues, attracted the public
      favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
      barbarians, diffused a universal joy; 12 his impatience to
      revisit Rome was fondly ascribed to the love of his country; and
      his dissolute course of amusements was faintly condemned in a
      prince of nineteen years of age.

      9 (return) [ According to Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 25,) he died at
      Sirmium. But the situation of Vindobona, or Vienna, where both
      the Victors place his death, is better adapted to the operations
      of the war against the Marcomanni and Quadi.]

      10 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 12.]

      11 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 16.]

      12 (return) [ This universal joy is well described (from the
      medals as well as historians) by Mr. Wotton, Hist. of Rome, p.
      192, 193.] During the three first years of his reign, the forms,
      and even the spirit, of the old administration, were maintained
      by those faithful counsellors, to whom Marcus had recommended his
      son, and for whose wisdom and integrity Commodus still
      entertained a reluctant esteem. The young prince and his
      profligate favorites revelled in all the license of sovereign
      power; but his hands were yet unstained with blood; and he had
      even displayed a generosity of sentiment, which might perhaps
      have ripened into solid virtue. 13 A fatal incident decided his
      fluctuating character.

      13 (return) [ Manilius, the confidential secretary of Avidius
      Cassius, was discovered after he had lain concealed several
      years. The emperor nobly relieved the public anxiety by refusing
      to see him, and burning his papers without opening them. Dion
      Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1209.]

      One evening, as the emperor was returning to the palace, through
      a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre, 14 an assassin,
      who waited his passage, rushed upon him with a drawn sword,
      loudly exclaiming, “_The senate sends you this_.” The menace
      prevented the deed; the assassin was seized by the guards, and
      immediately revealed the authors of the conspiracy. It had been
      formed, not in the state, but within the walls of the palace.
      Lucilla, the emperor’s sister, and widow of Lucius Verus,
      impatient of the second rank, and jealous of the reigning
      empress, had armed the murderer against her brother’s life. She
      had not ventured to communicate the black design to her second
      husband, Claudius Pompeiarus, a senator of distinguished merit
      and unshaken loyalty; but among the crowd of her lovers (for she
      imitated the manners of Faustina) she found men of desperate
      fortunes and wild ambition, who were prepared to serve her more
      violent, as well as her tender passions. The conspirators
      experienced the rigor of justice, and the abandoned princess was
      punished, first with exile, and afterwards with death. 15

      14 (return) [See Maffei degli Amphitheatri, p. 126.]

      15 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1205 Herodian, l. i. p. 16 Hist.
      August p. 46.]

      But the words of the assassin sunk deep into the mind of
      Commodus, and left an indelible impression of fear and hatred
      against the whole body of the senate. 151 Those whom he had
      dreaded as importunate ministers, he now suspected as secret
      enemies. The Delators, a race of men discouraged, and almost
      extinguished, under the former reigns, again became formidable,
      as soon as they discovered that the emperor was desirous of
      finding disaffection and treason in the senate. That assembly,
      whom Marcus had ever considered as the great council of the
      nation, was composed of the most distinguished of the Romans; and
      distinction of every kind soon became criminal. The possession of
      wealth stimulated the diligence of the informers; rigid virtue
      implied a tacit censure of the irregularities of Commodus;
      important services implied a dangerous superiority of merit; and
      the friendship of the father always insured the aversion of the
      son. Suspicion was equivalent to proof; trial to condemnation.
      The execution of a considerable senator was attended with the
      death of all who might lament or revenge his fate; and when
      Commodus had once tasted human blood, he became incapable of pity
      or remorse.

      151 (return) [ The conspirators were senators, even the assassin
      himself. Herod. 81.—G.]

      Of these innocent victims of tyranny, none died more lamented
      than the two brothers of the Quintilian family, Maximus and
      Condianus; whose fraternal love has saved their names from
      oblivion, and endeared their memory to posterity. Their studies
      and their occupations, their pursuits and their pleasures, were
      still the same. In the enjoyment of a great estate, they never
      admitted the idea of a separate interest: some fragments are now
      extant of a treatise which they composed in common; 152 and in
      every action of life it was observed that their two bodies were
      animated by one soul. The Antonines, who valued their virtues,
      and delighted in their union, raised them, in the same year, to
      the consulship; and Marcus afterwards intrusted to their joint
      care the civil administration of Greece, and a great military
      command, in which they obtained a signal victory over the
      Germans. The kind cruelty of Commodus united them in death. 16

      152 (return) [ This work was on agriculture, and is often quoted
      by later writers. See P. Needham, Proleg. ad Geoponic. Camb.
      1704.—W.]

      16 (return) [ In a note upon the Augustan History, Casaubon has
      collected a number of particulars concerning these celebrated
      brothers. See p. 96 of his learned commentary.]

      The tyrant’s rage, after having shed the noblest blood of the
      senate, at length recoiled on the principal instrument of his
      cruelty. Whilst Commodus was immersed in blood and luxury, he
      devolved the detail of the public business on Perennis, a servile
      and ambitious minister, who had obtained his post by the murder
      of his predecessor, but who possessed a considerable share of
      vigor and ability. By acts of extortion, and the forfeited
      estates of the nobles sacrificed to his avarice, he had
      accumulated an immense treasure. The Prætorian guards were under
      his immediate command; and his son, who already discovered a
      military genius, was at the head of the Illyrian legions.
      Perennis aspired to the empire; or what, in the eyes of Commodus,
      amounted to the same crime, he was capable of aspiring to it, had
      he not been prevented, surprised, and put to death. The fall of a
      minister is a very trifling incident in the general history of
      the empire; but it was hastened by an extraordinary circumstance,
      which proved how much the nerves of discipline were already
      relaxed. The legions of Britain, discontented with the
      administration of Perennis, formed a deputation of fifteen
      hundred select men, with instructions to march to Rome, and lay
      their complaints before the emperor. These military petitioners,
      by their own determined behaviour, by inflaming the divisions of
      the guards, by exaggerating the strength of the British army, and
      by alarming the fears of Commodus, exacted and obtained the
      minister’s death, as the only redress of their grievances. 17
      This presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of the
      weakness of government, was a sure presage of the most dreadful
      convulsions.

      17 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1210. Herodian, l. i. p. 22.
      Hist. August. p. 48. Dion gives a much less odious character of
      Perennis, than the other historians. His moderation is almost a
      pledge of his veracity. Note: Gibbon praises Dion for the
      moderation with which he speaks of Perennis: he follows,
      nevertheless, in his own narrative, Herodian and Lampridius. Dion
      speaks of Perennis not only with moderation, but with admiration;
      he represents him as a great man, virtuous in his life, and
      blameless in his death: perhaps he may be suspected of
      partiality; but it is singular that Gibbon, having adopted, from
      Herodian and Lampridius, their judgment on this minister, follows
      Dion’s improbable account of his death. What likelihood, in fact,
      that fifteen hundred men should have traversed Gaul and Italy,
      and have arrived at Rome without any understanding with the
      Prætorians, or without detection or opposition from Perennis, the
      Prætorian præfect? Gibbon, foreseeing, perhaps, this difficulty,
      has added, that the military deputation inflamed the divisions of
      the guards; but Dion says expressly that they did not reach Rome,
      but that the emperor went out to meet them: he even reproaches
      him for not having opposed them with the guards, who were
      superior in number. Herodian relates that Commodus, having
      learned, from a soldier, the ambitious designs of Perennis and
      his son, caused them to be attacked and massacred by night.—G.
      from W. Dion’s narrative is remarkably circumstantial, and his
      authority higher than either of the other writers. He hints that
      Cleander, a new favorite, had already undermined the influence of
      Perennis.—M.]

      The negligence of the public administration was betrayed, soon
      afterwards, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest
      beginnings. A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the
      troops: and the deserters, instead of seeking their safety in
      flight or concealment, infested the highways. Maternus, a private
      soldier, of a daring boldness above his station, collected these
      bands of robbers into a little army, set open the prisons,
      invited the slaves to assert their freedom, and plundered with
      impunity the rich and defenceless cities of Gaul and Spain. The
      governors of the provinces, who had long been the spectators, and
      perhaps the partners, of his depredations, were, at length,
      roused from their supine indolence by the threatening commands of
      the emperor. Maternus found that he was encompassed, and foresaw
      that he must be overpowered. A great effort of despair was his
      last resource. He ordered his followers to disperse, to pass the
      Alps in small parties and various disguises, and to assemble at
      Rome, during the licentious tumult of the festival of Cybele. 18
      To murder Commodus, and to ascend the vacant throne, was the
      ambition of no vulgar robber. His measures were so ably concerted
      that his concealed troops already filled the streets of Rome. The
      envy of an accomplice discovered and ruined this singular
      enterprise, in a moment when it was ripe for execution. 19

      18 (return) [ During the second Punic war, the Romans imported
      from Asia the worship of the mother of the gods. Her festival,
      the Megalesia, began on the fourth of April, and lasted six days.
      The streets were crowded with mad processions, the theatres with
      spectators, and the public tables with unbidden guests. Order and
      police were suspended, and pleasure was the only serious business
      of the city. See Ovid. de Fastis, l. iv. 189, &c.]

      19 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 23, 23.]

      Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind, from a vain
      persuasion, that those who have no dependence, except on their
      favor, will have no attachment, except to the person of their
      benefactor. Cleander, the successor of Perennis, was a Phrygian
      by birth; of a nation over whose stubborn, but servile temper,
      blows only could prevail. 20 He had been sent from his native
      country to Rome, in the capacity of a slave. As a slave he
      entered the Imperial palace, rendered himself useful to his
      master’s passions, and rapidly ascended to the most exalted
      station which a subject could enjoy. His influence over the mind
      of Commodus was much greater than that of his predecessor; for
      Cleander was devoid of any ability or virtue which could inspire
      the emperor with envy or distrust. Avarice was the reigning
      passion of his soul, and the great principle of his
      administration. The rank of Consul, of Patrician, of Senator, was
      exposed to public sale; and it would have been considered as
      disaffection, if any one had refused to purchase these empty and
      disgraceful honors with the greatest part of his fortune. 21 In
      the lucrative provincial employments, the minister shared with
      the governor the spoils of the people. The execution of the laws
      was penal and arbitrary. A wealthy criminal might obtain, not
      only the reversal of the sentence by which he was justly
      condemned, but might likewise inflict whatever punishment he
      pleased on the accuser, the witnesses, and the judge.

      20 (return) [ Cicero pro Flacco, c. 27.]

      21 (return) [ One of these dear-bought promotions occasioned a
      current... that Julius Solon was banished into the senate.]

      By these means, Cleander, in the space of three years, had
      accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any
      freedman. 22 Commodus was perfectly satisfied with the
      magnificent presents which the artful courtier laid at his feet
      in the most seasonable moments. To divert the public envy,
      Cleander, under the emperor’s name, erected baths, porticos, and
      places of exercise, for the use of the people. 23 He flattered
      himself that the Romans, dazzled and amused by this apparent
      liberality, would be less affected by the bloody scenes which
      were daily exhibited; that they would forget the death of
      Byrrhus, a senator to whose superior merit the late emperor had
      granted one of his daughters; and that they would forgive the
      execution of Arrius Antoninus, the last representative of the
      name and virtues of the Antonines. The former, with more
      integrity than prudence, had attempted to disclose, to his
      brother-in-law, the true character of Cleander. An equitable
      sentence pronounced by the latter, when proconsul of Asia,
      against a worthless creature of the favorite, proved fatal to
      him. 24 After the fall of Perennis, the terrors of Commodus had,
      for a short time, assumed the appearance of a return to virtue.
      He repealed the most odious of his acts; loaded his memory with
      the public execration, and ascribed to the pernicious counsels of
      that wicked minister all the errors of his inexperienced youth.
      But his repentance lasted only thirty days; and, under Cleander’s
      tyranny, the administration of Perennis was often regretted.

      22 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxii. p. 12, 13) observes, that no
      freedman had possessed riches equal to those of Cleander. The
      fortune of Pallas amounted, however, to upwards of five and
      twenty hundred thousand pounds; Ter millies.]

      23 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 12, 13. Herodian, l. i. p. 29.
      Hist. August. p. 52. These baths were situated near the Porta
      Capena. See Nardini Roma Antica, p. 79.]

      24 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 79.]




      Chapter IV: The Cruelty, Follies And Murder Of Commodus.—Part II.

      Pestilence and famine contributed to fill up the measure of the
      calamities of Rome. 25 The first could be only imputed to the
      just indignation of the gods; but a monopoly of corn, supported
      by the riches and power of the minister, was considered as the
      immediate cause of the second. The popular discontent, after it
      had long circulated in whispers, broke out in the assembled
      circus. The people quitted their favorite amusements for the more
      delicious pleasure of revenge, rushed in crowds towards a palace
      in the suburbs, one of the emperor’s retirements, and demanded,
      with angry clamors, the head of the public enemy. Cleander, who
      commanded the Prætorian guards, 26 ordered a body of cavalry to
      sally forth, and disperse the seditious multitude. The multitude
      fled with precipitation towards the city; several were slain, and
      many more were trampled to death; but when the cavalry entered
      the streets, their pursuit was checked by a shower of stones and
      darts from the roofs and windows of the houses. The foot guards,
      27 who had been long jealous of the prerogatives and insolence of
      the Prætorian cavalry, embraced the party of the people. The
      tumult became a regular engagement, and threatened a general
      massacre. The Prætorians, at length, gave way, oppressed with
      numbers; and the tide of popular fury returned with redoubled
      violence against the gates of the palace, where Commodus lay,
      dissolved in luxury, and alone unconscious of the civil war. It
      was death to approach his person with the unwelcome news. He
      would have perished in this supine security, had not two women,
      his eldest sister Fadilla, and Marcia, the most favored of his
      concubines, ventured to break into his presence. Bathed in tears,
      and with dishevelled hair, they threw themselves at his feet; and
      with all the pressing eloquence of fear, discovered to the
      affrighted emperor the crimes of the minister, the rage of the
      people, and the impending ruin, which, in a few minutes, would
      burst over his palace and person. Commodus started from his dream
      of pleasure, and commanded that the head of Cleander should be
      thrown out to the people. The desired spectacle instantly
      appeased the tumult; and the son of Marcus might even yet have
      regained the affection and confidence of his subjects. 28

      25 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 28. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1215. The
      latter says that two thousand persons died every day at Rome,
      during a considerable length of time.]

      26 (return) [ Tuneque primum tres præfecti prætorio fuere: inter
      quos libertinus. From some remains of modesty, Cleander declined
      the title, whilst he assumed the powers, of Prætorian præfect. As
      the other freedmen were styled, from their several departments, a
      rationibus, ab epistolis, Cleander called himself a pugione, as
      intrusted with the defence of his master’s person. Salmasius and
      Casaubon seem to have talked very idly upon this passage. * Note:
      M. Guizot denies that Lampridius means Cleander as præfect a
      pugione. The Libertinus seems to me to mean him.—M.]

      27 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 31. It is doubtful whether he
      means the Prætorian infantry, or the cohortes urbanæ, a body of
      six thousand men, but whose rank and discipline were not equal to
      their numbers. Neither Tillemont nor Wotton choose to decide this
      question.]

      28 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxii. p. 1215. Herodian, l. i. p.
      32. Hist. August. p. 48.]

      But every sentiment of virtue and humanity was extinct in the
      mind of Commodus. Whilst he thus abandoned the reins of empire to
      these unworthy favorites, he valued nothing in sovereign power,
      except the unbounded license of indulging his sensual appetites.
      His hours were spent in a seraglio of three hundred beautiful
      women, and as many boys, of every rank, and of every province;
      and, wherever the arts of seduction proved ineffectual, the
      brutal lover had recourse to violence. The ancient historians 29
      have expatiated on these abandoned scenes of prostitution, which
      scorned every restraint of nature or modesty; but it would not be
      easy to translate their too faithful descriptions into the
      decency of modern language. The intervals of lust were filled up
      with the basest amusements. The influence of a polite age, and
      the labor of an attentive education, had never been able to
      infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of
      learning; and he was the first of the Roman emperors totally
      devoid of taste for the pleasures of the understanding. Nero
      himself excelled, or affected to excel, in the elegant arts of
      music and poetry: nor should we despise his pursuits, had he not
      converted the pleasing relaxation of a leisure hour into the
      serious business and ambition of his life. But Commodus, from his
      earliest infancy, discovered an aversion to whatever was rational
      or liberal, and a fond attachment to the amusements of the
      populace; the sports of the circus and amphitheatre, the combats
      of gladiators, and the hunting of wild beasts. The masters in
      every branch of learning, whom Marcus provided for his son, were
      heard with inattention and disgust; whilst the Moors and
      Parthians, who taught him to dart the javelin and to shoot with
      the bow, found a disciple who delighted in his application, and
      soon equalled the most skilful of his instructors in the
      steadiness of the eye and the dexterity of the hand.

      29 (return) [ Sororibus suis constupratis. Ipsas concubinas suas
      sub oculis...stuprari jubebat. Nec irruentium in se juvenum
      carebat infamia, omni parte corporis atque ore in sexum utrumque
      pollutus. Hist. Aug. p. 47.]

      The servile crowd, whose fortune depended on their master’s
      vices, applauded these ignoble pursuits. The perfidious voice of
      flattery reminded him, that by exploits of the same nature, by
      the defeat of the Nemæan lion, and the slaughter of the wild boar
      of Erymanthus, the Grecian Hercules had acquired a place among
      the gods, and an immortal memory among men. They only forgot to
      observe, that, in the first ages of society, when the fiercer
      animals often dispute with man the possession of an unsettled
      country, a successful war against those savages is one of the
      most innocent and beneficial labors of heroism. In the civilized
      state of the Roman empire, the wild beasts had long since retired
      from the face of man, and the neighborhood of populous cities. To
      surprise them in their solitary haunts, and to transport them to
      Rome, that they might be slain in pomp by the hand of an emperor,
      was an enterprise equally ridiculous for the prince and
      oppressive for the people. 30 Ignorant of these distinctions,
      Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance, and styled
      himself (as we still read on his medals31) the _Roman Hercules_.
      311 The club and the lion’s hide were placed by the side of the
      throne, amongst the ensigns of sovereignty; and statues were
      erected, in which Commodus was represented in the character, and
      with the attributes, of the god, whose valor and dexterity he
      endeavored to emulate in the daily course of his ferocious
      amusements. 32

      30 (return) [ The African lions, when pressed by hunger, infested
      the open villages and cultivated country; and they infested them
      with impunity. The royal beast was reserved for the pleasures of
      the emperor and the capital; and the unfortunate peasant who
      killed one of them though in his own defence, incurred a very
      heavy penalty. This extraordinary game-law was mitigated by
      Honorius, and finally repealed by Justinian. Codex Theodos. tom.
      v. p. 92, et Comment Gothofred.]

      31 (return) [ Spanheim de Numismat. Dissertat. xii. tom. ii. p.
      493.]

      311 (return) [ Commodus placed his own head on the colossal
      statue of Hercules with the inscription, Lucius Commodus
      Hercules. The wits of Rome, according to a new fragment of Dion,
      published an epigram, of which, like many other ancient jests,
      the point is not very clear. It seems to be a protest of the god
      against being confounded with the emperor. Mai Fragm. Vatican.
      ii. 225.—M.]

      32 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1216. Hist. August. p. 49.]

      Elated with these praises, which gradually extinguished the
      innate sense of shame, Commodus resolved to exhibit before the
      eyes of the Roman people those exercises, which till then he had
      decently confined within the walls of his palace, and to the
      presence of a few favorites. On the appointed day, the various
      motives of flattery, fear, and curiosity, attracted to the
      amphitheatre an innumerable multitude of spectators; and some
      degree of applause was deservedly bestowed on the uncommon skill
      of the Imperial performer. Whether he aimed at the head or heart
      of the animal, the wound was alike certain and mortal. With
      arrows whose point was shaped into the form of crescent, Commodus
      often intercepted the rapid career, and cut asunder the long,
      bony neck of the ostrich. 33 A panther was let loose; and the
      archer waited till he had leaped upon a trembling malefactor. In
      the same instant the shaft flew, the beast dropped dead, and the
      man remained unhurt. The dens of the amphitheatre disgorged at
      once a hundred lions: a hundred darts from the unerring hand of
      Commodus laid them dead as they run raging round the _Arena_.
      Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the
      rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Æthiopia and India
      yielded their most extraordinary productions; and several animals
      were slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in the
      representations of art, or perhaps of fancy. 34 In all these
      exhibitions, the securest precautions were used to protect the
      person of the Roman Hercules from the desperate spring of any
      savage, who might possibly disregard the dignity of the emperor
      and the sanctity of the god. 35

      33 (return) [ The ostrich’s neck is three feet long, and composed
      of seventeen vertebræ. See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle.]

      34 (return) [ Commodus killed a camelopardalis or Giraffe, (Dion,
      l. lxxii. p. 1211,) the tallest, the most gentle, and the most
      useless of the large quadrupeds. This singular animal, a native
      only of the interior parts of Africa, has not been seen in Europe
      since the revival of letters; and though M. de Buffon (Hist.
      Naturelle, tom. xiii.) has endeavored to describe, he has not
      ventured to delineate, the Giraffe. * Note: The naturalists of
      our days have been more fortunate. London probably now contains
      more specimens of this animal than have been seen in Europe since
      the fall of the Roman empire, unless in the pleasure gardens of
      the emperor Frederic II., in Sicily, which possessed several.
      Frederic’s collections of wild beasts were exhibited, for the
      popular amusement, in many parts of Italy. Raumer, Geschichte der
      Hohenstaufen, v. iii. p. 571. Gibbon, moreover, is mistaken; as a
      giraffe was presented to Lorenzo de Medici, either by the sultan
      of Egypt or the king of Tunis. Contemporary authorities are
      quoted in the old work, Gesner de Quadrupedibum p. 162.—M.]

      35 (return) [ Herodian, l. i. p. 37. Hist. August. p. 50.]

      But the meanest of the populace were affected with shame and
      indignation when they beheld their sovereign enter the lists as a
      gladiator, and glory in a profession which the laws and manners
      of the Romans had branded with the justest note of infamy. 36 He
      chose the habit and arms of the _Secutor_, whose combat with the
      _Retiarius_ formed one of the most lively scenes in the bloody
      sports of the amphitheatre. The _Secutor_ was armed with a
      helmet, sword, and buckler; his naked antagonist had only a large
      net and a trident; with the one he endeavored to entangle, with
      the other to despatch his enemy. If he missed the first throw, he
      was obliged to fly from the pursuit of the _Secutor_, till he had
      prepared his net for a second cast. 37 The emperor fought in this
      character seven hundred and thirty-five several times. These
      glorious achievements were carefully recorded in the public acts
      of the empire; and that he might omit no circumstance of infamy,
      he received from the common fund of gladiators a stipend so
      exorbitant that it became a new and most ignominious tax upon the
      Roman people. 38 It may be easily supposed, that in these
      engagements the master of the world was always successful; in the
      amphitheatre, his victories were not often sanguinary; but when
      he exercised his skill in the school of gladiators, or his own
      palace, his wretched antagonists were frequently honored with a
      mortal wound from the hand of Commodus, and obliged to seal their
      flattery with their blood. 39 He now disdained the appellation of
      Hercules. The name of Paulus, a celebrated Secutor, was the only
      one which delighted his ear. It was inscribed on his colossal
      statues, and repeated in the redoubled acclamations 40 of the
      mournful and applauding senate. 41 Claudius Pompeianus, the
      virtuous husband of Lucilla, was the only senator who asserted
      the honor of his rank. As a father, he permitted his sons to
      consult their safety by attending the amphitheatre. As a Roman,
      he declared, that his own life was in the emperor’s hands, but
      that he would never behold the son of Marcus prostituting his
      person and dignity. Notwithstanding his manly resolution
      Pompeianus escaped the resentment of the tyrant, and, with his
      honor, had the good fortune to preserve his life. 42

      36 (return) [ The virtuous and even the wise princes forbade the
      senators and knights to embrace this scandalous profession, under
      pain of infamy, or, what was more dreaded by those profligate
      wretches, of exile. The tyrants allured them to dishonor by
      threats and rewards. Nero once produced in the arena forty
      senators and sixty knights. See Lipsius, Saturnalia, l. ii. c. 2.
      He has happily corrected a passage of Suetonius in Nerone, c.
      12.]

      37 (return) [ Lipsius, l. ii. c. 7, 8. Juvenal, in the eighth
      satire, gives a picturesque description of this combat.]

      38 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 50. Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1220. He
      received, for each time, decies, about 8000l. sterling.]

      39 (return) [ Victor tells us, that Commodus only allowed his
      antagonists a...weapon, dreading most probably the consequences
      of their despair.]

      40 (return) [Footnote 40: They were obliged to repeat, six
      hundred and twenty-six times, Paolus first of the Secutors, &c.]

      41 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1221. He speaks of his own
      baseness and danger.]

      42 (return) [ He mixed, however, some prudence with his courage,
      and passed the greatest part of his time in a country retirement;
      alleging his advanced age, and the weakness of his eyes. “I never
      saw him in the senate,” says Dion, “except during the short reign
      of Pertinax.” All his infirmities had suddenly left him, and they
      returned as suddenly upon the murder of that excellent prince.
      Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1227.]

      Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst
      the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise
      from himself, that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of
      every man of sense and virtue in his empire. His ferocious spirit
      was irritated by the consciousness of that hatred, by the envy of
      every kind of merit, by the just apprehension of danger, and by
      the habit of slaughter, which he contracted in his daily
      amusements. History has preserved a long list of consular
      senators sacrificed to his wanton suspicion, which sought out,
      with peculiar anxiety, those unfortunate persons connected,
      however remotely, with the family of the Antonines, without
      sparing even the ministers of his crimes or pleasures. 43 His
      cruelty proved at last fatal to himself. He had shed with
      impunity the noblest blood of Rome: he perished as soon as he was
      dreaded by his own domestics. Marcia, his favorite concubine,
      Eclectus, his chamberlain, and Lætus, his Prætorian præfect,
      alarmed by the fate of their companions and predecessors,
      resolved to prevent the destruction which every hour hung over
      their heads, either from the mad caprice of the tyrant, 431 or
      the sudden indignation of the people. Marcia seized the occasion
      of presenting a draught of wine to her lover, after he had
      fatigued himself with hunting some wild beasts. Commodus retired
      to sleep; but whilst he was laboring with the effects of poison
      and drunkenness, a robust youth, by profession a wrestler,
      entered his chamber, and strangled him without resistance. The
      body was secretly conveyed out of the palace, before the least
      suspicion was entertained in the city, or even in the court, of
      the emperor’s death. Such was the fate of the son of Marcus, and
      so easy was it to destroy a hated tyrant, who, by the artificial
      powers of government, had oppressed, during thirteen years, so
      many millions of subjects, each of whom was equal to their master
      in personal strength and personal abilities. 44

      43 (return) [ The prefects were changed almost hourly or daily;
      and the caprice of Commodus was often fatal to his most favored
      chamberlains. Hist. August. p. 46, 51.]

      431 (return) [ Commodus had already resolved to massacre them the
      following night they determined o anticipate his design. Herod.
      i. 17.—W.]

      44 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxii. p. 1222. Herodian, l. i. p. 43.
      Hist. August. p. 52.]

      The measures of the conspirators were conducted with the
      deliberate coolness and celerity which the greatness of the
      occasion required. They resolved instantly to fill the vacant
      throne with an emperor whose character would justify and maintain
      the action that had been committed. They fixed on Pertinax,
      præfect of the city, an ancient senator of consular rank, whose
      conspicuous merit had broke through the obscurity of his birth,
      and raised him to the first honors of the state. He had
      successively governed most of the provinces of the empire; and in
      all his great employments, military as well as civil, he had
      uniformly distinguished himself by the firmness, the prudence,
      and the integrity of his conduct. 45 He now remained almost alone
      of the friends and ministers of Marcus; and when, at a late hour
      of the night, he was awakened with the news, that the chamberlain
      and the præfect were at his door, he received them with intrepid
      resignation, and desired they would execute their master’s
      orders. Instead of death, they offered him the throne of the
      Roman world. During some moments he distrusted their intentions
      and assurances. Convinced at length of the death of Commodus, he
      accepted the purple with a sincere reluctance, the natural effect
      of his knowledge both of the duties and of the dangers of the
      supreme rank. 46

      45 (return) [ Pertinax was a native of Alba Pompeia, in Piedmont,
      and son of a timber merchant. The order of his employments (it is
      marked by Capitolinus) well deserves to be set down, as
      expressive of the form of government and manners of the age. 1.
      He was a centurion. 2. Præfect of a cohort in Syria, in the
      Parthian war, and in Britain. 3. He obtained an Ala, or squadron
      of horse, in Mæsia. 4. He was commissary of provisions on the
      Æmilian way. 5. He commanded the fleet upon the Rhine. 6. He was
      procurator of Dacia, with a salary of about 1600l. a year. 7. He
      commanded the veterans of a legion. 8. He obtained the rank of
      senator. 9. Of prætor. 10. With the command of the first legion
      in Rhætia and Noricum. 11. He was consul about the year 175. 12.
      He attended Marcus into the East. 13. He commanded an army on the
      Danube. 14. He was consular legate of Mæsia. 15. Of Dacia. 16. Of
      Syria. 17. Of Britain. 18. He had the care of the public
      provisions at Rome. 19. He was proconsul of Africa. 20. Præfect
      of the city. Herodian (l. i. p. 48) does justice to his
      disinterested spirit; but Capitolinus, who collected every
      popular rumor, charges him with a great fortune acquired by
      bribery and corruption.]

      46 (return) [ Julian, in the Cæsars, taxes him with being
      accessory to the death of Commodus.]

      Lætus conducted without delay his new emperor to the camp of the
      Prætorians, diffusing at the same time through the city a
      seasonable report that Commodus died suddenly of an apoplexy; and
      that the virtuous Pertinax had _already_ succeeded to the throne.
      The guards were rather surprised than pleased with the suspicious
      death of a prince, whose indulgence and liberality they alone had
      experienced; but the emergency of the occasion, the authority of
      their præfect, the reputation of Pertinax, and the clamors of the
      people, obliged them to stifle their secret discontents, to
      accept the donative promised by the new emperor, to swear
      allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels in
      their hands to conduct him to the senate house, that the military
      consent might be ratified by the civil authority. This important
      night was now far spent; with the dawn of day, and the
      commencement of the new year, the senators expected a summons to
      attend an ignominious ceremony. 461 In spite of all
      remonstrances, even of those of his creatures who yet preserved
      any regard for prudence or decency, Commodus had resolved to pass
      the night in the gladiators’ school, and from thence to take
      possession of the consulship, in the habit and with the
      attendance of that infamous crew. On a sudden, before the break
      of day, the senate was called together in the temple of Concord,
      to meet the guards, and to ratify the election of a new emperor.
      For a few minutes they sat in silent suspense, doubtful of their
      unexpected deliverance, and suspicious of the cruel artifices of
      Commodus: but when at length they were assured that the tyrant
      was no more, they resigned themselves to all the transports of
      joy and indignation. Pertinax, who modestly represented the
      meanness of his extraction, and pointed out several noble
      senators more deserving than himself of the empire, was
      constrained by their dutiful violence to ascend the throne, and
      received all the titles of Imperial power, confirmed by the most
      sincere vows of fidelity. The memory of Commodus was branded with
      eternal infamy. The names of tyrant, of gladiator, of public
      enemy resounded in every corner of the house. They decreed in
      tumultuous votes, 462 that his honors should be reversed, his
      titles erased from the public monuments, his statues thrown down,
      his body dragged with a hook into the stripping room of the
      gladiators, to satiate the public fury; and they expressed some
      indignation against those officious servants who had already
      presumed to screen his remains from the justice of the senate.
      But Pertinax could not refuse those last rites to the memory of
      Marcus, and the tears of his first protector Claudius Pompeianus,
      who lamented the cruel fate of his brother-in-law, and lamented
      still more that he had deserved it. 47

      461 (return) [ The senate always assembled at the beginning of
      the year, on the night of the 1st January, (see Savaron on Sid.
      Apoll. viii. 6,) and this happened the present year, as usual,
      without any particular order.—G from W.]

      462 (return) [ What Gibbon improperly calls, both here and in the
      note, tumultuous decrees, were no more than the applauses and
      acclamations which recur so often in the history of the emperors.
      The custom passed from the theatre to the forum, from the forum
      to the senate. Applauses on the adoption of the Imperial decrees
      were first introduced under Trajan. (Plin. jun. Panegyr. 75.) One
      senator read the form of the decree, and all the rest answered by
      acclamations, accompanied with a kind of chant or rhythm. These
      were some of the acclamations addressed to Pertinax, and against
      the memory of Commodus. Hosti patriæ honores detrahantur.
      Parricidæ honores detrahantur. Ut salvi simus, Jupiter, optime,
      maxime, serva nobis Pertinacem. This custom prevailed not only in
      the councils of state, but in all the meetings of the senate.
      However inconsistent it may appear with the solemnity of a
      religious assembly, the early Christians adopted and introduced
      it into their synods, notwithstanding the opposition of some of
      the Fathers, particularly of St. Chrysostom. See the Coll. of
      Franc. Bern. Ferrarius de veterum acclamatione in Grævii Thesaur.
      Antiq. Rom. i. 6.—W. This note is rather hypercritical, as
      regards Gibbon, but appears to be worthy of preservation.—M.]

      47 (return) [ Capitolinus gives us the particulars of these
      tumultuary votes, which were moved by one senator, and repeated,
      or rather chanted by the whole body. Hist. August. p. 52.]

      These effusions of impotent rage against a dead emperor, whom the
      senate had flattered when alive with the most abject servility,
      betrayed a just but ungenerous spirit of revenge.

      The legality of these decrees was, however, supported by the
      principles of the Imperial constitution. To censure, to depose,
      or to punish with death, the first magistrate of the republic,
      who had abused his delegated trust, was the ancient and undoubted
      prerogative of the Roman senate; 48 but the feeble assembly was
      obliged to content itself with inflicting on a fallen tyrant that
      public justice, from which, during his life and reign, he had
      been shielded by the strong arm of military despotism. 481

      48 (return) [ The senate condemned Nero to be put to death more
      majorum. Sueton. c. 49.]

      481 (return) [ No particular law assigned this right to the
      senate: it was deduced from the ancient principles of the
      republic. Gibbon appears to infer, from the passage of Suetonius,
      that the senate, according to its ancient right, punished Nero
      with death. The words, however, more majerum refer not to the
      decree of the senate, but to the kind of death, which was taken
      from an old law of Romulus. (See Victor. Epit. Ed. Artzen p. 484,
      n. 7.)—W.]

      Pertinax found a nobler way of condemning his predecessor’s
      memory; by the contrast of his own virtues with the vices of
      Commodus. On the day of his accession, he resigned over to his
      wife and son his whole private fortune; that they might have no
      pretence to solicit favors at the expense of the state. He
      refused to flatter the vanity of the former with the title of
      Augusta; or to corrupt the inexperienced youth of the latter by
      the rank of Cæsar. Accurately distinguishing between the duties
      of a parent and those of a sovereign, he educated his son with a
      severe simplicity, which, while it gave him no assured prospect
      of the throne, might in time have rendered him worthy of it. In
      public, the behavior of Pertinax was grave and affable. He lived
      with the virtuous part of the senate, (and, in a private station,
      he had been acquainted with the true character of each
      individual,) without either pride or jealousy; considered them as
      friends and companions, with whom he had shared the danger of the
      tyranny, and with whom he wished to enjoy the security of the
      present time. He very frequently invited them to familiar
      entertainments, the frugality of which was ridiculed by those who
      remembered and regretted the luxurious prodigality of Commodus.
      49

      49 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxiii. p. 1223) speaks of these
      entertainments, as a senator who had supped with the emperor;
      Capitolinus, (Hist. August. p. 58,) like a slave, who had
      received his intelligence from one the scullions.]

      To heal, as far as it was possible, the wounds inflicted by the
      hand of tyranny, was the pleasing, but melancholy, task of
      Pertinax. The innocent victims, who yet survived, were recalled
      from exile, released from prison, and restored to the full
      possession of their honors and fortunes. The unburied bodies of
      murdered senators (for the cruelty of Commodus endeavored to
      extend itself beyond death) were deposited in the sepulchres of
      their ancestors; their memory was justified and every consolation
      was bestowed on their ruined and afflicted families. Among these
      consolations, one of the most grateful was the punishment of the
      Delators; the common enemies of their master, of virtue, and of
      their country. Yet even in the inquisition of these legal
      assassins, Pertinax proceeded with a steady temper, which gave
      every thing to justice, and nothing to popular prejudice and
      resentment.

      The finances of the state demanded the most vigilant care of the
      emperor. Though every measure of injustice and extortion had been
      adopted, which could collect the property of the subject into the
      coffers of the prince, the rapaciousness of Commodus had been so
      very inadequate to his extravagance, that, upon his death, no
      more than eight thousand pounds were found in the exhausted
      treasury, 50 to defray the current expenses of government, and to
      discharge the pressing demand of a liberal donative, which the
      new emperor had been obliged to promise to the Prætorian guards.
      Yet under these distressed circumstances, Pertinax had the
      generous firmness to remit all the oppressive taxes invented by
      Commodus, and to cancel all the unjust claims of the treasury;
      declaring, in a decree of the senate, “that he was better
      satisfied to administer a poor republic with innocence, than to
      acquire riches by the ways of tyranny and dishonor.” Economy and
      industry he considered as the pure and genuine sources of wealth;
      and from them he soon derived a copious supply for the public
      necessities. The expense of the household was immediately reduced
      to one half. All the instruments of luxury Pertinax exposed to
      public auction, 51 gold and silver plate, chariots of a singular
      construction, a superfluous wardrobe of silk and embroidery, and
      a great number of beautiful slaves of both sexes; excepting only,
      with attentive humanity, those who were born in a state of
      freedom, and had been ravished from the arms of their weeping
      parents. At the same time that he obliged the worthless favorites
      of the tyrant to resign a part of their ill-gotten wealth, he
      satisfied the just creditors of the state, and unexpectedly
      discharged the long arrears of honest services. He removed the
      oppressive restrictions which had been laid upon commerce, and
      granted all the uncultivated lands in Italy and the provinces to
      those who would improve them; with an exemption from tribute
      during the term of ten years. 52

      50 (return) [ Decies. The blameless economy of Pius left his
      successors a treasure of vicies septies millies, above two and
      twenty millions sterling. Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1231.]

      51 (return) [ Besides the design of converting these useless
      ornaments into money, Dion (l. lxxiii. p. 1229) assigns two
      secret motives of Pertinax. He wished to expose the vices of
      Commodus, and to discover by the purchasers those who most
      resembled him.]

      52 (return) [ Though Capitolinus has picked up many idle tales of
      the private life of Pertinax, he joins with Dion and Herodian in
      admiring his public conduct.]

      Such a uniform conduct had already secured to Pertinax the
      noblest reward of a sovereign, the love and esteem of his people.

      Those who remembered the virtues of Marcus were happy to
      contemplate in their new emperor the features of that bright
      original; and flattered themselves, that they should long enjoy
      the benign influence of his administration. A hasty zeal to
      reform the corrupted state, accompanied with less prudence than
      might have been expected from the years and experience of
      Pertinax, proved fatal to himself and to his country. His honest
      indiscretion united against him the servile crowd, who found
      their private benefit in the public disorders, and who preferred
      the favor of a tyrant to the inexorable equality of the laws. 53

      53 (return) [ Leges, rem surdam, inexorabilem esse. T. Liv. ii.
      3.]

      Amidst the general joy, the sullen and angry countenance of the
      Prætorian guards betrayed their inward dissatisfaction. They had
      reluctantly submitted to Pertinax; they dreaded the strictness of
      the ancient discipline, which he was preparing to restore; and
      they regretted the license of the former reign. Their discontents
      were secretly fomented by Lætus, their præfect, who found, when
      it was too late, that his new emperor would reward a servant, but
      would not be ruled by a favorite. On the third day of his reign,
      the soldiers seized on a noble senator, with a design to carry
      him to the camp, and to invest him with the Imperial purple.
      Instead of being dazzled by the dangerous honor, the affrighted
      victim escaped from their violence, and took refuge at the feet
      of Pertinax. A short time afterwards, Sosius Falco, one of the
      consuls of the year, a rash youth, 54 but of an ancient and
      opulent family, listened to the voice of ambition; and a
      conspiracy was formed during a short absence of Pertinax, which
      was crushed by his sudden return to Rome, and his resolute
      behavior. Falco was on the point of being justly condemned to
      death as a public enemy had he not been saved by the earnest and
      sincere entreaties of the injured emperor, who conjured the
      senate, that the purity of his reign might not be stained by the
      blood even of a guilty senator.

      54 (return) [ If we credit Capitolinus, (which is rather
      difficult,) Falco behaved with the most petulant indecency to
      Pertinax, on the day of his accession. The wise emperor only
      admonished him of his youth and in experience. Hist. August. p.
      55.]

      These disappointments served only to irritate the rage of the
      Prætorian guards. On the twenty-eighth of March, eighty-six days
      only after the death of Commodus, a general sedition broke out in
      the camp, which the officers wanted either power or inclination
      to suppress. Two or three hundred of the most desperate soldiers
      marched at noonday, with arms in their hands and fury in their
      looks, towards the Imperial palace. The gates were thrown open by
      their companions upon guard, and by the domestics of the old
      court, who had already formed a secret conspiracy against the
      life of the too virtuous emperor. On the news of their approach,
      Pertinax, disdaining either flight or concealment, advanced to
      meet his assassins; and recalled to their minds his own
      innocence, and the sanctity of their recent oath. For a few
      moments they stood in silent suspense, ashamed of their atrocious
      design, and awed by the venerable aspect and majestic firmness of
      their sovereign, till at length, the despair of pardon reviving
      their fury, a barbarian of the country of Tongress 55 levelled
      the first blow against Pertinax, who was instantly despatched
      with a multitude of wounds. His head, separated from his body,
      and placed on a lance, was carried in triumph to the Prætorian
      camp, in the sight of a mournful and indignant people, who
      lamented the unworthy fate of that excellent prince, and the
      transient blessings of a reign, the memory of which could serve
      only to aggravate their approaching misfortunes. 56

      55 (return) [ The modern bishopric of Liege. This soldier
      probably belonged to the Batavian horse-guards, who were mostly
      raised in the duchy of Gueldres and the neighborhood, and were
      distinguished by their valor, and by the boldness with which they
      swam their horses across the broadest and most rapid rivers.
      Tacit. Hist. iv. 12 Dion, l. lv p. 797 Lipsius de magnitudine
      Romana, l. i. c. 4.]

      56 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1232. Herodian, l. ii. p. 60.
      Hist. August. p. 58. Victor in Epitom. et in Cæsarib. Eutropius,
      viii. 16.]




      Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part I.

     Public Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus By The Prætorian
     Guards—Clodius Albinus In Britain, Pescennius Niger In Syria, And
     Septimius Severus In Pannonia, Declare Against The Murderers Of
     Pertinax—Civil Wars And Victory Of Severus Over His Three
     Rivals—Relaxation Of Discipline—New Maxims Of Government.

      The power of the sword is more sensibly felt in an extensive
      monarchy, than in a small community. It has been calculated by
      the ablest politicians, that no state, without being soon
      exhausted, can maintain above the hundredth part of its members
      in arms and idleness. But although this relative proportion may
      be uniform, the influence of the army over the rest of the
      society will vary according to the degree of its positive
      strength. The advantages of military science and discipline
      cannot be exerted, unless a proper number of soldiers are united
      into one body, and actuated by one soul. With a handful of men,
      such a union would be ineffectual; with an unwieldy host, it
      would be impracticable; and the powers of the machine would be
      alike destroyed by the extreme minuteness or the excessive weight
      of its springs. To illustrate this observation, we need only
      reflect, that there is no superiority of natural strength,
      artificial weapons, or acquired skill, which could enable one man
      to keep in constant subjection one hundred of his
      fellow-creatures: the tyrant of a single town, or a small
      district, would soon discover that a hundred armed followers were
      a weak defence against ten thousand peasants or citizens; but a
      hundred thousand well-disciplined soldiers will command, with
      despotic sway, ten millions of subjects; and a body of ten or
      fifteen thousand guards will strike terror into the most numerous
      populace that ever crowded the streets of an immense capital.

      The Prætorian bands, whose licentious fury was the first symptom
      and cause of the decline of the Roman empire, scarcely amounted
      to the last-mentioned number. 1 They derived their institution
      from Augustus. That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might
      color, but that arms alone could maintain, his usurped dominion,
      had gradually formed this powerful body of guards, in constant
      readiness to protect his person, to awe the senate, and either to
      prevent or to crush the first motions of rebellion. He
      distinguished these favored troops by a double pay and superior
      privileges; but, as their formidable aspect would at once have
      alarmed and irritated the Roman people, three cohorts only were
      stationed in the capital, whilst the remainder was dispersed in
      the adjacent towns of Italy. 2 But after fifty years of peace and
      servitude, Tiberius ventured on a decisive measure, which forever
      rivetted the fetters of his country. Under the fair pretences of
      relieving Italy from the heavy burden of military quarters, and
      of introducing a stricter discipline among the guards, he
      assembled them at Rome, in a permanent camp, 3 which was
      fortified with skilful care, 4 and placed on a commanding
      situation. 5

      1 (return) [ They were originally nine or ten thousand men, (for
      Tacitus and son are not agreed upon the subject,) divided into as
      many cohorts. Vitellius increased them to sixteen thousand, and
      as far as we can learn from inscriptions, they never afterwards
      sunk much below that number. See Lipsius de magnitudine Romana,
      i. 4.]

      2 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 49.]

      3 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. iv. 2. Sueton. in Tiber. c. 37. Dion
      Cassius, l. lvii. p. 867.]

      4 (return) [ In the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian,
      the Prætorian camp was attacked and defended with all the
      machines used in the siege of the best fortified cities. Tacit.
      Hist. iii. 84.]

      5 (return) [ Close to the walls of the city, on the broad summit
      of the Quirinal and Viminal hills. See Nardini Roma Antica, p.
      174. Donatus de Roma Antiqua, p. 46. * Note: Not on both these
      hills: neither Donatus nor Nardini justify this position.
      (Whitaker’s Review. p. 13.) At the northern extremity of this
      hill (the Viminal) are some considerable remains of a walled
      enclosure which bears all the appearance of a Roman camp, and
      therefore is generally thought to correspond with the Castra
      Prætoria. Cramer’s Italy 390.—M.]

      Such formidable servants are always necessary, but often fatal to
      the throne of despotism. By thus introducing the Prætorian guards
      as it were into the palace and the senate, the emperors taught
      them to perceive their own strength, and the weakness of the
      civil government; to view the vices of their masters with
      familiar contempt, and to lay aside that reverential awe, which
      distance only, and mystery, can preserve towards an imaginary
      power. In the luxurious idleness of an opulent city, their pride
      was nourished by the sense of their irresistible weight; nor was
      it possible to conceal from them, that the person of the
      sovereign, the authority of the senate, the public treasure, and
      the seat of empire, were all in their hands. To divert the
      Prætorian bands from these dangerous reflections, the firmest and
      best established princes were obliged to mix blandishments with
      commands, rewards with punishments, to flatter their pride,
      indulge their pleasures, connive at their irregularities, and to
      purchase their precarious faith by a liberal donative; which,
      since the elevation of Claudius, was enacted as a legal claim, on
      the accession of every new emperor. 6

      6 (return) [ Claudius, raised by the soldiers to the empire, was
      the first who gave a donative. He gave quina dena, 120l. (Sueton.
      in Claud. c. 10: ) when Marcus, with his colleague Lucius Versus,
      took quiet possession of the throne, he gave vicena, 160l. to
      each of the guards. Hist. August. p. 25, (Dion, l. lxxiii. p.
      1231.) We may form some idea of the amount of these sums, by
      Hadrian’s complaint that the promotion of a Cæsar had cost him
      ter millies, two millions and a half sterling.]

      The advocate of the guards endeavored to justify by arguments the
      power which they asserted by arms; and to maintain that,
      according to the purest principles of the constitution, _their_
      consent was essentially necessary in the appointment of an
      emperor. The election of consuls, of generals, and of
      magistrates, however it had been recently usurped by the senate,
      was the ancient and undoubted right of the Roman people. 7 But
      where was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the
      mixed multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets
      of Rome; a servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of
      property. The defenders of the state, selected from the flower of
      the Italian youth, 8 and trained in the exercise of arms and
      virtue, were the genuine representatives of the people, and the
      best entitled to elect the military chief of the republic. These
      assertions, however defective in reason, became unanswerable when
      the fierce Prætorians increased their weight, by throwing, like
      the barbarian conqueror of Rome, their swords into the scale. 9

      7 (return) [ Cicero de Legibus, iii. 3. The first book of Livy,
      and the second of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, show the authority
      of the people, even in the election of the kings.]

      8 (return) [ They were originally recruited in Latium, Etruria,
      and the old colonies, (Tacit. Annal. iv. 5.) The emperor Otho
      compliments their vanity with the flattering titles of Italiæ,
      Alumni, Romana were juventus. Tacit. Hist. i. 84.]

      9 (return) [ In the siege of Rome by the Gauls. See Livy, v. 48.
      Plutarch. in Camill. p. 143.]

      The Prætorians had violated the sanctity of the throne by the
      atrocious murder of Pertinax; they dishonored the majesty of it
      by their subsequent conduct. The camp was without a leader, for
      even the præfect Lætus, who had excited the tempest, prudently
      declined the public indignation. Amidst the wild disorder,
      Sulpicianus, the emperor’s father-in-law, and governor of the
      city, who had been sent to the camp on the first alarm of mutiny,
      was endeavoring to calm the fury of the multitude, when he was
      silenced by the clamorous return of the murderers, bearing on a
      lance the head of Pertinax. Though history has accustomed us to
      observe every principle and every passion yielding to the
      imperious dictates of ambition, it is scarcely credible that, in
      these moments of horror, Sulpicianus should have aspired to
      ascend a throne polluted with the recent blood of so near a
      relation and so excellent a prince. He had already begun to use
      the only effectual argument, and to treat for the Imperial
      dignity; but the more prudent of the Prætorians, apprehensive
      that, in this private contract, they should not obtain a just
      price for so valuable a commodity, ran out upon the ramparts;
      and, with a loud voice, proclaimed that the Roman world was to be
      disposed of to the best bidder by public auction. 10

      10 (return) [ Dion, L. lxxiii. p. 1234. Herodian, l. ii. p. 63.
      Hist. August p. 60. Though the three historians agree that it was
      in fact an auction, Herodian alone affirms that it was proclaimed
      as such by the soldiers.]

      This infamous offer, the most insolent excess of military
      license, diffused a universal grief, shame, and indignation
      throughout the city. It reached at length the ears of Didius
      Julianus, a wealthy senator, who, regardless of the public
      calamities, was indulging himself in the luxury of the table. 11
      His wife and his daughter, his freedmen and his parasites, easily
      convinced him that he deserved the throne, and earnestly conjured
      him to embrace so fortunate an opportunity. The vain old man
      hastened to the Prætorian camp, where Sulpicianus was still in
      treaty with the guards, and began to bid against him from the
      foot of the rampart. The unworthy negotiation was transacted by
      faithful emissaries, who passed alternately from one candidate to
      the other, and acquainted each of them with the offers of his
      rival. Sulpicianus had already promised a donative of five
      thousand drachms (above one hundred and sixty pounds) to each
      soldier; when Julian, eager for the prize, rose at once to the
      sum of six thousand two hundred and fifty drachms, or upwards of
      two hundred pounds sterling. The gates of the camp were instantly
      thrown open to the purchaser; he was declared emperor, and
      received an oath of allegiance from the soldiers, who retained
      humanity enough to stipulate that he should pardon and forget the
      competition of Sulpicianus. 111

      11 (return) [ Spartianus softens the most odious parts of the
      character and elevation of Julian.]

      111 (return) [ One of the principal causes of the preference of
      Julianus by the soldiers, was the dexterty dexterity with which
      he reminded them that Sulpicianus would not fail to revenge on
      them the death of his son-in-law. (See Dion, p. 1234, 1234. c.
      11. Herod. ii. 6.)—W.]

      It was now incumbent on the Prætorians to fulfil the conditions
      of the sale. They placed their new sovereign, whom they served
      and despised, in the centre of their ranks, surrounded him on
      every side with their shields, and conducted him in close order
      of battle through the deserted streets of the city. The senate
      was commanded to assemble; and those who had been the
      distinguished friends of Pertinax, or the personal enemies of
      Julian, found it necessary to affect a more than common share of
      satisfaction at this happy revolution. 12 After Julian had filled
      the senate house with armed soldiers, he expatiated on the
      freedom of his election, his own eminent virtues, and his full
      assurance of the affections of the senate. The obsequious
      assembly congratulated their own and the public felicity; engaged
      their allegiance, and conferred on him all the several branches
      of the Imperial power. 13 From the senate Julian was conducted,
      by the same military procession, to take possession of the
      palace. The first objects that struck his eyes, were the
      abandoned trunk of Pertinax, and the frugal entertainment
      prepared for his supper. The one he viewed with indifference, the
      other with contempt. A magnificent feast was prepared by his
      order, and he amused himself, till a very late hour, with dice,
      and the performances of Pylades, a celebrated dancer. Yet it was
      observed, that after the crowd of flatterers dispersed, and left
      him to darkness, solitude, and terrible reflection, he passed a
      sleepless night; revolving most probably in his mind his own rash
      folly, the fate of his virtuous predecessor, and the doubtful and
      dangerous tenure of an empire which had not been acquired by
      merit, but purchased by money. 14

      12 (return) [ Dion Cassius, at that time prætor, had been a
      personal enemy to Julian, i. lxxiii. p. 1235.]

      13 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 61. We learn from thence one
      curious circumstance, that the new emperor, whatever had been his
      birth, was immediately aggregated to the number of patrician
      families. Note: A new fragment of Dion shows some shrewdness in
      the character of Julian. When the senate voted him a golden
      statue, he preferred one of brass, as more lasting. He “had
      always observed,” he said, “that the statues of former emperors
      were soon destroyed. Those of brass alone remained.” The
      indignant historian adds that he was wrong. The virtue of
      sovereigns alone preserves their images: the brazen statue of
      Julian was broken to pieces at his death. Mai. Fragm. Vatican. p.
      226.—M.]

      14 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1235. Hist. August. p. 61. I
      have endeavored to blend into one consistent story the seeming
      contradictions of the two writers. * Note: The contradiction as
      M. Guizot observed, is irreconcilable. He quotes both passages:
      in one Julianus is represented as a miser, in the other as a
      voluptuary. In the one he refuses to eat till the body of
      Pertinax has been buried; in the other he gluts himself with
      every luxury almost in the sight of his headless remains.—M.]

      He had reason to tremble. On the throne of the world he found
      himself without a friend, and even without an adherent. The
      guards themselves were ashamed of the prince whom their avarice
      had persuaded them to accept; nor was there a citizen who did not
      consider his elevation with horror, as the last insult on the
      Roman name. The nobility, whose conspicuous station, and ample
      possessions, exacted the strictest caution, dissembled their
      sentiments, and met the affected civility of the emperor with
      smiles of complacency and professions of duty. But the people,
      secure in their numbers and obscurity, gave a free vent to their
      passions. The streets and public places of Rome resounded with
      clamors and imprecations. The enraged multitude affronted the
      person of Julian, rejected his liberality, and, conscious of the
      impotence of their own resentment, they called aloud on the
      legions of the frontiers to assert the violated majesty of the
      Roman empire. The public discontent was soon diffused from the
      centre to the frontiers of the empire. The armies of Britain, of
      Syria, and of Illyricum, lamented the death of Pertinax, in whose
      company, or under whose command, they had so often fought and
      conquered. They received with surprise, with indignation, and
      perhaps with envy, the extraordinary intelligence, that the
      Prætorians had disposed of the empire by public auction; and they
      sternly refused to ratify the ignominious bargain. Their
      immediate and unanimous revolt was fatal to Julian, but it was
      fatal at the same time to the public peace, as the generals of
      the respective armies, Clodius Albinus, Pescennius Niger, and
      Septimius Severus, were still more anxious to succeed than to
      revenge the murdered Pertinax. Their forces were exactly
      balanced. Each of them was at the head of three legions, 15 with
      a numerous train of auxiliaries; and however different in their
      characters, they were all soldiers of experience and capacity.

      15 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1235.]

      Clodius Albinus, governor of Britain, surpassed both his
      competitors in the nobility of his extraction, which he derived
      from some of the most illustrious names of the old republic. 16
      But the branch from which he claimed his descent was sunk into
      mean circumstances, and transplanted into a remote province. It
      is difficult to form a just idea of his true character. Under the
      philosophic cloak of austerity, he stands accused of concealing
      most of the vices which degrade human nature. 17 But his accusers
      are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus, and
      trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival. Virtue, or the
      appearances of virtue, recommended Albinus to the confidence and
      good opinion of Marcus; and his preserving with the son the same
      interest which he had acquired with the father, is a proof at
      least that he was possessed of a very flexible disposition. The
      favor of a tyrant does not always suppose a want of merit in the
      object of it; he may, without intending it, reward a man of worth
      and ability, or he may find such a man useful to his own service.
      It does not appear that Albinus served the son of Marcus, either
      as the minister of his cruelties, or even as the associate of his
      pleasures. He was employed in a distant honorable command, when
      he received a confidential letter from the emperor, acquainting
      him of the treasonable designs of some discontented generals, and
      authorizing him to declare himself the guardian and successor of
      the throne, by assuming the title and ensigns of Cæsar. 18 The
      governor of Britain wisely declined the dangerous honor, which
      would have marked him for the jealousy, or involved him in the
      approaching ruin, of Commodus. He courted power by nobler, or, at
      least, by more specious arts. On a premature report of the death
      of the emperor, he assembled his troops; and, in an eloquent
      discourse, deplored the inevitable mischiefs of despotism,
      described the happiness and glory which their ancestors had
      enjoyed under the consular government, and declared his firm
      resolution to reinstate the senate and people in their legal
      authority. This popular harangue was answered by the loud
      acclamations of the British legions, and received at Rome with a
      secret murmur of applause. Safe in the possession of his little
      world, and in the command of an army less distinguished indeed
      for discipline than for numbers and valor, 19 Albinus braved the
      menaces of Commodus, maintained towards Pertinax a stately
      ambiguous reserve, and instantly declared against the usurpation
      of Julian. The convulsions of the capital added new weight to his
      sentiments, or rather to his professions of patriotism. A regard
      to decency induced him to decline the lofty titles of Augustus
      and Emperor; and he imitated perhaps the example of Galba, who,
      on a similar occasion, had styled himself the Lieutenant of the
      senate and people. 20

      16 (return) [ The Posthumian and the Ce’onian; the former of whom
      was raised to the consulship in the fifth year after its
      institution.]

      17 (return) [ Spartianus, in his undigested collections, mixes up
      all the virtues and all the vices that enter into the human
      composition, and bestows them on the same object. Such, indeed
      are many of the characters in the Augustan History.]

      18 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 80, 84.]

      19 (return) [ Pertinax, who governed Britain a few years before,
      had been left for dead, in a mutiny of the soldiers. Hist.
      August. p 54. Yet they loved and regretted him; admirantibus eam
      virtutem cui irascebantur.]

      20 (return) [ Sueton. in Galb. c. 10.]

      Personal merit alone had raised Pescennius Niger, from an obscure
      birth and station, to the government of Syria; a lucrative and
      important command, which in times of civil confusion gave him a
      near prospect of the throne. Yet his parts seem to have been
      better suited to the second than to the first rank; he was an
      unequal rival, though he might have approved himself an excellent
      lieutenant, to Severus, who afterwards displayed the greatness of
      his mind by adopting several useful institutions from a
      vanquished enemy. 21 In his government Niger acquired the esteem
      of the soldiers and the love of the provincials. His rigid
      discipline fortified the valor and confirmed the obedience of the
      former, whilst the voluptuous Syrians were less delighted with
      the mild firmness of his administration, than with the affability
      of his manners, and the apparent pleasure with which he attended
      their frequent and pompous festivals. 22 As soon as the
      intelligence of the atrocious murder of Pertinax had reached
      Antioch, the wishes of Asia invited Niger to assume the Imperial
      purple and revenge his death. The legions of the eastern frontier
      embraced his cause; the opulent but unarmed provinces, from the
      frontiers of Æthiopia 23 to the Hadriatic, cheerfully submitted
      to his power; and the kings beyond the Tigris and the Euphrates
      congratulated his election, and offered him their homage and
      services. The mind of Niger was not capable of receiving this
      sudden tide of fortune: he flattered himself that his accession
      would be undisturbed by competition and unstained by civil blood;
      and whilst he enjoyed the vain pomp of triumph, he neglected to
      secure the means of victory. Instead of entering into an
      effectual negotiation with the powerful armies of the West, whose
      resolution might decide, or at least must balance, the mighty
      contest; instead of advancing without delay towards Rome and
      Italy, where his presence was impatiently expected, 24 Niger
      trifled away in the luxury of Antioch those irretrievable moments
      which were diligently improved by the decisive activity of
      Severus. 25

      21 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 76.]

      22 (return) [ Herod. l. ii. p. 68. The Chronicle of John Malala,
      of Antioch, shows the zealous attachment of his countrymen to
      these festivals, which at once gratified their superstition, and
      their love of pleasure.]

      23 (return) [ A king of Thebes, in Egypt, is mentioned, in the
      Augustan History, as an ally, and, indeed, as a personal friend
      of Niger. If Spartianus is not, as I strongly suspect, mistaken,
      he has brought to light a dynasty of tributary princes totally
      unknown to history.]

      24 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1238. Herod. l. ii. p. 67. A
      verse in every one’s mouth at that time, seems to express the
      general opinion of the three rivals; Optimus est _Niger_,
      [_Fuscus_, which preserves the quantity.—M.] bonus _Afer_,
      pessimus _Albus_. Hist. August. p. 75.]

      25 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 71.]

      The country of Pannonia and Dalmatia, which occupied the space
      between the Danube and the Hadriatic, was one of the last and
      most difficult conquests of the Romans. In the defence of
      national freedom, two hundred thousand of these barbarians had
      once appeared in the field, alarmed the declining age of
      Augustus, and exercised the vigilant prudence of Tiberius at the
      head of the collected force of the empire. 26 The Pannonians
      yielded at length to the arms and institutions of Rome. Their
      recent subjection, however, the neighborhood, and even the
      mixture, of the unconquered tribes, and perhaps the climate,
      adapted, as it has been observed, to the production of great
      bodies and slow minds, 27 all contributed to preserve some
      remains of their original ferocity, and under the tame and
      uniform countenance of Roman provincials, the hardy features of
      the natives were still to be discerned. Their warlike youth
      afforded an inexhaustible supply of recruits to the legions
      stationed on the banks of the Danube, and which, from a perpetual
      warfare against the Germans and Sarmazans, were deservedly
      esteemed the best troops in the service.

      26 (return) [ See an account of that memorable war in Velleius
      Paterculus, is 110, &c., who served in the army of Tiberius.]

      27 (return) [ Such is the reflection of Herodian, l. ii. p. 74.
      Will the modern Austrians allow the influence?]

      The Pannonian army was at this time commanded by Septimius
      Severus, a native of Africa, who, in the gradual ascent of
      private honors, had concealed his daring ambition, which was
      never diverted from its steady course by the allurements of
      pleasure, the apprehension of danger, or the feelings of
      humanity. 28 On the first news of the murder of Pertinax, he
      assembled his troops, painted in the most lively colors the
      crime, the insolence, and the weakness of the Prætorian guards,
      and animated the legions to arms and to revenge. He concluded
      (and the peroration was thought extremely eloquent) with
      promising every soldier about four hundred pounds; an honorable
      donative, double in value to the infamous bribe with which Julian
      had purchased the empire. 29 The acclamations of the army
      immediately saluted Severus with the names of Augustus, Pertinax,
      and Emperor; and he thus attained the lofty station to which he
      was invited, by conscious merit and a long train of dreams and
      omens, the fruitful offsprings either of his superstition or
      policy. 30

      28 (return) [ In the letter to Albinus, already mentioned,
      Commodus accuses Severus, as one of the ambitious generals who
      censured his conduct, and wished to occupy his place. Hist.
      August. p. 80.]

      29 (return) [ Pannonia was too poor to supply such a sum. It was
      probably promised in the camp, and paid at Rome, after the
      victory. In fixing the sum, I have adopted the conjecture of
      Casaubon. See Hist. August. p. 66. Comment. p. 115.]

      30 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 78. Severus was declared
      emperor on the banks of the Danube, either at Carnuntum,
      according to Spartianus, (Hist. August. p. 65,) or else at
      Sabaria, according to Victor. Mr. Hume, in supposing that the
      birth and dignity of Severus were too much inferior to the
      Imperial crown, and that he marched into Italy as general only,
      has not considered this transaction with his usual accuracy,
      (Essay on the original contract.) * Note: Carnuntum, opposite to
      the mouth of the Morava: its position is doubtful, either
      Petronel or Haimburg. A little intermediate village seems to
      indicate by its name (Altenburg) the site of an old town.
      D’Anville Geogr. Anc. Sabaria, now Sarvar.—G. Compare note
      37.—M.]

      The new candidate for empire saw and improved the peculiar
      advantage of his situation. His province extended to the Julian
      Alps, which gave an easy access into Italy; and he remembered the
      saying of Augustus, that a Pannonian army might in ten days
      appear in sight of Rome. 31 By a celerity proportioned to the
      greatness of the occasion, he might reasonably hope to revenge
      Pertinax, punish Julian, and receive the homage of the senate and
      people, as their lawful emperor, before his competitors,
      separated from Italy by an immense tract of sea and land, were
      apprised of his success, or even of his election. During the
      whole expedition, he scarcely allowed himself any moments for
      sleep or food; marching on foot, and in complete armor, at the
      head of his columns, he insinuated himself into the confidence
      and affection of his troops, pressed their diligence, revived
      their spirits, animated their hopes, and was well satisfied to
      share the hardships of the meanest soldier, whilst he kept in
      view the infinite superiority of his reward.

      31 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 3. We must reckon
      the march from the nearest verge of Pannonia, and extend the
      sight of the city as far as two hundred miles.]

      The wretched Julian had expected, and thought himself prepared,
      to dispute the empire with the governor of Syria; but in the
      invincible and rapid approach of the Pannonian legions, he saw
      his inevitable ruin. The hasty arrival of every messenger
      increased his just apprehensions. He was successively informed,
      that Severus had passed the Alps; that the Italian cities,
      unwilling or unable to oppose his progress, had received him with
      the warmest professions of joy and duty; that the important place
      of Ravenna had surrendered without resistance, and that the
      Hadriatic fleet was in the hands of the conqueror. The enemy was
      now within two hundred and fifty miles of Rome; and every moment
      diminished the narrow span of life and empire allotted to Julian.

      He attempted, however, to prevent, or at least to protract, his
      ruin. He implored the venal faith of the Prætorians, filled the
      city with unavailing preparations for war, drew lines round the
      suburbs, and even strengthened the fortifications of the palace;
      as if those last intrenchments could be defended, without hope of
      relief, against a victorious invader. Fear and shame prevented
      the guards from deserting his standard; but they trembled at the
      name of the Pannonian legions, commanded by an experienced
      general, and accustomed to vanquish the barbarians on the frozen
      Danube. 32 They quitted, with a sigh, the pleasures of the baths
      and theatres, to put on arms, whose use they had almost
      forgotten, and beneath the weight of which they were oppressed.
      The unpractised elephants, whose uncouth appearance, it was
      hoped, would strike terror into the army of the north, threw
      their unskilful riders; and the awkward evolutions of the
      marines, drawn from the fleet of Misenum, were an object of
      ridicule to the populace; whilst the senate enjoyed, with secret
      pleasure, the distress and weakness of the usurper. 33

      32 (return) [ This is not a puerile figure of rhetoric, but an
      allusion to a real fact recorded by Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1181. It
      probably happened more than once.]

      33 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1233. Herodian, l. ii. p. 81.
      There is no surer proof of the military skill of the Romans, than
      their first surmounting the idle terror, and afterwards
      disdaining the dangerous use, of elephants in war. Note: These
      elephants were kept for processions, perhaps for the games. Se
      Herod. in loc.—M.]

      Every motion of Julian betrayed his trembling perplexity. He
      insisted that Severus should be declared a public enemy by the
      senate. He entreated that the Pannonian general might be
      associated to the empire. He sent public ambassadors of consular
      rank to negotiate with his rival; he despatched private assassins
      to take away his life. He designed that the Vestal virgins, and
      all the colleges of priests, in their sacerdotal habits, and
      bearing before them the sacred pledges of the Roman religion,
      should advance in solemn procession to meet the Pannonian
      legions; and, at the same time, he vainly tried to interrogate,
      or to appease, the fates, by magic ceremonies and unlawful
      sacrifices. 34

      34 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 62, 63. * Note: Quæ ad speculum
      dicunt fieri in quo pueri præligatis oculis, incantate...,
      respicere dicuntur. * * * Tuncque puer vidisse dicitur et
      adventun Severi et Juliani decessionem. This seems to have been a
      practice somewhat similar to that of which our recent Egyptian
      travellers relate such extraordinary circumstances. See also
      Apulius, Orat. de Magia.—M.]




      Chapter V: Sale Of The Empire To Didius Julianus.—Part II.

      Severus, who dreaded neither his arms nor his enchantments,
      guarded himself from the only danger of secret conspiracy, by the
      faithful attendance of six hundred chosen men, who never quitted
      his person or their cuirasses, either by night or by day, during
      the whole march. Advancing with a steady and rapid course, he
      passed, without difficulty, the defiles of the Apennine, received
      into his party the troops and ambassadors sent to retard his
      progress, and made a short halt at Interamnia, about seventy
      miles from Rome. His victory was already secure, but the despair
      of the Prætorians might have rendered it bloody; and Severus had
      the laudable ambition of ascending the throne without drawing the
      sword. 35 His emissaries, dispersed in the capital, assured the
      guards, that provided they would abandon their worthless prince,
      and the perpetrators of the murder of Pertinax, to the justice of
      the conqueror, he would no longer consider that melancholy event
      as the act of the whole body. The faithless Prætorians, whose
      resistance was supported only by sullen obstinacy, gladly
      complied with the easy conditions, seized the greatest part of
      the assassins, and signified to the senate, that they no longer
      defended the cause of Julian. That assembly, convoked by the
      consul, unanimously acknowledged Severus as lawful emperor,
      decreed divine honors to Pertinax, and pronounced a sentence of
      deposition and death against his unfortunate successor. Julian
      was conducted into a private apartment of the baths of the
      palace, and beheaded as a common criminal, after having
      purchased, with an immense treasure, an anxious and precarious
      reign of only sixty-six days. 36 The almost incredible expedition
      of Severus, who, in so short a space of time, conducted a
      numerous army from the banks of the Danube to those of the Tyber,
      proves at once the plenty of provisions produced by agriculture
      and commerce, the goodness of the roads, the discipline of the
      legions, and the indolent, subdued temper of the provinces. 37

      35 (return) [ Victor and Eutropius, viii. 17, mention a combat
      near the Milvian bridge, the Ponte Molle, unknown to the better
      and more ancient writers.]

      36 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiii. p. 1240. Herodian, l. ii. p. 83.
      Hist. August. p. 63.]

      37 (return) [ From these sixty-six days, we must first deduct
      sixteen, as Pertinax was murdered on the 28th of March, and
      Severus most probably elected on the 13th of April, (see Hist.
      August. p. 65, and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.
      393, note 7.) We cannot allow less than ten days after his
      election, to put a numerous army in motion. Forty days remain for
      this rapid march; and as we may compute about eight hundred miles
      from Rome to the neighborhood of Vienna, the army of Severus
      marched twenty miles every day, without halt or intermission.]

      The first cares of Severus were bestowed on two measures, the one
      dictated by policy, the other by decency; the revenge, and the
      honors, due to the memory of Pertinax. Before the new emperor
      entered Rome, he issued his commands to the Prætorian guards,
      directing them to wait his arrival on a large plain near the
      city, without arms, but in the habits of ceremony, in which they
      were accustomed to attend their sovereign. He was obeyed by those
      haughty troops, whose contrition was the effect of their just
      terrors. A chosen part of the Illyrian army encompassed them with
      levelled spears. Incapable of flight or resistance, they expected
      their fate in silent consternation. Severus mounted the tribunal,
      sternly reproached them with perfidy and cowardice, dismissed
      them with ignominy from the trust which they had betrayed,
      despoiled them of their splendid ornaments, and banished them, on
      pain of death, to the distance of a hundred miles from the
      capital. During the transaction, another detachment had been sent
      to seize their arms, occupy their camp, and prevent the hasty
      consequences of their despair. 38

      38 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1241. Herodian, l. ii. p. 84.]
      The funeral and consecration of Pertinax was next solemnized with
      every circumstance of sad magnificence. 39 The senate, with a
      melancholy pleasure, performed the last rites to that excellent
      prince, whom they had loved, and still regretted. The concern of
      his successor was probably less sincere; he esteemed the virtues
      of Pertinax, but those virtues would forever have confined his
      ambition to a private station. Severus pronounced his funeral
      oration with studied eloquence, inward satisfaction, and
      well-acted sorrow; and by this pious regard to his memory,
      convinced the credulous multitude, that _he alone_ was worthy to
      supply his place. Sensible, however, that arms, not ceremonies,
      must assert his claim to the empire, he left Rome at the end of
      thirty days, and without suffering himself to be elated by this
      easy victory, prepared to encounter his more formidable rivals.

      39 (return) [ Dion, (l. lxxiv. p. 1244,) who assisted at the
      ceremony as a senator, gives a most pompous description of it.]

      The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have induced an
      elegant historian to compare him with the first and greatest of
      the Cæsars. 40 The parallel is, at least, imperfect. Where shall
      we find, in the character of Severus, the commanding superiority
      of soul, the generous clemency, and the various genius, which
      could reconcile and unite the love of pleasure, the thirst of
      knowledge, and the fire of ambition? 41 In one instance only,
      they may be compared, with some degree of propriety, in the
      celerity of their motions, and their civil victories. In less
      than four years, 42 Severus subdued the riches of the East, and
      the valor of the West. He vanquished two competitors of
      reputation and ability, and defeated numerous armies, provided
      with weapons and discipline equal to his own. In that age, the
      art of fortification, and the principles of tactics, were well
      understood by all the Roman generals; and the constant
      superiority of Severus was that of an artist, who uses the same
      instruments with more skill and industry than his rivals. I shall
      not, however, enter into a minute narrative of these military
      operations; but as the two civil wars against Niger and against
      Albinus were almost the same in their conduct, event, and
      consequences, I shall collect into one point of view the most
      striking circumstances, tending to develop the character of the
      conqueror and the state of the empire.

      40 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 112]

      41 (return) [ Though it is not, most assuredly, the intention of
      Lucan to exalt the character of Cæsar, yet the idea he gives of
      that hero, in the tenth book of the Pharsalia, where he describes
      him, at the same time, making love to Cleopatra, sustaining a
      siege against the power of Egypt, and conversing with the sages
      of the country, is, in reality, the noblest panegyric. * Note:
      Lord Byron wrote, no doubt, from a reminiscence of that
      passage—“It is possible to be a very great man, and to be still
      very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so
      Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of
      such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile
      capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The
      first general; the only triumphant politician; inferior to none
      in point of eloquence; comparable to any in the attainments of
      wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen,
      orators, and philosophers, that ever appeared in the world; an
      author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his
      travelling carriage; at one time in a controversy with Cato, at
      another writing a treatise on punuing, and collecting a set of
      good sayings; fighting and making love at the same moment, and
      willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight
      of the fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his
      contemporaries, and to those of the subsequent ages who were the
      most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius.” Note 47
      to Canto iv. of Childe Harold.—M.]

      42 (return) [ Reckoning from his election, April 13, 193, to the
      death of Albinus, February 19, 197. See Tillemont’s Chronology.]

      Falsehood and insincerity, unsuitable as they seem to the dignity
      of public transactions, offend us with a less degrading idea of
      meanness, than when they are found in the intercourse of private
      life. In the latter, they discover a want of courage; in the
      other, only a defect of power: and, as it is impossible for the
      most able statesmen to subdue millions of followers and enemies
      by their own personal strength, the world, under the name of
      policy, seems to have granted them a very liberal indulgence of
      craft and dissimulation. Yet the arts of Severus cannot be
      justified by the most ample privileges of state reason. He
      promised only to betray, he flattered only to ruin; and however
      he might occasionally bind himself by oaths and treaties, his
      conscience, obsequious to his interest, always released him from
      the inconvenient obligation. 43

      43 (return) [ Herodian, l. ii. p. 85.]

      If his two competitors, reconciled by their common danger, had
      advanced upon him without delay, perhaps Severus would have sunk
      under their united effort. Had they even attacked him, at the
      same time, with separate views and separate armies, the contest
      might have been long and doubtful. But they fell, singly and
      successively, an easy prey to the arts as well as arms of their
      subtle enemy, lulled into security by the moderation of his
      professions, and overwhelmed by the rapidity of his action. He
      first marched against Niger, whose reputation and power he the
      most dreaded: but he declined any hostile declarations,
      suppressed the name of his antagonist, and only signified to the
      senate and people his intention of regulating the eastern
      provinces. In private, he spoke of Niger, his old friend and
      intended successor, 44 with the most affectionate regard, and
      highly applauded his generous design of revenging the murder of
      Pertinax. To punish the vile usurper of the throne, was the duty
      of every Roman general. To persevere in arms, and to resist a
      lawful emperor, acknowledged by the senate, would alone render
      him criminal. 45 The sons of Niger had fallen into his hands
      among the children of the provincial governors, detained at Rome
      as pledges for the loyalty of their parents. 46 As long as the
      power of Niger inspired terror, or even respect, they were
      educated with the most tender care, with the children of Severus
      himself; but they were soon involved in their father’s ruin, and
      removed first by exile, and afterwards by death, from the eye of
      public compassion. 47

      44 (return) [ Whilst Severus was very dangerously ill, it was
      industriously given out, that he intended to appoint Niger and
      Albinus his successors. As he could not be sincere with respect
      to both, he might not be so with regard to either. Yet Severus
      carried his hypocrisy so far, as to profess that intention in the
      memoirs of his own life.]

      45 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 65.]

      46 (return) [ This practice, invented by Commodus, proved very
      useful to Severus. He found at Rome the children of many of the
      principal adherents of his rivals; and he employed them more than
      once to intimidate, or seduce, the parents.]

      47 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 95. Hist. August. p. 67, 68.]

      Whilst Severus was engaged in his eastern war, he had reason to
      apprehend that the governor of Britain might pass the sea and the
      Alps, occupy the vacant seat of empire, and oppose his return
      with the authority of the senate and the forces of the West. The
      ambiguous conduct of Albinus, in not assuming the Imperial title,
      left room for negotiation. Forgetting, at once, his professions
      of patriotism, and the jealousy of sovereign power, he accepted
      the precarious rank of Cæsar, as a reward for his fatal
      neutrality. Till the first contest was decided, Severus treated
      the man, whom he had doomed to destruction, with every mark of
      esteem and regard. Even in the letter, in which he announced his
      victory over Niger, he styles Albinus the brother of his soul and
      empire, sends him the affectionate salutations of his wife Julia,
      and his young family, and entreats him to preserve the armies and
      the republic faithful to their common interest. The messengers
      charged with this letter were instructed to accost the Cæsar with
      respect, to desire a private audience, and to plunge their
      daggers into his heart. 48 The conspiracy was discovered, and the
      too credulous Albinus, at length, passed over to the continent,
      and prepared for an unequal contest with his rival, who rushed
      upon him at the head of a veteran and victorious army.

      48 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 84. Spartianus has inserted this
      curious letter at full length.]

      The military labors of Severus seem inadequate to the importance
      of his conquests. Two engagements, 481 the one near the
      Hellespont, the other in the narrow defiles of Cilicia, decided
      the fate of his Syrian competitor; and the troops of Europe
      asserted their usual ascendant over the effeminate natives of
      Asia. 49 The battle of Lyons, where one hundred and fifty
      thousand Romans 50 were engaged, was equally fatal to Albinus.
      The valor of the British army maintained, indeed, a sharp and
      doubtful contest, with the hardy discipline of the Illyrian
      legions. The fame and person of Severus appeared, during a few
      moments, irrecoverably lost, till that warlike prince rallied his
      fainting troops, and led them on to a decisive victory. 51 The
      war was finished by that memorable day. 511

      481 (return) [ There were three actions; one near Cyzicus, on the
      Hellespont, one near Nice, in Bithynia, the third near the Issus,
      in Cilicia, where Alexander conquered Darius. (Dion, lxiv. c. 6.
      Herodian, iii. 2, 4.)—W Herodian represents the second battle as
      of less importance than Dion—M.]

      49 (return) [ Consult the third book of Herodian, and the
      seventy-fourth book of Dion Cassius.]

      50 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1260.]

      51 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1261. Herodian, l. iii. p. 110.
      Hist. August. p. 68. The battle was fought in the plain of
      Trevoux, three or four leagues from Lyons. See Tillemont, tom.
      iii. p. 406, note 18.]

      511 (return) [ According to Herodian, it was his lieutenant Lætus
      who led back the troops to the battle, and gained the day, which
      Severus had almost lost. Dion also attributes to Lætus a great
      share in the victory. Severus afterwards put him to death, either
      from fear or jealousy.—W. and G. Wenck and M. Guizot have not
      given the real statement of Herodian or of Dion. According to the
      former, Lætus appeared with his own army entire, which he was
      suspected of having designedly kept disengaged when the battle
      was still doudtful, or rather after the rout of severus. Dion
      says that he did not move till Severus had won the victory.—M.]

      The civil wars of modern Europe have been distinguished, not only
      by the fierce animosity, but likewise by the obstinate
      perseverance, of the contending factions. They have generally
      been justified by some principle, or, at least, colored by some
      pretext, of religion, freedom, or loyalty. The leaders were
      nobles of independent property and hereditary influence. The
      troops fought like men interested in the decision of the quarrel;
      and as military spirit and party zeal were strongly diffused
      throughout the whole community, a vanquished chief was
      immediately supplied with new adherents, eager to shed their
      blood in the same cause. But the Romans, after the fall of the
      republic, combated only for the choice of masters. Under the
      standard of a popular candidate for empire, a few enlisted from
      affection, some from fear, many from interest, none from
      principle. The legions, uninflamed by party zeal, were allured
      into civil war by liberal donatives, and still more liberal
      promises. A defeat, by disabling the chief from the performance
      of his engagements, dissolved the mercenary allegiance of his
      followers, and left them to consult their own safety by a timely
      desertion of an unsuccessful cause. It was of little moment to
      the provinces, under whose name they were oppressed or governed;
      they were driven by the impulsion of the present power, and as
      soon as that power yielded to a superior force, they hastened to
      implore the clemency of the conqueror, who, as he had an immense
      debt to discharge, was obliged to sacrifice the most guilty
      countries to the avarice of his soldiers. In the vast extent of
      the Roman empire, there were few fortified cities capable of
      protecting a routed army; nor was there any person, or family, or
      order of men, whose natural interest, unsupported by the powers
      of government, was capable of restoring the cause of a sinking
      party. 52

      52 (return) [ Montesquieu, Considerations sur la Grandeur et la
      Decadence des Romains, c. xiii.]

      Yet, in the contest between Niger and Severus, a single city
      deserves an honorable exception. As Byzantium was one of the
      greatest passages from Europe into Asia, it had been provided
      with a strong garrison, and a fleet of five hundred vessels was
      anchored in the harbor. 53 The impetuosity of Severus
      disappointed this prudent scheme of defence; he left to his
      generals the siege of Byzantium, forced the less guarded passage
      of the Hellespont, and, impatient of a meaner enemy, pressed
      forward to encounter his rival. Byzantium, attacked by a numerous
      and increasing army, and afterwards by the whole naval power of
      the empire, sustained a siege of three years, and remained
      faithful to the name and memory of Niger. The citizens and
      soldiers (we know not from what cause) were animated with equal
      fury; several of the principal officers of Niger, who despaired
      of, or who disdained, a pardon, had thrown themselves into this
      last refuge: the fortifications were esteemed impregnable, and,
      in the defence of the place, a celebrated engineer displayed all
      the mechanic powers known to the ancients. 54 Byzantium, at
      length, surrendered to famine. The magistrates and soldiers were
      put to the sword, the walls demolished, the privileges
      suppressed, and the destined capital of the East subsisted only
      as an open village, subject to the insulting jurisdiction of
      Perinthus. The historian Dion, who had admired the flourishing,
      and lamented the desolate, state of Byzantium, accused the
      revenge of Severus, for depriving the Roman people of the
      strongest bulwark against the barbarians of Pontus and Asia 55
      The truth of this observation was but too well justified in the
      succeeding age, when the Gothic fleets covered the Euxine, and
      passed through the undefined Bosphorus into the centre of the
      Mediterranean.

      53 (return) [ Most of these, as may be supposed, were small open
      vessels; some, however, were galleys of two, and a few of three
      ranks of oars.]

      54 (return) [The engineer’s name was Priscus. His skill saved his
      life, and he was taken into the service of the conqueror. For the
      particular facts of the siege, consult Dion Cassius (l. lxxv. p.
      1251) and Herodian, (l. iii. p. 95;) for the theory of it, the
      fanciful chevalier de Folard may be looked into. See Polybe, tom.
      i. p. 76.]

      55 (return) [ Notwithstanding the authority of Spartianus, and
      some modern Greeks, we may be assured, from Dion and Herodian,
      that Byzantium, many years after the death of Severus, lay in
      ruins. There is no contradiction between the relation of Dion and
      that of Spartianus and the modern Greeks. Dion does not say that
      Severus destroyed Byzantium, but that he deprived it of its
      franchises and privileges, stripped the inhabitants of their
      property, razed the fortifications, and subjected the city to the
      jurisdiction of Perinthus. Therefore, when Spartian, Suidas,
      Cedrenus, say that Severus and his son Antoninus restored to
      Byzantium its rights and franchises, ordered temples to be built,
      &c., this is easily reconciled with the relation of Dion. Perhaps
      the latter mentioned it in some of the fragments of his history
      which have been lost. As to Herodian, his expressions are
      evidently exaggerated, and he has been guilty of so many
      inaccuracies in the history of Severus, that we have a right to
      suppose one in this passage.—G. from W Wenck and M. Guizot have
      omitted to cite Zosimus, who mentions a particular portico built
      by Severus, and called, apparently, by his name. Zosim. Hist. ii.
      c. xxx. p. 151, 153, edit Heyne.—M.]

      Both Niger and Albinus were discovered and put to death in their
      flight from the field of battle. Their fate excited neither
      surprise nor compassion. They had staked their lives against the
      chance of empire, and suffered what they would have inflicted;
      nor did Severus claim the arrogant superiority of suffering his
      rivals to live in a private station. But his unforgiving temper,
      stimulated by avarice, indulged a spirit of revenge, where there
      was no room for apprehension. The most considerable of the
      provincials, who, without any dislike to the fortunate candidate,
      had obeyed the governor under whose authority they were
      accidentally placed, were punished by death, exile, and
      especially by the confiscation of their estates. Many cities of
      the East were stripped of their ancient honors, and obliged to
      pay, into the treasury of Severus, four times the amount of the
      sums contributed by them for the service of Niger. 56

      56 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1250.]

      Till the final decision of the war, the cruelty of Severus was,
      in some measure, restrained by the uncertainty of the event, and
      his pretended reverence for the senate. The head of Albinus,
      accompanied with a menacing letter, announced to the Romans that
      he was resolved to spare none of the adherents of his unfortunate
      competitors. He was irritated by the just auspicion that he had
      never possessed the affections of the senate, and he concealed
      his old malevolence under the recent discovery of some
      treasonable correspondences. Thirty-five senators, however,
      accused of having favored the party of Albinus, he freely
      pardoned, and, by his subsequent behavior, endeavored to convince
      them, that he had forgotten, as well as forgiven, their supposed
      offences. But, at the same time, he condemned forty-one 57 other
      senators, whose names history has recorded; their wives,
      children, and clients attended them in death, 571 and the noblest
      provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same ruin. 572
      Such rigid justice—for so he termed it—was, in the opinion of
      Severus, the only conduct capable of insuring peace to the people
      or stability to the prince; and he condescended slightly to
      lament, that to be mild, it was necessary that he should first be
      cruel. 58

      57 (return) [ Dion, (l. lxxv. p. 1264;) only twenty-nine senators
      are mentioned by him, but forty-one are named in the Augustan
      History, p. 69, among whom were six of the name of Pescennius.
      Herodian (l. iii. p. 115) speaks in general of the cruelties of
      Severus.]

      571 (return) [ Wenck denies that there is any authority for this
      massacre of the wives of the senators. He adds, that only the
      children and relatives of Niger and Albinus were put to death.
      This is true of the family of Albinus, whose bodies were thrown
      into the Rhone; those of Niger, according to Lampridius, were
      sent into exile, but afterwards put to death. Among the partisans
      of Albinus who were put to death were many women of rank, multæ
      fœminæ illustres. Lamprid. in Sever.—M.]

      572 (return) [ A new fragment of Dion describes the state of Rome
      during this contest. All pretended to be on the side of Severus;
      but their secret sentiments were often betrayed by a change of
      countenance on the arrival of some sudden report. Some were
      detected by overacting their loyalty, Mai. Fragm. Vatican. p. 227
      Severus told the senate he would rather have their hearts than
      their votes.—Ibid.—M.]

      58 (return) [ Aurelius Victor.]

      The true interest of an absolute monarch generally coincides with
      that of his people. Their numbers, their wealth, their order, and
      their security, are the best and only foundations of his real
      greatness; and were he totally devoid of virtue, prudence might
      supply its place, and would dictate the same rule of conduct.
      Severus considered the Roman empire as his property, and had no
      sooner secured the possession, than he bestowed his care on the
      cultivation and improvement of so valuable an acquisition.
      Salutary laws, executed with inflexible firmness, soon corrected
      most of the abuses with which, since the death of Marcus, every
      part of the government had been infected. In the administration
      of justice, the judgments of the emperor were characterized by
      attention, discernment, and impartiality; and whenever he
      deviated from the strict line of equity, it was generally in
      favor of the poor and oppressed; not so much indeed from any
      sense of humanity, as from the natural propensity of a despot to
      humble the pride of greatness, and to sink all his subjects to
      the same common level of absolute dependence. His expensive taste
      for building, magnificent shows, and above all a constant and
      liberal distribution of corn and provisions, were the surest
      means of captivating the affection of the Roman people. 59 The
      misfortunes of civil discord were obliterated. The calm of peace
      and prosperity was once more experienced in the provinces; and
      many cities, restored by the munificence of Severus, assumed the
      title of his colonies, and attested by public monuments their
      gratitude and felicity. 60 The fame of the Roman arms was revived
      by that warlike and successful emperor, 61 and he boasted, with a
      just pride, that, having received the empire oppressed with
      foreign and domestic wars, he left it established in profound,
      universal, and honorable peace. 62

      59 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1272. Hist. August. p. 67.
      Severus celebrated the secular games with extraordinary
      magnificence, and he left in the public granaries a provision of
      corn for seven years, at the rate of 75,000 modii, or about 2500
      quarters per day. I am persuaded that the granaries of Severus
      were supplied for a long term, but I am not less persuaded, that
      policy on one hand, and admiration on the other, magnified the
      hoard far beyond its true contents.]

      60 (return) [ See Spanheim’s treatise of ancient medals, the
      inscriptions, and our learned travellers Spon and Wheeler, Shaw,
      Pocock, &c, who, in Africa, Greece, and Asia, have found more
      monuments of Severus than of any other Roman emperor whatsoever.]

      61 (return) [ He carried his victorious arms to Seleucia and
      Ctesiphon, the capitals of the Parthian monarchy. I shall have
      occasion to mention this war in its proper place.]

      62 (return) [ Etiam in Britannis, was his own just and emphatic
      expression Hist. August. 73.]

      Although the wounds of civil war appeared completely healed, its
      mortal poison still lurked in the vitals of the constitution.
      Severus possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability; but
      the daring soul of the first Cæsar, or the deep policy of
      Augustus, were scarcely equal to the task of curbing the
      insolence of the victorious legions. By gratitude, by misguided
      policy, by seeming necessity, Severus was reduced to relax the
      nerves of discipline. 63 The vanity of his soldiers was flattered
      with the honor of wearing gold rings; their ease was indulged in
      the permission of living with their wives in the idleness of
      quarters. He increased their pay beyond the example of former
      times, and taught them to expect, and soon to claim,
      extraordinary donatives on every public occasion of danger or
      festivity. Elated by success, enervated by luxury, and raised
      above the level of subjects by their dangerous privileges, 64
      they soon became incapable of military fatigue, oppressive to the
      country, and impatient of a just subordination. Their officers
      asserted the superiority of rank by a more profuse and elegant
      luxury. There is still extant a letter of Severus, lamenting the
      licentious stage of the army, 641 and exhorting one of his
      generals to begin the necessary reformation from the tribunes
      themselves; since, as he justly observes, the officer who has
      forfeited the esteem, will never command the obedience, of his
      soldiers. 65 Had the emperor pursued the train of reflection, he
      would have discovered, that the primary cause of this general
      corruption might be ascribed, not indeed to the example, but to
      the pernicious indulgence, however, of the commander-in-chief.

      63 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 115. Hist. August. p. 68.]

      64 (return) [ Upon the insolence and privileges of the soldier,
      the 16th satire, falsely ascribed to Juvenal, may be consulted;
      the style and circumstances of it would induce me to believe,
      that it was composed under the reign of Severus, or that of his
      son.]

      641 (return) [ Not of the army, but of the troops in Gaul. The
      contents of this letter seem to prove that Severus was really
      anxious to restore discipline Herodian is the only historian who
      accuses him of being the first cause of its relaxation.—G. from W
      Spartian mentions his increase of the pays.—M.]

      65 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 73.]

      The Prætorians, who murdered their emperor and sold the empire,
      had received the just punishment of their treason; but the
      necessary, though dangerous, institution of guards was soon
      restored on a new model by Severus, and increased to four times
      the ancient number. 66 Formerly these troops had been recruited
      in Italy; and as the adjacent provinces gradually imbibed the
      softer manners of Rome, the levies were extended to Macedonia,
      Noricum, and Spain. In the room of these elegant troops, better
      adapted to the pomp of courts than to the uses of war, it was
      established by Severus, that from all the legions of the
      frontiers, the soldiers most distinguished for strength, valor,
      and fidelity, should be occasionally draughted; and promoted, as
      an honor and reward, into the more eligible service of the
      guards. 67 By this new institution, the Italian youth were
      diverted from the exercise of arms, and the capital was terrified
      by the strange aspect and manners of a multitude of barbarians.
      But Severus flattered himself, that the legions would consider
      these chosen Prætorians as the representatives of the whole
      military order; and that the present aid of fifty thousand men,
      superior in arms and appointments to any force that could be
      brought into the field against them, would forever crush the
      hopes of rebellion, and secure the empire to himself and his
      posterity.

      66 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 131.]

      67 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxiv. p. 1243.]

      The command of these favored and formidable troops soon became
      the first office of the empire. As the government degenerated
      into military despotism, the Prætorian Præfect, who in his origin
      had been a simple captain of the guards, 671 was placed not only
      at the head of the army, but of the finances, and even of the
      law. In every department of administration, he represented the
      person, and exercised the authority, of the emperor. The first
      præfect who enjoyed and abused this immense power was Plautianus,
      the favorite minister of Severus. His reign lasted above ten
      years, till the marriage of his daughter with the eldest son of
      the emperor, which seemed to assure his fortune, proved the
      occasion of his ruin. 68 The animosities of the palace, by
      irritating the ambition and alarming the fears of Plautianus, 681
      threatened to produce a revolution, and obliged the emperor, who
      still loved him, to consent with reluctance to his death. 69
      After the fall of Plautianus, an eminent lawyer, the celebrated
      Papinian, was appointed to execute the motley office of Prætorian
      Præfect.

      671 (return) [ The Prætorian Præfect had never been a simple
      captain of the guards; from the first creation of this office,
      under Augustus, it possessed great power. That emperor,
      therefore, decreed that there should be always two Prætorian
      Præfects, who could only be taken from the equestrian order
      Tiberius first departed from the former clause of this edict;
      Alexander Severus violated the second by naming senators
      præfects. It appears that it was under Commodus that the
      Prætorian Præfects obtained the province of civil jurisdiction.
      It extended only to Italy, with the exception of Rome and its
      district, which was governed by the Præfectus urbi. As to the
      control of the finances, and the levying of taxes, it was not
      intrusted to them till after the great change that Constantine I.
      made in the organization of the empire at least, I know no
      passage which assigns it to them before that time; and
      Drakenborch, who has treated this question in his Dissertation de
      official præfectorum prætorio, vi., does not quote one.—W.]

      68 (return) [ One of his most daring and wanton acts of power,
      was the castration of a hundred free Romans, some of them married
      men, and even fathers of families; merely that his daughter, on
      her marriage with the young emperor, might be attended by a train
      of eunuchs worthy of an eastern queen. Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1271.]

      681 (return) [ Plautianus was compatriot, relative, and the old
      friend, of Severus; he had so completely shut up all access to
      the emperor, that the latter was ignorant how far he abused his
      powers: at length, being informed of it, he began to limit his
      authority. The marriage of Plautilla with Caracalla was
      unfortunate; and the prince who had been forced to consent to it,
      menaced the father and the daughter with death when he should
      come to the throne. It was feared, after that, that Plautianus
      would avail himself of the power which he still possessed,
      against the Imperial family; and Severus caused him to be
      assassinated in his presence, upon the pretext of a conspiracy,
      which Dion considers fictitious.—W. This note is not, perhaps,
      very necessary and does not contain the whole facts. Dion
      considers the conspiracy the invention of Caracalla, by whose
      command, almost by whose hand, Plautianus was slain in the
      presence of Severus.—M.]

      69 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1274. Herodian, l. iii. p. 122,
      129. The grammarian of Alexander seems, as is not unusual, much
      better acquainted with this mysterious transaction, and more
      assured of the guilt of Plautianus than the Roman senator
      ventures to be.]

      Till the reign of Severus, the virtue and even the good sense of
      the emperors had been distinguished by their zeal or affected
      reverence for the senate, and by a tender regard to the nice
      frame of civil policy instituted by Augustus. But the youth of
      Severus had been trained in the implicit obedience of camps, and
      his riper years spent in the despotism of military command. His
      haughty and inflexible spirit could not discover, or would not
      acknowledge, the advantage of preserving an intermediate power,
      however imaginary, between the emperor and the army. He disdained
      to profess himself the servant of an assembly that detested his
      person and trembled at his frown; he issued his commands, where
      his requests would have proved as effectual; assumed the conduct
      and style of a sovereign and a conqueror, and exercised, without
      disguise, the whole legislative, as well as the executive power.

      The victory over the senate was easy and inglorious. Every eye
      and every passion were directed to the supreme magistrate, who
      possessed the arms and treasure of the state; whilst the senate,
      neither elected by the people, nor guarded by military force, nor
      animated by public spirit, rested its declining authority on the
      frail and crumbling basis of ancient opinion. The fine theory of
      a republic insensibly vanished, and made way for the more natural
      and substantial feelings of monarchy. As the freedom and honors
      of Rome were successively communicated to the provinces, in which
      the old government had been either unknown, or was remembered
      with abhorrence, the tradition of republican maxims was gradually
      obliterated. The Greek historians of the age of the Antonines 70
      observe, with a malicious pleasure, that although the sovereign
      of Rome, in compliance with an obsolete prejudice, abstained from
      the name of king, he possessed the full measure of regal power.
      In the reign of Severus, the senate was filled with polished and
      eloquent slaves from the eastern provinces, who justified
      personal flattery by speculative principles of servitude. These
      new advocates of prerogative were heard with pleasure by the
      court, and with patience by the people, when they inculcated the
      duty of passive obedience, and descanted on the inevitable
      mischiefs of freedom. The lawyers and historians concurred in
      teaching, that the Imperial authority was held, not by the
      delegated commission, but by the irrevocable resignation of the
      senate; that the emperor was freed from the restraint of civil
      laws, could command by his arbitrary will the lives and fortunes
      of his subjects, and might dispose of the empire as of his
      private patrimony. 71 The most eminent of the civil lawyers, and
      particularly Papinian, Paulus, and Ulpian, flourished under the
      house of Severus; and the Roman jurisprudence, having closely
      united itself with the system of monarchy, was supposed to have
      attained its full majority and perfection.

      70 (return) [ Appian in Proœm.]

      71 (return) [ Dion Cassius seems to have written with no other
      view than to form these opinions into an historical system. The
      Pandea’s will how how assiduously the lawyers, on their side,
      laboree in the cause of prerogative.]

      The contemporaries of Severus in the enjoyment of the peace and
      glory of his reign, forgave the cruelties by which it had been
      introduced. Posterity, who experienced the fatal effects of his
      maxims and example, justly considered him as the principal author
      of the decline of the Roman empire.




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Marcinus.—Part I.

     The Death Of Severus.—Tyranny Of Caracalla.—Usurpation Of
     Macrinus.—Follies Of Elagabalus.—Virtues Of Alexander
     Severus.—Licentiousness Of The Army.—General State Of The Roman
     Finances.

      The ascent to greatness, however steep and dangerous, may
      entertain an active spirit with the consciousness and exercise of
      its own powers: but the possession of a throne could never yet
      afford a lasting satisfaction to an ambitious mind. This
      melancholy truth was felt and acknowledged by Severus. Fortune
      and merit had, from an humble station, elevated him to the first
      place among mankind. “He had been all things,” as he said
      himself, “and all was of little value.” 1 Distracted with the
      care, not of acquiring, but of preserving an empire, oppressed
      with age and infirmities, careless of fame, 2 and satiated with
      power, all his prospects of life were closed. The desire of
      perpetuating the greatness of his family was the only remaining
      wish of his ambition and paternal tenderness.

      1 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 71. “Omnia fui, et nihil expedit.”]

      2 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxvi. p. 1284.]

      Like most of the Africans, Severus was passionately addicted to
      the vain studies of magic and divination, deeply versed in the
      interpretation of dreams and omens, and perfectly acquainted with
      the science of judicial astrology; which, in almost every age
      except the present, has maintained its dominion over the mind of
      man. He had lost his first wife, while he was governor of the
      Lionnese Gaul. 3 In the choice of a second, he sought only to
      connect himself with some favorite of fortune; and as soon as he
      had discovered that the young lady of Emesa in Syria had _a royal
      nativity_, he solicited and obtained her hand. 4 Julia Domna (for
      that was her name) deserved all that the stars could promise her.

      She possessed, even in advanced age, the attractions of beauty, 5
      and united to a lively imagination a firmness of mind, and
      strength of judgment, seldom bestowed on her sex. Her amiable
      qualities never made any deep impression on the dark and jealous
      temper of her husband; but in her son’s reign, she administered
      the principal affairs of the empire, with a prudence that
      supported his authority, and with a moderation that sometimes
      corrected his wild extravagancies. 6 Julia applied herself to
      letters and philosophy, with some success, and with the most
      splendid reputation. She was the patroness of every art, and the
      friend of every man of genius. 7 The grateful flattery of the
      learned has celebrated her virtues; but, if we may credit the
      scandal of ancient history, chastity was very far from being the
      most conspicuous virtue of the empress Julia. 8

      3 (return) [ About the year 186. M. de Tillemont is miserably
      embarrassed with a passage of Dion, in which the empress
      Faustina, who died in the year 175, is introduced as having
      contributed to the marriage of Severus and Julia, (l. lxxiv. p.
      1243.) The learned compiler forgot that Dion is relating not a
      real fact, but a dream of Severus; and dreams are circumscribed
      to no limits of time or space. Did M. de Tillemont imagine that
      marriages were consummated in the temple of Venus at Rome? Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 389. Note 6.]

      4 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 65.]

      5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 5.]

      6 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxvii. p. 1304, 1314.]

      7 (return) [ See a dissertation of Menage, at the end of his
      edition of Diogenes Lærtius, de Fœminis Philosophis.]

      8 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1285. Aurelius Victor.]

      Two sons, Caracalla 9 and Geta, were the fruit of this marriage,
      and the destined heirs of the empire. The fond hopes of the
      father, and of the Roman world, were soon disappointed by these
      vain youths, who displayed the indolent security of hereditary
      princes; and a presumption that fortune would supply the place of
      merit and application. Without any emulation of virtue or
      talents, they discovered, almost from their infancy, a fixed and
      implacable antipathy for each other.

      9 (return) [ Bassianus was his first name, as it had been that of
      his maternal grandfather. During his reign, he assumed the
      appellation of Antoninus, which is employed by lawyers and
      ancient historians. After his death, the public indignation
      loaded him with the nicknames of Tarantus and Caracalla. The
      first was borrowed from a celebrated Gladiator, the second from a
      long Gallic gown which he distributed to the people of Rome.]

      Their aversion, confirmed by years, and fomented by the arts of
      their interested favorites, broke out in childish, and gradually
      in more serious competitions; and, at length, divided the
      theatre, the circus, and the court, into two factions, actuated
      by the hopes and fears of their respective leaders. The prudent
      emperor endeavored, by every expedient of advice and authority,
      to allay this growing animosity. The unhappy discord of his sons
      clouded all his prospects, and threatened to overturn a throne
      raised with so much labor, cemented with so much blood, and
      guarded with every defence of arms and treasure. With an
      impartial hand he maintained between them an exact balance of
      favor, conferred on both the rank of Augustus, with the revered
      name of Antoninus; and for the first time the Roman world beheld
      three emperors. 10 Yet even this equal conduct served only to
      inflame the contest, whilst the fierce Caracalla asserted the
      right of primogeniture, and the milder Geta courted the
      affections of the people and the soldiers. In the anguish of a
      disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of his sons
      would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would
      be ruined by his own vices. 11

      10 (return) [ The elevation of Caracalla is fixed by the accurate
      M. de Tillemont to the year 198; the association of Geta to the
      year 208.]

      11 (return) [ Herodian, l. iii. p. 130. The lives of Caracalla
      and Geta, in the Augustan History.]

      In these circumstances the intelligence of a war in Britain, and
      of an invasion of the province by the barbarians of the North,
      was received with pleasure by Severus. Though the vigilance of
      his lieutenants might have been sufficient to repel the distant
      enemy, he resolved to embrace the honorable pretext of
      withdrawing his sons from the luxury of Rome, which enervated
      their minds and irritated their passions; and of inuring their
      youth to the toils of war and government. Notwithstanding his
      advanced age, (for he was above threescore,) and his gout, which
      obliged him to be carried in a litter, he transported himself in
      person into that remote island, attended by his two sons, his
      whole court, and a formidable army. He immediately passed the
      walls of Hadrian and Antoninus, and entered the enemy’s country,
      with a design of completing the long attempted conquest of
      Britain. He penetrated to the northern extremity of the island,
      without meeting an enemy. But the concealed ambuscades of the
      Caledonians, who hung unseen on the rear and flanks of his army,
      the coldness of the climate and the severity of a winter march
      across the hills and morasses of Scotland, are reported to have
      cost the Romans above fifty thousand men. The Caledonians at
      length yielded to the powerful and obstinate attack, sued for
      peace, and surrendered a part of their arms, and a large tract of
      territory. But their apparent submission lasted no longer than
      the present terror. As soon as the Roman legions had retired,
      they resumed their hostile independence. Their restless spirit
      provoked Severus to send a new army into Caledonia, with the most
      bloody orders, not to subdue, but to extirpate the natives. They
      were saved by the death of their haughty enemy. 12

      12 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1280, &c. Herodian, l. iii. p.
      132, &c.]

      This Caledonian war, neither marked by decisive events, nor
      attended with any important consequences, would ill deserve our
      attention; but it is supposed, not without a considerable degree
      of probability, that the invasion of Severus is connected with
      the most shining period of the British history or fable. Fingal,
      whose fame, with that of his heroes and bards, has been revived
      in our language by a recent publication, is said to have
      commanded the Caledonians in that memorable juncture, to have
      eluded the power of Severus, and to have obtained a signal
      victory on the banks of the Carun, in which the son of _the King
      of the World_, Caracul, fled from his arms along the fields of
      his pride. 13 Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these
      Highland traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most
      ingenious researches of modern criticism; 14 but if we could,
      with safety, indulge the pleasing supposition, that Fingal lived,
      and that Ossian sung, the striking contrast of the situation and
      manners of the contending nations might amuse a philosophic mind.

      The parallel would be little to the advantage of the more
      civilized people, if we compared the unrelenting revenge of
      Severus with the generous clemency of Fingal; the timid and
      brutal cruelty of Caracalla with the bravery, the tenderness, the
      elegant genius of Ossian; the mercenary chiefs, who, from motives
      of fear or interest, served under the imperial standard, with the
      free-born warriors who started to arms at the voice of the king
      of Morven; if, in a word, we contemplated the untutored
      Caledonians, glowing with the warm virtues of nature, and the
      degenerate Romans, polluted with the mean vices of wealth and
      slavery.

      13 (return) [ Ossian’s Poems, vol. i. p. 175.]

      14 (return) [ That the Caracul of Ossian is the Caracalla of the
      Roman History, is, perhaps, the only point of British antiquity
      in which Mr. Macpherson and Mr. Whitaker are of the same opinion;
      and yet the opinion is not without difficulty. In the Caledonian
      war, the son of Severus was known only by the appellation of
      Antoninus, and it may seem strange that the Highland bard should
      describe him by a nickname, invented four years afterwards,
      scarcely used by the Romans till after the death of that emperor,
      and seldom employed by the most ancient historians. See Dion, l.
      lxxvii. p. 1317. Hist. August. p. 89 Aurel. Victor. Euseb. in
      Chron. ad ann. 214. Note: The historical authority of
      Macpherson’s Ossian has not increased since Gibbon wrote. We may,
      indeed, consider it exploded. Mr. Whitaker, in a letter to Gibbon
      (Misc. Works, vol. ii. p. 100,) attempts, not very successfully,
      to weaken this objection of the historian.—M.]

      The declining health and last illness of Severus inflamed the
      wild ambition and black passions of Caracalla’s soul. Impatient
      of any delay or division of empire, he attempted, more than once,
      to shorten the small remainder of his father’s days, and
      endeavored, but without success, to excite a mutiny among the
      troops. 15 The old emperor had often censured the misguided
      lenity of Marcus, who, by a single act of justice, might have
      saved the Romans from the tyranny of his worthless son. Placed in
      the same situation, he experienced how easily the rigor of a
      judge dissolves away in the tenderness of a parent. He
      deliberated, he threatened, but he could not punish; and this
      last and only instance of mercy was more fatal to the empire than
      a long series of cruelty. 16 The disorder of his mind irritated
      the pains of his body; he wished impatiently for death, and
      hastened the instant of it by his impatience. He expired at York
      in the sixty-fifth year of his life, and in the eighteenth of a
      glorious and successful reign. In his last moments he recommended
      concord to his sons, and his sons to the army. The salutary
      advice never reached the heart, or even the understanding, of the
      impetuous youths; but the more obedient troops, mindful of their
      oath of allegiance, and of the authority of their deceased
      master, resisted the solicitations of Caracalla, and proclaimed
      both brothers emperors of Rome. The new princes soon left the
      Caledonians in peace, returned to the capital, celebrated their
      father’s funeral with divine honors, and were cheerfully
      acknowledged as lawful sovereigns, by the senate, the people, and
      the provinces. Some preeminence of rank seems to have been
      allowed to the elder brother; but they both administered the
      empire with equal and independent power. 17

      15 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1282. Hist. August. p. 71.
      Aurel. Victor.]

      16 (return) [Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1283. Hist. August. p. 89]

      17 (return) [Footnote 17: Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1284. Herodian, l.
      iii. p. 135.]

      Such a divided form of government would have proved a source of
      discord between the most affectionate brothers. It was impossible
      that it could long subsist between two implacable enemies, who
      neither desired nor could trust a reconciliation. It was visible
      that one only could reign, and that the other must fall; and each
      of them, judging of his rival’s designs by his own, guarded his
      life with the most jealous vigilance from the repeated attacks of
      poison or the sword. Their rapid journey through Gaul and Italy,
      during which they never ate at the same table, or slept in the
      same house, displayed to the provinces the odious spectacle of
      fraternal discord. On their arrival at Rome, they immediately
      divided the vast extent of the imperial palace. 18 No
      communication was allowed between their apartments; the doors and
      passages were diligently fortified, and guards posted and
      relieved with the same strictness as in a besieged place. The
      emperors met only in public, in the presence of their afflicted
      mother; and each surrounded by a numerous train of armed
      followers. Even on these occasions of ceremony, the dissimulation
      of courts could ill disguise the rancor of their hearts. 19

      18 (return) [ Mr. Hume is justly surprised at a passage of
      Herodian, (l. iv. p. 139,) who, on this occasion, represents the
      Imperial palace as equal in extent to the rest of Rome. The whole
      region of the Palatine Mount, on which it was built, occupied, at
      most, a circumference of eleven or twelve thousand feet, (see the
      Notitia and Victor, in Nardini’s Roma Antica.) But we should
      recollect that the opulent senators had almost surrounded the
      city with their extensive gardens and suburb palaces, the
      greatest part of which had been gradually confiscated by the
      emperors. If Geta resided in the gardens that bore his name on
      the Janiculum, and if Caracalla inhabited the gardens of Mæcenas
      on the Esquiline, the rival brothers were separated from each
      other by the distance of several miles; and yet the intermediate
      space was filled by the Imperial gardens of Sallust, of Lucullus,
      of Agrippa, of Domitian, of Caius, &c., all skirting round the
      city, and all connected with each other, and with the palace, by
      bridges thrown over the Tiber and the streets. But this
      explanation of Herodian would require, though it ill deserves, a
      particular dissertation, illustrated by a map of ancient Rome.
      (Hume, Essay on Populousness of Ancient Nations.—M.)]

      19 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 139]

      This latent civil war already distracted the whole government,
      when a scheme was suggested that seemed of mutual benefit to the
      hostile brothers. It was proposed, that since it was impossible
      to reconcile their minds, they should separate their interest,
      and divide the empire between them. The conditions of the treaty
      were already drawn with some accuracy. It was agreed that
      Caracalla, as the elder brother should remain in possession of
      Europe and the western Africa; and that he should relinquish the
      sovereignty of Asia and Egypt to Geta, who might fix his
      residence at Alexandria or Antioch, cities little inferior to
      Rome itself in wealth and greatness; that numerous armies should
      be constantly encamped on either side of the Thracian Bosphorus,
      to guard the frontiers of the rival monarchies; and that the
      senators of European extraction should acknowledge the sovereign
      of Rome, whilst the natives of Asia followed the emperor of the
      East. The tears of the empress Julia interrupted the negotiation,
      the first idea of which had filled every Roman breast with
      surprise and indignation. The mighty mass of conquest was so
      intimately united by the hand of time and policy, that it
      required the most forcible violence to rend it asunder. The
      Romans had reason to dread, that the disjointed members would
      soon be reduced by a civil war under the dominion of one master;
      but if the separation was permanent, the division of the
      provinces must terminate in the dissolution of an empire whose
      unity had hitherto remained inviolate. 20

      20 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 144.]

      Had the treaty been carried into execution, the sovereign of
      Europe might soon have been the conqueror of Asia; but Caracalla
      obtained an easier, though a more guilty, victory. He artfully
      listened to his mother’s entreaties, and consented to meet his
      brother in her apartment, on terms of peace and reconciliation.
      In the midst of their conversation, some centurions, who had
      contrived to conceal themselves, rushed with drawn swords upon
      the unfortunate Geta. His distracted mother strove to protect him
      in her arms; but, in the unavailing struggle, she was wounded in
      the hand, and covered with the blood of her younger son, while
      she saw the elder animating and assisting 21 the fury of the
      assassins. As soon as the deed was perpetrated, Caracalla, with
      hasty steps, and horror in his countenance, ran towards the
      Prætorian camp, as his only refuge, and threw himself on the
      ground before the statues of the tutelar deities. 22 The soldiers
      attempted to raise and comfort him. In broken and disordered
      words he informed them of his imminent danger, and fortunate
      escape; insinuating that he had prevented the designs of his
      enemy, and declared his resolution to live and die with his
      faithful troops. Geta had been the favorite of the soldiers; but
      complaint was useless, revenge was dangerous, and they still
      reverenced the son of Severus. Their discontent died away in idle
      murmurs, and Caracalla soon convinced them of the justice of his
      cause, by distributing in one lavish donative the accumulated
      treasures of his father’s reign. 23 The real _sentiments_ of the
      soldiers alone were of importance to his power or safety. Their
      declaration in his favor commanded the dutiful _professions_ of
      the senate. The obsequious assembly was always prepared to ratify
      the decision of fortune; 231 but as Caracalla wished to assuage
      the first emotions of public indignation, the name of Geta was
      mentioned with decency, and he received the funeral honors of a
      Roman emperor. 24 Posterity, in pity to his misfortune, has cast
      a veil over his vices. We consider that young prince as the
      innocent victim of his brother’s ambition, without recollecting
      that he himself wanted power, rather than inclination, to
      consummate the same attempts of revenge and murder. 241

      21 (return) [ Caracalla consecrated, in the temple of Serapis,
      the sword with which, as he boasted, he had slain his brother
      Geta. Dion, l. lxxvii p. 1307.]

      22 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 147. In every Roman camp there
      was a small chapel near the head-quarters, in which the statues
      of the tutelar deities were preserved and adored; and we may
      remark that the eagles, and other military ensigns, were in the
      first rank of these deities; an excellent institution, which
      confirmed discipline by the sanction of religion. See Lipsius de
      Militia Romana, iv. 5, v. 2.]

      23 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 148. Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1289.]

      231 (return) [ The account of this transaction, in a new passage
      of Dion, varies in some degree from this statement. It adds that
      the next morning, in the senate, Antoninus requested their
      indulgence, not because he had killed his brother, but because he
      was hoarse, and could not address them. Mai. Fragm. p. 228.—M.]

      24 (return) [ Geta was placed among the gods. Sit divus, dum non
      sit vivus said his brother. Hist. August. p. 91. Some marks of
      Geta’s consecration are still found upon medals.]

      241 (return) [ The favorable judgment which history has given of
      Geta is not founded solely on a feeling of pity; it is supported
      by the testimony of contemporary historians: he was too fond of
      the pleasures of the table, and showed great mistrust of his
      brother; but he was humane, well instructed; he often endeavored
      to mitigate the rigorous decrees of Severus and Caracalla. Herod
      iv. 3. Spartian in Geta.—W.]

      The crime went not unpunished. Neither business, nor pleasure,
      nor flattery, could defend Caracalla from the stings of a guilty
      conscience; and he confessed, in the anguish of a tortured mind,
      that his disordered fancy often beheld the angry forms of his
      father and his brother rising into life, to threaten and upbraid
      him. 25 The consciousness of his crime should have induced him to
      convince mankind, by the virtues of his reign, that the bloody
      deed had been the involuntary effect of fatal necessity. But the
      repentance of Caracalla only prompted him to remove from the
      world whatever could remind him of his guilt, or recall the
      memory of his murdered brother. On his return from the senate to
      the palace, he found his mother in the company of several noble
      matrons, weeping over the untimely fate of her younger son. The
      jealous emperor threatened them with instant death; the sentence
      was executed against Fadilla, the last remaining daughter of the
      emperor Marcus; 251 and even the afflicted Julia was obliged to
      silence her lamentations, to suppress her sighs, and to receive
      the assassin with smiles of joy and approbation. It was computed
      that, under the vague appellation of the friends of Geta, above
      twenty thousand persons of both sexes suffered death. His guards
      and freedmen, the ministers of his serious business, and the
      companions of his looser hours, those who by his interest had
      been promoted to any commands in the army or provinces, with the
      long connected chain of their dependants, were included in the
      proscription; which endeavored to reach every one who had
      maintained the smallest correspondence with Geta, who lamented
      his death, or who even mentioned his name. 26 Helvius Pertinax,
      son to the prince of that name, lost his life by an unseasonable
      witticism. 27 It was a sufficient crime of Thrasea Priscus to be
      descended from a family in which the love of liberty seemed an
      hereditary quality. 28 The particular causes of calumny and
      suspicion were at length exhausted; and when a senator was
      accused of being a secret enemy to the government, the emperor
      was satisfied with the general proof that he was a man of
      property and virtue. From this well-grounded principle he
      frequently drew the most bloody inferences. 281

      25 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307]

      251 (return) [ The most valuable paragraph of dion, which the
      industry of M. Manas recovered, relates to this daughter of
      Marcus, executed by Caracalla. Her name, as appears from Fronto,
      as well as from Dion, was Cornificia. When commanded to choose
      the kind of death she was to suffer, she burst into womanish
      tears; but remembering her father Marcus, she thus spoke:—“O my
      hapless soul, (... animula,) now imprisoned in the body, burst
      forth! be free! show them, however reluctant to believe it, that
      thou art the daughter of Marcus.” She then laid aside all her
      ornaments, and preparing herself for death, ordered her veins to
      be opened. Mai. Fragm. Vatican ii p. 220.—M.]

      26 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1290. Herodian, l. iv. p. 150.
      Dion (p. 2298) says, that the comic poets no longer durst employ
      the name of Geta in their plays, and that the estates of those
      who mentioned it in their testaments were confiscated.]

      27 (return) [ Caracalla had assumed the names of several
      conquered nations; Pertinax observed, that the name of Geticus
      (he had obtained some advantage over the Goths, or Getæ) would be
      a proper addition to Parthieus, Alemannicus, &c. Hist. August. p.
      89.]

      28 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1291. He was probably descended
      from Helvidius Priscus, and Thrasea Pætus, those patriots, whose
      firm, but useless and unseasonable, virtue has been immortalized
      by Tacitus. Note: M. Guizot is indignant at this “cold”
      observation of Gibbon on the noble character of Thrasea; but he
      admits that his virtue was useless to the public, and
      unseasonable amidst the vices of his age.—M.]

      281 (return) [ Caracalla reproached all those who demanded no
      favors of him. “It is clear that if you make me no requests, you
      do not trust me; if you do not trust me, you suspect me; if you
      suspect me, you fear me; if you fear me, you hate me.” And
      forthwith he condemned them as conspirators, a good specimen of
      the sorites in a tyrant’s logic. See Fragm. Vatican p.—M.]




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Marcinus.—Part II.

      The execution of so many innocent citizens was bewailed by the
      secret tears of their friends and families. The death of
      Papinian, the Prætorian Præfect, was lamented as a public
      calamity. 282 During the last seven years of Severus, he had
      exercised the most important offices of the state, and, by his
      salutary influence, guided the emperor’s steps in the paths of
      justice and moderation. In full assurance of his virtue and
      abilities, Severus, on his death-bed, had conjured him to watch
      over the prosperity and union of the Imperial family. 29 The
      honest labors of Papinian served only to inflame the hatred which
      Caracalla had already conceived against his father’s minister.
      After the murder of Geta, the Præfect was commanded to exert the
      powers of his skill and eloquence in a studied apology for that
      atrocious deed. The philosophic Seneca had condescended to
      compose a similar epistle to the senate, in the name of the son
      and assassin of Agrippina. 30 “That it was easier to commit than
      to justify a parricide,” was the glorious reply of Papinian; 31
      who did not hesitate between the loss of life and that of honor.
      Such intrepid virtue, which had escaped pure and unsullied from
      the intrigues of courts, the habits of business, and the arts of
      his profession, reflects more lustre on the memory of Papinian,
      than all his great employments, his numerous writings, and the
      superior reputation as a lawyer, which he has preserved through
      every age of the Roman jurisprudence. 32

      282 (return) [ Papinian was no longer Prætorian Præfect.
      Caracalla had deprived him of that office immediately after the
      death of Severus. Such is the statement of Dion; and the
      testimony of Spartian, who gives Papinian the Prætorian
      præfecture till his death, is of little weight opposed to that of
      a senator then living at Rome.—W.]

      29 (return) [ It is said that Papinian was himself a relation of
      the empress Julia.]

      30 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiv. 2.]

      31 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 88.]

      32 (return) [ With regard to Papinian, see Heineccius’s Historia
      Juris Roma ni, l. 330, &c.]

      It had hitherto been the peculiar felicity of the Romans, and in
      the worst of times the consolation, that the virtue of the
      emperors was active, and their vice indolent. Augustus, Trajan,
      Hadrian, and Marcus visited their extensive dominions in person,
      and their progress was marked by acts of wisdom and beneficence.
      The tyranny of Tiberius, Nero, and Domitian, who resided almost
      constantly at Rome, or in the adjacent was confined to the
      senatorial and equestrian orders. 33 But Caracalla was the common
      enemy of mankind. He left the capital (and he never returned to
      it) about a year after the murder of Geta. The rest of his reign
      was spent in the several provinces of the empire, particularly
      those of the East, and every province was by turns the scene of
      his rapine and cruelty. The senators, compelled by fear to attend
      his capricious motions, were obliged to provide daily
      entertainments at an immense expense, which he abandoned with
      contempt to his guards; and to erect, in every city, magnificent
      palaces and theatres, which he either disdained to visit, or
      ordered immediately thrown down. The most wealthy families were
      ruined by partial fines and confiscations, and the great body of
      his subjects oppressed by ingenious and aggravated taxes. 34 In
      the midst of peace, and upon the slightest provocation, he issued
      his commands, at Alexandria, in Egypt for a general massacre.
      From a secure post in the temple of Serapis, he viewed and
      directed the slaughter of many thousand citizens, as well as
      strangers, without distinguishing the number or the crime of the
      sufferers; since as he coolly informed the senate, _all_ the
      Alexandrians, those who had perished, and those who had escaped,
      were alike guilty. 35

      33 (return) [ Tiberius and Domitian never moved from the
      neighborhood of Rome. Nero made a short journey into Greece. “Et
      laudatorum Principum usus ex æquo, quamvis procul agentibus. Sævi
      proximis ingruunt.” Tacit. Hist. iv. 74.]

      34 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1294.]

      35 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307. Herodian, l. iv. p. 158.
      The former represents it as a cruel massacre, the latter as a
      perfidious one too. It seems probable that the Alexandrians has
      irritated the tyrant by their railleries, and perhaps by their
      tumults. * Note: After these massacres, Caracalla also deprived
      the Alexandrians of their spectacles and public feasts; he
      divided the city into two parts by a wall with towers at
      intervals, to prevent the peaceful communications of the
      citizens. Thus was treated the unhappy Alexandria, says Dion, by
      the savage beast of Ausonia. This, in fact, was the epithet which
      the oracle had applied to him; it is said, indeed, that he was
      much pleased with the name and often boasted of it. Dion, lxxvii.
      p. 1307.—G.]

      The wise instructions of Severus never made any lasting
      impression on the mind of his son, who, although not destitute of
      imagination and eloquence, was equally devoid of judgment and
      humanity. 36 One dangerous maxim, worthy of a tyrant, was
      remembered and abused by Caracalla. “To secure the affections of
      the army, and to esteem the rest of his subjects as of little
      moment.” 37 But the liberality of the father had been restrained
      by prudence, and his indulgence to the troops was tempered by
      firmness and authority. The careless profusion of the son was the
      policy of one reign, and the inevitable ruin both of the army and
      of the empire. The vigor of the soldiers, instead of being
      confirmed by the severe discipline of camps, melted away in the
      luxury of cities. The excessive increase of their pay and
      donatives 38 exhausted the state to enrich the military order,
      whose modesty in peace, and service in war, is best secured by an
      honorable poverty. The demeanor of Caracalla was haughty and full
      of pride; but with the troops he forgot even the proper dignity
      of his rank, encouraged their insolent familiarity, and,
      neglecting the essential duties of a general, affected to imitate
      the dress and manners of a common soldier.

      36 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1296.]

      37 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxvi. p. 1284. Mr. Wotton (Hist. of Rome,
      p. 330) suspects that this maxim was invented by Caracalla
      himself, and attributed to his father.]

      38 (return) [ Dion (l. lxxviii. p. 1343) informs us that the
      extraordinary gifts of Caracalla to the army amounted annually to
      seventy millions of drachmæ (about two millions three hundred and
      fifty thousand pounds.) There is another passage in Dion,
      concerning the military pay, infinitely curious, were it not
      obscure, imperfect, and probably corrupt. The best sense seems to
      be, that the Prætorian guards received twelve hundred and fifty
      drachmæ, (forty pounds a year,) (Dion, l. lxxvii. p. 1307.) Under
      the reign of Augustus, they were paid at the rate of two drachmæ,
      or denarii, per day, 720 a year, (Tacit. Annal. i. 17.) Domitian,
      who increased the soldiers’ pay one fourth, must have raised the
      Prætorians to 960 drachmæ, (Gronoviue de Pecunia Veteri, l. iii.
      c. 2.) These successive augmentations ruined the empire; for,
      with the soldiers’ pay, their numbers too were increased. We have
      seen the Prætorians alone increased from 10,000 to 50,000 men.
      Note: Valois and Reimar have explained in a very simple and
      probable manner this passage of Dion, which Gibbon seems to me
      not to have understood. He ordered that the soldiers should
      receive, as the reward of their services the Prætorians 1250
      drachms, the other 5000 drachms. Valois thinks that the numbers
      have been transposed, and that Caracalla added 5000 drachms to
      the donations made to the Prætorians, 1250 to those of the
      legionaries. The Prætorians, in fact, always received more than
      the others. The error of Gibbon arose from his considering that
      this referred to the annual pay of the soldiers, while it relates
      to the sum they received as a reward for their services on their
      discharge: donatives means recompense for service. Augustus had
      settled that the Prætorians, after sixteen campaigns, should
      receive 5000 drachms: the legionaries received only 3000 after
      twenty years. Caracalla added 5000 drachms to the donative of the
      Prætorians, 1250 to that of the legionaries. Gibbon appears to
      have been mistaken both in confounding this donative on discharge
      with the annual pay, and in not paying attention to the remark of
      Valois on the transposition of the numbers in the text.—G]

      It was impossible that such a character, and such conduct as that
      of Caracalla, could inspire either love or esteem; but as long as
      his vices were beneficial to the armies, he was secure from the
      danger of rebellion. A secret conspiracy, provoked by his own
      jealousy, was fatal to the tyrant. The Prætorian præfecture was
      divided between two ministers. The military department was
      intrusted to Adventus, an experienced rather than able soldier;
      and the civil affairs were transacted by Opilius Macrinus, who,
      by his dexterity in business, had raised himself, with a fair
      character, to that high office. But his favor varied with the
      caprice of the emperor, and his life might depend on the
      slightest suspicion, or the most casual circumstance. Malice or
      fanaticism had suggested to an African, deeply skilled in the
      knowledge of futurity, a very dangerous prediction, that Macrinus
      and his son were destined to reign over the empire. The report
      was soon diffused through the province; and when the man was sent
      in chains to Rome, he still asserted, in the presence of the
      præfect of the city, the faith of his prophecy. That magistrate,
      who had received the most pressing instructions to inform himself
      of the _successors_ of Caracalla, immediately communicated the
      examination of the African to the Imperial court, which at that
      time resided in Syria. But, notwithstanding the diligence of the
      public messengers, a friend of Macrinus found means to apprise
      him of the approaching danger. The emperor received the letters
      from Rome; and as he was then engaged in the conduct of a chariot
      race, he delivered them unopened to the Prætorian Præfect,
      directing him to despatch the ordinary affairs, and to report the
      more important business that might be contained in them. Macrinus
      read his fate, and resolved to prevent it. He inflamed the
      discontents of some inferior officers, and employed the hand of
      Martialis, a desperate soldier, who had been refused the rank of
      centurion. The devotion of Caracalla prompted him to make a
      pilgrimage from Edessa to the celebrated temple of the Moon at
      Carrhæ. 381 He was attended by a body of cavalry: but having
      stopped on the road for some necessary occasion, his guards
      preserved a respectful distance, and Martialis, approaching his
      person under a presence of duty, stabbed him with a dagger. The
      bold assassin was instantly killed by a Scythian archer of the
      Imperial guard. Such was the end of a monster whose life
      disgraced human nature, and whose reign accused the patience of
      the Romans. 39 The grateful soldiers forgot his vices, remembered
      only his partial liberality, and obliged the senate to prostitute
      their own dignity and that of religion, by granting him a place
      among the gods. Whilst he was upon earth, Alexander the Great was
      the only hero whom this god deemed worthy his admiration. He
      assumed the name and ensigns of Alexander, formed a Macedonian
      phalanx of guards, persecuted the disciples of Aristotle, and
      displayed, with a puerile enthusiasm, the only sentiment by which
      he discovered any regard for virtue or glory. We can easily
      conceive, that after the battle of Narva, and the conquest of
      Poland, Charles XII. (though he still wanted the more elegant
      accomplishments of the son of Philip) might boast of having
      rivalled his valor and magnanimity; but in no one action of his
      life did Caracalla express the faintest resemblance of the
      Macedonian hero, except in the murder of a great number of his
      own and of his father’s friends. 40

      381 (return) [ Carrhæ, now Harran, between Edessan and Nisibis,
      famous for the defeat of Crassus—the Haran from whence Abraham
      set out for the land of Canaan. This city has always been
      remarkable for its attachment to Sabaism—G]

      39 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1312. Herodian, l. iv. p.
      168.]

      40 (return) [ The fondness of Caracalla for the name and ensigns
      of Alexander is still preserved on the medals of that emperor.
      See Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, Dissertat. xii. Herodian (l. iv.
      p. 154) had seen very ridiculous pictures, in which a figure was
      drawn with one side of the face like Alexander, and the other
      like Caracalla.]

      After the extinction of the house of Severus, the Roman world
      remained three days without a master. The choice of the army (for
      the authority of a distant and feeble senate was little regarded)
      hung in anxious suspense, as no candidate presented himself whose
      distinguished birth and merit could engage their attachment and
      unite their suffrages. The decisive weight of the Prætorian
      guards elevated the hopes of their præfects, and these powerful
      ministers began to assert their _legal_ claim to fill the vacancy
      of the Imperial throne. Adventus, however, the senior præfect,
      conscious of his age and infirmities, of his small reputation,
      and his smaller abilities, resigned the dangerous honor to the
      crafty ambition of his colleague Macrinus, whose well-dissembled
      grief removed all suspicion of his being accessary to his
      master’s death. 41 The troops neither loved nor esteemed his
      character. They cast their eyes around in search of a competitor,
      and at last yielded with reluctance to his promises of unbounded
      liberality and indulgence. A short time after his accession, he
      conferred on his son Diadumenianus, at the age of only ten years,
      the Imperial title, and the popular name of Antoninus. The
      beautiful figure of the youth, assisted by an additional
      donative, for which the ceremony furnished a pretext, might
      attract, it was hoped, the favor of the army, and secure the
      doubtful throne of Macrinus.

      41 (return) [ Herodian, l. iv. p. 169. Hist. August. p. 94.]

      The authority of the new sovereign had been ratified by the
      cheerful submission of the senate and provinces. They exulted in
      their unexpected deliverance from a hated tyrant, and it seemed
      of little consequence to examine into the virtues of the
      successor of Caracalla. But as soon as the first transports of
      joy and surprise had subsided, they began to scrutinize the
      merits of Macrinus with a critical severity, and to arraign the
      nasty choice of the army. It had hitherto been considered as a
      fundamental maxim of the constitution, that the emperor must be
      always chosen in the senate, and the sovereign power, no longer
      exercised by the whole body, was always delegated to one of its
      members. But Macrinus was not a senator. 42 The sudden elevation
      of the Prætorian præfects betrayed the meanness of their origin;
      and the equestrian order was still in possession of that great
      office, which commanded with arbitrary sway the lives and
      fortunes of the senate. A murmur of indignation was heard, that a
      man, whose obscure 43 extraction had never been illustrated by
      any signal service, should dare to invest himself with the
      purple, instead of bestowing it on some distinguished senator,
      equal in birth and dignity to the splendor of the Imperial
      station. As soon as the character of Macrinus was surveyed by the
      sharp eye of discontent, some vices, and many defects, were
      easily discovered. The choice of his ministers was in many
      instances justly censured, and the dissatisfied people, with
      their usual candor, accused at once his indolent tameness and his
      excessive severity. 44

      42 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxxviii. p. 1350. Elagabalus reproached
      his predecessor with daring to seat himself on the throne;
      though, as Prætorian præfect, he could not have been admitted
      into the senate after the voice of the crier had cleared the
      house. The personal favor of Plautianus and Sejanus had broke
      through the established rule. They rose, indeed, from the
      equestrian order; but they preserved the præfecture, with the
      rank of senator and even with the annulship.]

      43 (return) [ He was a native of Cæsarea, in Numidia, and began
      his fortune by serving in the household of Plautian, from whose
      ruin he narrowly escaped. His enemies asserted that he was born a
      slave, and had exercised, among other infamous professions, that
      of Gladiator. The fashion of aspersing the birth and condition of
      an adversary seems to have lasted from the time of the Greek
      orators to the learned grammarians of the last age.]

      44 (return) [ Both Dion and Herodian speak of the virtues and
      vices of Macrinus with candor and impartiality; but the author of
      his life, in the Augustan History, seems to have implicitly
      copied some of the venal writers, employed by Elagabalus, to
      blacken the memory of his predecessor.]

      His rash ambition had climbed a height where it was difficult to
      stand with firmness, and impossible to fall without instant
      destruction. Trained in the arts of courts and the forms of civil
      business, he trembled in the presence of the fierce and
      undisciplined multitude, over whom he had assumed the command;
      his military talents were despised, and his personal courage
      suspected; a whisper that circulated in the camp, disclosed the
      fatal secret of the conspiracy against the late emperor,
      aggravated the guilt of murder by the baseness of hypocrisy, and
      heightened contempt by detestation. To alienate the soldiers, and
      to provoke inevitable ruin, the character of a reformer was only
      wanting; and such was the peculiar hardship of his fate, that
      Macrinus was compelled to exercise that invidious office. The
      prodigality of Caracalla had left behind it a long train of ruin
      and disorder; and if that worthless tyrant had been capable of
      reflecting on the sure consequences of his own conduct, he would
      perhaps have enjoyed the dark prospect of the distress and
      calamities which he bequeathed to his successors.

      In the management of this necessary reformation, Macrinus
      proceeded with a cautious prudence, which would have restored
      health and vigor to the Roman army in an easy and almost
      imperceptible manner. To the soldiers already engaged in the
      service, he was constrained to leave the dangerous privileges and
      extravagant pay given by Caracalla; but the new recruits were
      received on the more moderate though liberal establishment of
      Severus, and gradually formed to modesty and obedience. 45 One
      fatal error destroyed the salutary effects of this judicious
      plan. The numerous army, assembled in the East by the late
      emperor, instead of being immediately dispersed by Macrinus
      through the several provinces, was suffered to remain united in
      Syria, during the winter that followed his elevation. In the
      luxurious idleness of their quarters, the troops viewed their
      strength and numbers, communicated their complaints, and revolved
      in their minds the advantages of another revolution. The
      veterans, instead of being flattered by the advantageous
      distinction, were alarmed by the first steps of the emperor,
      which they considered as the presage of his future intentions.
      The recruits, with sullen reluctance, entered on a service, whose
      labors were increased while its rewards were diminished by a
      covetous and unwarlike sovereign. The murmurs of the army swelled
      with impunity into seditious clamors; and the partial mutinies
      betrayed a spirit of discontent and disaffection that waited only
      for the slightest occasion to break out on every side into a
      general rebellion. To minds thus disposed, the occasion soon
      presented itself.

      45 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxxiii. p. 1336. The sense of the author
      is as the intention of the emperor; but Mr. Wotton has mistaken
      both, by understanding the distinction, not of veterans and
      recruits, but of old and new legions. History of Rome, p. 347.]

      The empress Julia had experienced all the vicissitudes of
      fortune. From an humble station she had been raised to greatness,
      only to taste the superior bitterness of an exalted rank. She was
      doomed to weep over the death of one of her sons, and over the
      life of the other. The cruel fate of Caracalla, though her good
      sense must have long taught her to expect it, awakened the
      feelings of a mother and of an empress. Notwithstanding the
      respectful civility expressed by the usurper towards the widow of
      Severus, she descended with a painful struggle into the condition
      of a subject, and soon withdrew herself, by a voluntary death,
      from the anxious and humiliating dependence. 46 461 Julia Mæsa,
      her sister, was ordered to leave the court and Antioch. She
      retired to Emesa with an immense fortune, the fruit of twenty
      years’ favor accompanied by her two daughters, Soæmias and Mamæ,
      each of whom was a widow, and each had an only son. Bassianus,
      462 for that was the name of the son of Soæmias, was consecrated
      to the honorable ministry of high priest of the Sun; and this
      holy vocation, embraced either from prudence or superstition,
      contributed to raise the Syrian youth to the empire of Rome. A
      numerous body of troops was stationed at Emesa; and as the severe
      discipline of Macrinus had constrained them to pass the winter
      encamped, they were eager to revenge the cruelty of such
      unaccustomed hardships. The soldiers, who resorted in crowds to
      the temple of the Sun, beheld with veneration and delight the
      elegant dress and figure of the young pontiff; they recognized,
      or they thought that they recognized, the features of Caracalla,
      whose memory they now adored. The artful Mæsa saw and cherished
      their rising partiality, and readily sacrificing her daughter’s
      reputation to the fortune of her grandson, she insinuated that
      Bassianus was the natural son of their murdered sovereign. The
      sums distributed by her emissaries with a lavish hand silenced
      every objection, and the profusion sufficiently proved the
      affinity, or at least the resemblance, of Bassianus with the
      great original. The young Antoninus (for he had assumed and
      polluted that respectable name) was declared emperor by the
      troops of Emesa, asserted his hereditary right, and called aloud
      on the armies to follow the standard of a young and liberal
      prince, who had taken up arms to revenge his father’s death and
      the oppression of the military order. 47

      46 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1330. The abridgment of
      Xiphilin, though less particular, is in this place clearer than
      the original.]

      461 (return) [ As soon as this princess heard of the death of
      Caracalla, she wished to starve herself to death: the respect
      shown to her by Macrinus, in making no change in her attendants
      or her court, induced her to prolong her life. But it appears, as
      far as the mutilated text of Dion and the imperfect epitome of
      Xiphilin permit us to judge, that she conceived projects of
      ambition, and endeavored to raise herself to the empire. She
      wished to tread in the steps of Semiramis and Nitocris, whose
      country bordered on her own. Macrinus sent her an order
      immediately to leave Antioch, and to retire wherever she chose.
      She returned to her former purpose, and starved herself to
      death.—G.]

      462 (return) [ He inherited this name from his great-grandfather
      of the mother’s side, Bassianus, father of Julia Mæsa, his
      grandmother, and of Julia Domna, wife of Severus. Victor (in his
      epitome) is perhaps the only historian who has given the key to
      this genealogy, when speaking of Caracalla. His Bassianus ex avi
      materni nomine dictus. Caracalla, Elagabalus, and Alexander
      Seyerus, bore successively this name.—G.]

      47 (return) [ According to Lampridius, (Hist. August. p. 135,)
      Alexander Severus lived twenty-nine years three months and seven
      days. As he was killed March 19, 235, he was born December 12,
      205 and was consequently about this time thirteen years old, as
      his elder cousin might be about seventeen. This computation suits
      much better the history of the young princes than that of
      Herodian, (l. v. p. 181,) who represents them as three years
      younger; whilst, by an opposite error of chronology, he lengthens
      the reign of Elagabalus two years beyond its real duration. For
      the particulars of the conspiracy, see Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1339.
      Herodian, l. v. p. 184.]

      Whilst a conspiracy of women and eunuchs was concerted with
      prudence, and conducted with rapid vigor, Macrinus, who, by a
      decisive motion, might have crushed his infant enemy, floated
      between the opposite extremes of terror and security, which alike
      fixed him inactive at Antioch. A spirit of rebellion diffused
      itself through all the camps and garrisons of Syria, successive
      detachments murdered their officers, 48 and joined the party of
      the rebels; and the tardy restitution of military pay and
      privileges was imputed to the acknowledged weakness of Macrinus.
      At length he marched out of Antioch, to meet the increasing and
      zealous army of the young pretender. His own troops seemed to
      take the field with faintness and reluctance; but, in the heat of
      the battle, 49 the Prætorian guards, almost by an involuntary
      impulse, asserted the superiority of their valor and discipline.
      The rebel ranks were broken; when the mother and grandmother of
      the Syrian prince, who, according to their eastern custom, had
      attended the army, threw themselves from their covered chariots,
      and, by exciting the compassion of the soldiers, endeavored to
      animate their drooping courage. Antoninus himself, who, in the
      rest of his life, never acted like a man, in this important
      crisis of his fate, approved himself a hero, mounted his horse,
      and, at the head of his rallied troops, charged sword in hand
      among the thickest of the enemy; whilst the eunuch Gannys, 491
      whose occupations had been confined to female cares and the soft
      luxury of Asia, displayed the talents of an able and experienced
      general. The battle still raged with doubtful violence, and
      Macrinus might have obtained the victory, had he not betrayed his
      own cause by a shameful and precipitate flight. His cowardice
      served only to protract his life a few days, and to stamp
      deserved ignominy on his misfortunes. It is scarcely necessary to
      add, that his son Diadumenianus was involved in the same fate.

      As soon as the stubborn Prætorians could be convinced that they
      fought for a prince who had basely deserted them, they
      surrendered to the conqueror: the contending parties of the Roman
      army, mingling tears of joy and tenderness, united under the
      banners of the imagined son of Caracalla, and the East
      acknowledged with pleasure the first emperor of Asiatic
      extraction.

      48 (return) [ By a most dangerous proclamation of the pretended
      Antoninus, every soldier who brought in his officer’s head became
      entitled to his private estate, as well as to his military
      commission.]

      49 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxviii. p. 1345. Herodian, l. v. p. 186.
      The battle was fought near the village of Immæ, about
      two-and-twenty miles from Antioch.]

      491 (return) [ Gannys was not a eunuch. Dion, p. 1355.—W]

      The letters of Macrinus had condescended to inform the senate of
      the slight disturbance occasioned by an impostor in Syria, and a
      decree immediately passed, declaring the rebel and his family
      public enemies; with a promise of pardon, however, to such of his
      deluded adherents as should merit it by an immediate return to
      their duty. During the twenty days that elapsed from the
      declaration of the victory of Antoninus (for in so short an
      interval was the fate of the Roman world decided,) the capital
      and the provinces, more especially those of the East, were
      distracted with hopes and fears, agitated with tumult, and
      stained with a useless effusion of civil blood, since whosoever
      of the rivals prevailed in Syria must reign over the empire. The
      specious letters in which the young conqueror announced his
      victory to the obedient senate were filled with professions of
      virtue and moderation; the shining examples of Marcus and
      Augustus, he should ever consider as the great rule of his
      administration; and he affected to dwell with pride on the
      striking resemblance of his own age and fortunes with those of
      Augustus, who in the earliest youth had revenged, by a successful
      war, the murder of his father. By adopting the style of Marcus
      Aurelius Antoninus, son of Antoninus and grandson of Severus, he
      tacitly asserted his hereditary claim to the empire; but, by
      assuming the tribunitian and proconsular powers before they had
      been conferred on him by a decree of the senate, he offended the
      delicacy of Roman prejudice. This new and injudicious violation
      of the constitution was probably dictated either by the ignorance
      of his Syrian courtiers, or the fierce disdain of his military
      followers. 50

      50 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1353.]

      As the attention of the new emperor was diverted by the most
      trifling amusements, he wasted many months in his luxurious
      progress from Syria to Italy, passed at Nicomedia his first
      winter after his victory, and deferred till the ensuing summer
      his triumphal entry into the capital. A faithful picture,
      however, which preceded his arrival, and was placed by his
      immediate order over the altar of Victory in the senate house,
      conveyed to the Romans the just but unworthy resemblance of his
      person and manners. He was drawn in his sacerdotal robes of silk
      and gold, after the loose flowing fashion of the Medes and
      Phœnicians; his head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous
      collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of an inestimable
      value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks
      painted with an artificial red and white. 51 The grave senators
      confessed with a sigh, that, after having long experienced the
      stern tyranny of their own countrymen, Rome was at length humbled
      beneath the effeminate luxury of Oriental despotism.

      51 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1363. Herodian, l. v. p. 189.]

      The Sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus, 52
      and under the form of a black conical stone, which, as it was
      universally believed, had fallen from heaven on that sacred
      place. To this protecting deity, Antoninus, not without some
      reason, ascribed his elevation to the throne. The display of
      superstitious gratitude was the only serious business of his
      reign. The triumph of the god of Emesa over all the religions of
      the earth, was the great object of his zeal and vanity; and the
      appellation of Elagabalus (for he presumed as pontiff and
      favorite to adopt that sacred name) was dearer to him than all
      the titles of Imperial greatness. In a solemn procession through
      the streets of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the
      black stone, set in precious gems, was placed on a chariot drawn
      by six milk-white horses richly caparisoned. The pious emperor
      held the reins, and, supported by his ministers, moved slowly
      backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the felicity of the
      divine presence. In a magnificent temple raised on the Palatine
      Mount, the sacrifices of the god Elagabalus were celebrated with
      every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the
      most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were
      profusely consumed on his altar. Around the altar, a chorus of
      Syrian damsels performed their lascivious dances to the sound of
      barbarian music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and
      army, clothed in long Phœnician tunics, officiated in the meanest
      functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation. 53

      52 (return) [ This name is derived by the learned from two Syrian
      words, Ela a God, and Gabal, to form, the forming or plastic god,
      a proper, and even happy epithet for the sun. Wotton’s History of
      Rome, p. 378 Note: The name of Elagabalus has been disfigured in
      various ways. Herodian calls him; Lampridius, and the more modern
      writers, make him Heliogabalus. Dion calls him Elegabalus; but
      Elegabalus was the true name, as it appears on the medals.
      (Eckhel. de Doct. num. vet. t. vii. p. 250.) As to its etymology,
      that which Gibbon adduces is given by Bochart, Chan. ii. 5; but
      Salmasius, on better grounds. (not. in Lamprid. in Elagab.,)
      derives the name of Elagabalus from the idol of that god,
      represented by Herodian and the medals in the form of a mountain,
      (gibel in Hebrew,) or great stone cut to a point, with marks
      which represent the sun. As it was not permitted, at Hierapolis,
      in Syria, to make statues of the sun and moon, because, it was
      said, they are themselves sufficiently visible, the sun was
      represented at Emesa in the form of a great stone, which, as it
      appeared, had fallen from heaven. Spanheim, Cæsar. notes, p.
      46.—G. The name of Elagabalus, in “nummis rarius legetur.”
      Rasche, Lex. Univ. Ref. Numm. Rasche quotes two.—M]

      53 (return) [ Herodian, l. v. p. 190.]




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Marcinus.—Part III.

      To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, the
      Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the Ancilia, the Palladium,
      54 and all the sacred pledges of the faith of Numa. A crowd of
      inferior deities attended in various stations the majesty of the
      god of Emesa; but his court was still imperfect, till a female of
      distinguished rank was admitted to his bed. Pallas had been first
      chosen for his consort; but as it was dreaded lest her warlike
      terrors might affright the soft delicacy of a Syrian deity, the
      Moon, adored by the Africans under the name of Astarte, was
      deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun. Her image, with the
      rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion, was
      transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and the day
      of these mystic nuptials was a general festival in the capital
      and throughout the empire. 55

      54 (return) [ He broke into the sanctuary of Vesta, and carried
      away a statue, which he supposed to be the palladium; but the
      vestals boasted that, by a pious fraud, they had imposed a
      counterfeit image on the profane intruder. Hist. August., p.
      103.]

      55 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1360. Herodian, l. v. p. 193.
      The subjects of the empire were obliged to make liberal presents
      to the new married couple; and whatever they had promised during
      the life of Elagabalus was carefully exacted under the
      administration of Mamæa.]

      A rational voluptuary adheres with invariable respect to the
      temperate dictates of nature, and improves the gratifications of
      sense by social intercourse, endearing connections, and the soft
      coloring of taste and the imagination. But Elagabalus, (I speak
      of the emperor of that name,) corrupted by his youth, his
      country, and his fortune, abandoned himself to the grossest
      pleasures with ungoverned fury, and soon found disgust and
      satiety in the midst of his enjoyments. The inflammatory powers
      of art were summoned to his aid: the confused multitude of women,
      of wines, and of dishes, and the studied variety of attitude and
      sauces, served to revive his languid appetites. New terms and new
      inventions in these sciences, the only ones cultivated and
      patronized by the monarch, 56 signalized his reign, and
      transmitted his infamy to succeeding times. A capricious
      prodigality supplied the want of taste and elegance; and whilst
      Elagabalus lavished away the treasures of his people in the
      wildest extravagance, his own voice and that of his flatterers
      applauded a spirit of magnificence unknown to the tameness of his
      predecessors. To confound the order of seasons and climates, 57
      to sport with the passions and prejudices of his subjects, and to
      subvert every law of nature and decency, were in the number of
      his most delicious amusements. A long train of concubines, and a
      rapid succession of wives, among whom was a vestal virgin,
      ravished by force from her sacred asylum, 58 were insufficient to
      satisfy the impotence of his passions. The master of the Roman
      world affected to copy the dress and manners of the female sex,
      preferred the distaff to the sceptre, and dishonored the
      principal dignities of the empire by distributing them among his
      numerous lovers; one of whom was publicly invested with the title
      and authority of the emperor’s, or, as he more properly styled
      himself, of the empress’s husband. 59

      56 (return) [ The invention of a new sauce was liberally
      rewarded; but if it was not relished, the inventor was confined
      to eat of nothing else till he had discovered another more
      agreeable to the Imperial palate Hist. August. p. 111.]

      57 (return) [ He never would eat sea-fish except at a great
      distance from the sea; he then would distribute vast quantities
      of the rarest sorts, brought at an immense expense, to the
      peasants of the inland country. Hist. August. p. 109.]

      58 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1358. Herodian, l. v. p. 192.]

      59 (return) [ Hierocles enjoyed that honor; but he would have
      been supplanted by one Zoticus, had he not contrived, by a
      potion, to enervate the powers of his rival, who, being found on
      trial unequal to his reputation, was driven with ignominy from
      the palace. Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1363, 1364. A dancer was made
      præfect of the city, a charioteer præfect of the watch, a barber
      præfect of the provisions. These three ministers, with many
      inferior officers, were all recommended enormitate membrorum.
      Hist. August. p. 105.]

      It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have
      been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. 60 Yet,
      confining ourselves to the public scenes displayed before the
      Roman people, and attested by grave and contemporary historians,
      their inexpressible infamy surpasses that of any other age or
      country. The license of an eastern monarch is secluded from the
      eye of curiosity by the inaccessible walls of his seraglio. The
      sentiments of honor and gallantry have introduced a refinement of
      pleasure, a regard for decency, and a respect for the public
      opinion, into the modern courts of Europe; 601 but the corrupt
      and opulent nobles of Rome gratified every vice that could be
      collected from the mighty conflux of nations and manners. Secure
      of impunity, careless of censure, they lived without restraint in
      the patient and humble society of their slaves and parasites. The
      emperor, in his turn, viewing every rank of his subjects with the
      same contemptuous indifference, asserted without control his
      sovereign privilege of lust and luxury.

      60 (return) [ Even the credulous compiler of his life, in the
      Augustan History (p. 111) is inclined to suspect that his vices
      may have been exaggerated.]

      601 (return) [ Wenck has justly observed that Gibbon should have
      reckoned the influence of Christianity in this great change. In
      the most savage times, and the most corrupt courts, since the
      introduction of Christianity there have been no Neros or
      Domitians, no Commodus or Elagabalus.—M.]

      The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others
      the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can
      readily discover some nice difference of age, character, or
      station, to justify the partial distinction. The licentious
      soldiers, who had raised to the throne the dissolute son of
      Caracalla, blushed at their ignominious choice, and turned with
      disgust from that monster, to contemplate with pleasure the
      opening virtues of his cousin Alexander, the son of Mamæa. The
      crafty Mæsa, sensible that her grandson Elagabalus must
      inevitably destroy himself by his own vices, had provided another
      and surer support of her family. Embracing a favorable moment of
      fondness and devotion, she had persuaded the young emperor to
      adopt Alexander, and to invest him with the title of Cæsar, that
      his own divine occupations might be no longer interrupted by the
      care of the earth. In the second rank that amiable prince soon
      acquired the affections of the public, and excited the tyrant’s
      jealousy, who resolved to terminate the dangerous competition,
      either by corrupting the manners, or by taking away the life, of
      his rival. His arts proved unsuccessful; his vain designs were
      constantly discovered by his own loquacious folly, and
      disappointed by those virtuous and faithful servants whom the
      prudence of Mamæa had placed about the person of her son. In a
      hasty sally of passion, Elagabalus resolved to execute by force
      what he had been unable to compass by fraud, and by a despotic
      sentence degraded his cousin from the rank and honors of Cæsar.
      The message was received in the senate with silence, and in the
      camp with fury. The Prætorian guards swore to protect Alexander,
      and to revenge the dishonored majesty of the throne. The tears
      and promises of the trembling Elagabalus, who only begged them to
      spare his life, and to leave him in the possession of his beloved
      Hierocles, diverted their just indignation; and they contented
      themselves with empowering their præfects to watch over the
      safety of Alexander, and the conduct of the emperor. 61

      61 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxix. p. 1365. Herodian, l. v. p.
      195—201. Hist. August. p. 105. The last of the three historians
      seems to have followed the best authors in his account of the
      revolution.]

      It was impossible that such a reconciliation should last, or that
      even the mean soul of Elagabalus could hold an empire on such
      humiliating terms of dependence. He soon attempted, by a
      dangerous experiment, to try the temper of the soldiers. The
      report of the death of Alexander, and the natural suspicion that
      he had been murdered, inflamed their passions into fury, and the
      tempest of the camp could only be appeased by the presence and
      authority of the popular youth. Provoked at this new instance of
      their affection for his cousin, and their contempt for his
      person, the emperor ventured to punish some of the leaders of the
      mutiny. His unseasonable severity proved instantly fatal to his
      minions, his mother, and himself. Elagabalus was massacred by the
      indignant Prætorians, his mutilated corpse dragged through the
      streets of the city, and thrown into the Tiber. His memory was
      branded with eternal infamy by the senate; the justice of whose
      decree has been ratified by posterity. 62

      62 (return) [ The æra of the death of Elagabalus, and of the
      accession of Alexander, has employed the learning and ingenuity
      of Pagi, Tillemont, Valsecchi, Vignoli, and Torre, bishop of
      Adria. The question is most assuredly intricate; but I still
      adhere to the authority of Dion, the truth of whose calculations
      is undeniable, and the purity of whose text is justified by the
      agreement of Xiphilin, Zonaras, and Cedrenus. Elagabalus reigned
      three years nine months and four days, from his victory over
      Macrinus, and was killed March 10, 222. But what shall we reply
      to the medals, undoubtedly genuine, which reckon the fifth year
      of his tribunitian power? We shall reply, with the learned
      Valsecchi, that the usurpation of Macrinus was annihilated, and
      that the son of Caracalla dated his reign from his father’s
      death? After resolving this great difficulty, the smaller knots
      of this question may be easily untied, or cut asunder. Note: This
      opinion of Valsecchi has been triumphantly contested by Eckhel,
      who has shown the impossibility of reconciling it with the medals
      of Elagabalus, and has given the most satisfactory explanation of
      the five tribunates of that emperor. He ascended the throne and
      received the tribunitian power the 16th of May, in the year of
      Rome 971; and on the 1st January of the next year, 972, he began
      a new tribunate, according to the custom established by preceding
      emperors. During the years 972, 973, 974, he enjoyed the
      tribunate, and commenced his fifth in the year 975, during which
      he was killed on the 10th March. Eckhel de Doct. Num. viii. 430
      &c.—G.]

      In the room of Elagabalus, his cousin Alexander was raised to the
      throne by the Prætorian guards. His relation to the family of
      Severus, whose name he assumed, was the same as that of his
      predecessor; his virtue and his danger had already endeared him
      to the Romans, and the eager liberality of the senate conferred
      upon him, in one day, the various titles and powers of the
      Imperial dignity. 63 But as Alexander was a modest and dutiful
      youth, of only seventeen years of age, the reins of government
      were in the hands of two women, of his mother, Mamæa, and of
      Mæsa, his grandmother. After the death of the latter, who
      survived but a short time the elevation of Alexander, Mamæa
      remained the sole regent of her son and of the empire.

      63 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 114. By this unusual
      precipitation, the senate meant to confound the hopes of
      pretenders, and prevent the factions of the armies.]

      In every age and country, the wiser, or at least the stronger, of
      the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined
      the other to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In
      hereditary monarchies, however, and especially in those of modern
      Europe, the gallant spirit of chivalry, and the law of
      succession, have accustomed us to allow a singular exception; and
      a woman is often acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great
      kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the
      smallest employment, civil or military. But as the Roman emperors
      were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the
      republic, their wives and mothers, although distinguished by the
      name of Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors;
      and a female reign would have appeared an inexpiable prodigy in
      the eyes of those primitive Romans, who married without love, or
      loved without delicacy and respect. 64 The haughty Agrippina
      aspired, indeed, to share the honors of the empire which she had
      conferred on her son; but her mad ambition, detested by every
      citizen who felt for the dignity of Rome, was disappointed by the
      artful firmness of Seneca and Burrhus. 65 The good sense, or the
      indifference, of succeeding princes, restrained them from
      offending the prejudices of their subjects; and it was reserved
      for the profligate Elagabalus to discharge the acts of the senate
      with the name of his mother Soæmias, who was placed by the side
      of the consuls, and subscribed, as a regular member, the decrees
      of the legislative assembly. Her more prudent sister, Mamæa,
      declined the useless and odious prerogative, and a solemn law was
      enacted, excluding women forever from the senate, and devoting to
      the infernal gods the head of the wretch by whom this sanction
      should be violated. 66 The substance, not the pageantry, of power
      was the object of Mamæa’s manly ambition. She maintained an
      absolute and lasting empire over the mind of her son, and in his
      affection the mother could not brook a rival. Alexander, with her
      consent, married the daughter of a patrician; but his respect for
      his father-in-law, and love for the empress, were inconsistent
      with the tenderness of interest of Mamæa. The patrician was
      executed on the ready accusation of treason, and the wife of
      Alexander driven with ignominy from the palace, and banished into
      Africa. 67

      64 (return) [ Metellus Numidicus, the censor, acknowledged to the
      Roman people, in a public oration, that had kind nature allowed
      us to exist without the help of women, we should be delivered
      from a very troublesome companion; and he could recommend
      matrimony only as the sacrifice of private pleasure to public
      duty. Aulus Gellius, i. 6.]

      65 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 5.]

      66 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 102, 107.]

      67 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxx. p. 1369. Herodian, l. vi. p. 206.
      Hist. August. p. 131. Herodian represents the patrician as
      innocent. The Augustian History, on the authority of Dexippus,
      condemns him, as guilty of a conspiracy against the life of
      Alexander. It is impossible to pronounce between them; but Dion
      is an irreproachable witness of the jealousy and cruelty of Mamæa
      towards the young empress, whose hard fate Alexander lamented,
      but durst not oppose.]

      Notwithstanding this act of jealous cruelty, as well as some
      instances of avarice, with which Mamæa is charged, the general
      tenor of her administration was equally for the benefit of her
      son and of the empire. With the approbation of the senate, she
      chose sixteen of the wisest and most virtuous senators as a
      perpetual council of state, before whom every public business of
      moment was debated and determined. The celebrated Ulpian, equally
      distinguished by his knowledge of, and his respect for, the laws
      of Rome, was at their head; and the prudent firmness of this
      aristocracy restored order and authority to the government. As
      soon as they had purged the city from foreign superstition and
      luxury, the remains of the capricious tyranny of Elagabalus, they
      applied themselves to remove his worthless creatures from every
      department of the public administration, and to supply their
      places with men of virtue and ability. Learning, and the love of
      justice, became the only recommendations for civil offices;
      valor, and the love of discipline, the only qualifications for
      military employments. 68

      68 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. p. 203. Hist. August. p. 119. The
      latter insinuates, that when any law was to be passed, the
      council was assisted by a number of able lawyers and experienced
      senators, whose opinions were separately given, and taken down in
      writing.]

      But the most important care of Mamæa and her wise counsellors,
      was to form the character of the young emperor, on whose personal
      qualities the happiness or misery of the Roman world must
      ultimately depend. The fortunate soil assisted, and even
      prevented, the hand of cultivation. An excellent understanding
      soon convinced Alexander of the advantages of virtue, the
      pleasure of knowledge, and the necessity of labor. A natural
      mildness and moderation of temper preserved him from the assaults
      of passion, and the allurements of vice. His unalterable regard
      for his mother, and his esteem for the wise Ulpian, guarded his
      unexperienced youth from the poison of flattery. 581

      581 (return) [ Alexander received into his chapel all the
      religions which prevailed in the empire; he admitted Jesus
      Christ, Abraham, Orpheus, Apollonius of Tyana, &c. It was almost
      certain that his mother Mamæa had instructed him in the morality
      of Christianity. Historians in general agree in calling her a
      Christian; there is reason to believe that she had begun to have
      a taste for the principles of Christianity. (See Tillemont,
      Alexander Severus) Gibbon has not noticed this circumstance; he
      appears to have wished to lower the character of this empress; he
      has throughout followed the narrative of Herodian, who, by the
      acknowledgment of Capitolinus himself, detested Alexander.
      Without believing the exaggerated praises of Lampridius, he ought
      not to have followed the unjust severity of Herodian, and, above
      all, not to have forgotten to say that the virtuous Alexander
      Severus had insured to the Jews the preservation of their
      privileges, and permitted the exercise of Christianity. Hist.
      Aug. p. 121. The Christians had established their worship in a
      public place, of which the victuallers (cauponarii) claimed, not
      the property, but possession by custom. Alexander answered, that
      it was better that the place should be used for the service of
      God, in any form, than for victuallers.—G. I have scrupled to
      omit this note, as it contains some points worthy of notice; but
      it is very unjust to Gibbon, who mentions almost all the
      circumstances, which he is accused of omitting, in another, and,
      according to his plan, a better place, and, perhaps, in stronger
      terms than M. Guizot. See Chap. xvi.— M.]

      The simple journal of his ordinary occupations exhibits a
      pleasing picture of an accomplished emperor, 69 and, with some
      allowance for the difference of manners, might well deserve the
      imitation of modern princes. Alexander rose early: the first
      moments of the day were consecrated to private devotion, and his
      domestic chapel was filled with the images of those heroes, who,
      by improving or reforming human life, had deserved the grateful
      reverence of posterity. But as he deemed the service of mankind
      the most acceptable worship of the gods, the greatest part of his
      morning hours was employed in his council, where he discussed
      public affairs, and determined private causes, with a patience
      and discretion above his years. The dryness of business was
      relieved by the charms of literature; and a portion of time was
      always set apart for his favorite studies of poetry, history, and
      philosophy. The works of Virgil and Horace, the republics of
      Plato and Cicero, formed his taste, enlarged his understanding,
      and gave him the noblest ideas of man and government. The
      exercises of the body succeeded to those of the mind; and
      Alexander, who was tall, active, and robust, surpassed most of
      his equals in the gymnastic arts. Refreshed by the use of the
      bath and a slight dinner, he resumed, with new vigor, the
      business of the day; and, till the hour of supper, the principal
      meal of the Romans, he was attended by his secretaries, with whom
      he read and answered the multitude of letters, memorials, and
      petitions, that must have been addressed to the master of the
      greatest part of the world. His table was served with the most
      frugal simplicity, and whenever he was at liberty to consult his
      own inclination, the company consisted of a few select friends,
      men of learning and virtue, amongst whom Ulpian was constantly
      invited. Their conversation was familiar and instructive; and the
      pauses were occasionally enlivened by the recital of some
      pleasing composition, which supplied the place of the dancers,
      comedians, and even gladiators, so frequently summoned to the
      tables of the rich and luxurious Romans. 70 The dress of
      Alexander was plain and modest, his demeanor courteous and
      affable: at the proper hours his palace was open to all his
      subjects, but the voice of a crier was heard, as in the
      Eleusinian mysteries, pronouncing the same salutary admonition:
      “Let none enter these holy walls, unless he is conscious of a
      pure and innocent mind.” 71

      69 (return) [ See his life in the Augustan History. The
      undistinguishing compiler has buried these interesting anecdotes
      under a load of trivial unmeaning circumstances.]

      70 (return) [ See the 13th Satire of Juvenal.]

      71 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 119.]

      Such a uniform tenor of life, which left not a moment for vice or
      folly, is a better proof of the wisdom and justice of Alexander’s
      government, than all the trifling details preserved in the
      compilation of Lampridius. Since the accession of Commodus, the
      Roman world had experienced, during the term of forty years, the
      successive and various vices of four tyrants. From the death of
      Elagabalus, it enjoyed an auspicious calm of thirteen years. 711
      The provinces, relieved from the oppressive taxes invented by
      Caracalla and his pretended son, flourished in peace and
      prosperity, under the administration of magistrates who were
      convinced by experience that to deserve the love of the subjects
      was their best and only method of obtaining the favor of their
      sovereign. While some gentle restraints were imposed on the
      innocent luxury of the Roman people, the price of provisions and
      the interest of money, were reduced by the paternal care of
      Alexander, whose prudent liberality, without distressing the
      industrious, supplied the wants and amusements of the populace.
      The dignity, the freedom, the authority of the senate was
      restored; and every virtuous senator might approach the person of
      the emperor without a fear and without a blush.

      711 (return) [ Wenck observes that Gibbon, enchanted with the
      virtue of Alexander has heightened, particularly in this
      sentence, its effect on the state of the world. His own account,
      which follows, of the insurrections and foreign wars, is not in
      harmony with this beautiful picture.—M.]

      The name of Antoninus, ennobled by the virtues of Pius and
      Marcus, had been communicated by adoption to the dissolute Verus,
      and by descent to the cruel Commodus. It became the honorable
      appellation of the sons of Severus, was bestowed on young
      Diadumenianus, and at length prostituted to the infamy of the
      high priest of Emesa. Alexander, though pressed by the studied,
      and, perhaps, sincere importunity of the senate, nobly refused
      the borrowed lustre of a name; whilst in his whole conduct he
      labored to restore the glories and felicity of the age of the
      genuine Antonines. 72

      72 (return) [ See, in the Hist. August. p. 116, 117, the whole
      contest between Alexander and the senate, extracted from the
      journals of that assembly. It happened on the sixth of March,
      probably of the year 223, when the Romans had enjoyed, almost a
      twelvemonth, the blessings of his reign. Before the appellation
      of Antoninus was offered him as a title of honor, the senate
      waited to see whether Alexander would not assume it as a family
      name.]

      In the civil administration of Alexander, wisdom was enforced by
      power, and the people, sensible of the public felicity, repaid
      their benefactor with their love and gratitude. There still
      remained a greater, a more necessary, but a more difficult
      enterprise; the reformation of the military order, whose interest
      and temper, confirmed by long impunity, rendered them impatient
      of the restraints of discipline, and careless of the blessings of
      public tranquillity. In the execution of his design, the emperor
      affected to display his love, and to conceal his fear of the
      army. The most rigid economy in every other branch of the
      administration supplied a fund of gold and silver for the
      ordinary pay and the extraordinary rewards of the troops. In
      their marches he relaxed the severe obligation of carrying
      seventeen days’ provision on their shoulders. Ample magazines
      were formed along the public roads, and as soon as they entered
      the enemy’s country, a numerous train of mules and camels waited
      on their haughty laziness. As Alexander despaired of correcting
      the luxury of his soldiers, he attempted, at least, to direct it
      to objects of martial pomp and ornament, fine horses, splendid
      armor, and shields enriched with silver and gold. He shared
      whatever fatigues he was obliged to impose, visited, in person,
      the sick and wounded, preserved an exact register of their
      services and his own gratitude, and expressed on every occasion,
      the warmest regard for a body of men, whose welfare, as he
      affected to declare, was so closely connected with that of the
      state. 73 By the most gentle arts he labored to inspire the
      fierce multitude with a sense of duty, and to restore at least a
      faint image of that discipline to which the Romans owed their
      empire over so many other nations, as warlike and more powerful
      than themselves. But his prudence was vain, his courage fatal,
      and the attempt towards a reformation served only to inflame the
      ills it was meant to cure.

      73 (return) [ It was a favorite saying of the emperor’s Se
      milites magis servare, quam seipsum, quod salus publica in his
      esset. Hist. Aug. p. 130.]

      The Prætorian guards were attached to the youth of Alexander.
      They loved him as a tender pupil, whom they had saved from a
      tyrant’s fury, and placed on the Imperial throne. That amiable
      prince was sensible of the obligation; but as his gratitude was
      restrained within the limits of reason and justice, they soon
      were more dissatisfied with the virtues of Alexander, than they
      had ever been with the vices of Elagabalus. Their præfect, the
      wise Ulpian, was the friend of the laws and of the people; he was
      considered as the enemy of the soldiers, and to his pernicious
      counsels every scheme of reformation was imputed. Some trifling
      accident blew up their discontent into a furious mutiny; and the
      civil war raged, during three days, in Rome, whilst the life of
      that excellent minister was defended by the grateful people.
      Terrified, at length, by the sight of some houses in flames, and
      by the threats of a general conflagration, the people yielded
      with a sigh, and left the virtuous but unfortunate Ulpian to his
      fate. He was pursued into the Imperial palace, and massacred at
      the feet of his master, who vainly strove to cover him with the
      purple, and to obtain his pardon from the inexorable soldiers.
      731 Such was the deplorable weakness of government, that the
      emperor was unable to revenge his murdered friend and his
      insulted dignity, without stooping to the arts of patience and
      dissimulation. Epagathus, the principal leader of the mutiny, was
      removed from Rome, by the honorable employment of præfect of
      Egypt: from that high rank he was gently degraded to the
      government of Crete; and when at length, his popularity among the
      guards was effaced by time and absence, Alexander ventured to
      inflict the tardy but deserved punishment of his crimes. 74 Under
      the reign of a just and virtuous prince, the tyranny of the army
      threatened with instant death his most faithful ministers, who
      were suspected of an intention to correct their intolerable
      disorders. The historian Dion Cassius had commanded the Pannonian
      legions with the spirit of ancient discipline. Their brethren of
      Rome, embracing the common cause of military license, demanded
      the head of the reformer. Alexander, however, instead of yielding
      to their seditious clamors, showed a just sense of his merit and
      services, by appointing him his colleague in the consulship, and
      defraying from his own treasury the expense of that vain dignity:
      but as was justly apprehended, that if the soldiers beheld him
      with the ensigns of his office, they would revenge the insult in
      his blood, the nominal first magistrate of the state retired, by
      the emperor’s advice, from the city, and spent the greatest part
      of his consulship at his villas in Campania. 75 751

      731 (return) [ Gibbon has confounded two events altogether
      different— the quarrel of the people with the Prætorians, which
      lasted three days, and the assassination of Ulpian by the latter.
      Dion relates first the death of Ulpian, afterwards, reverting
      back according to a manner which is usual with him, he says that
      during the life of Ulpian, there had been a war of three days
      between the Prætorians and the people. But Ulpian was not the
      cause. Dion says, on the contrary, that it was occasioned by some
      unimportant circumstance; whilst he assigns a weighty reason for
      the murder of Ulpian, the judgment by which that Prætorian
      præfect had condemned his predecessors, Chrestus and Flavian, to
      death, whom the soldiers wished to revenge. Zosimus (l. 1, c.
      xi.) attributes this sentence to Mamæra; but, even then, the
      troops might have imputed it to Ulpian, who had reaped all the
      advantage and was otherwise odious to them.—W.]

      74 (return) [ Though the author of the life of Alexander (Hist.
      August. p. 182) mentions the sedition raised against Ulpian by
      the soldiers, he conceals the catastrophe, as it might discover a
      weakness in the administration of his hero. From this designed
      omission, we may judge of the weight and candor of that author.]

      75 (return) [ For an account of Ulpian’s fate and his own danger,
      see the mutilated conclusion of Dion’s History, l. lxxx. p.
      1371.]

      751 (return) [ Dion possessed no estates in Campania, and was not
      rich. He only says that the emperor advised him to reside, during
      his consulate, in some place out of Rome; that he returned to
      Rome after the end of his consulate, and had an interview with
      the emperor in Campania. He asked and obtained leave to pass the
      rest of his life in his native city, (Nice, in Bithynia: ) it was
      there that he finished his history, which closes with his second
      consulship.—W.]




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Marcinus.—Part IV.

      The lenity of the emperor confirmed the insolence of the troops;
      the legions imitated the example of the guards, and defended
      their prerogative of licentiousness with the same furious
      obstinacy. The administration of Alexander was an unavailing
      struggle against the corruption of his age. In llyricum, in
      Mauritania, in Armenia, in Mesopotamia, in Germany, fresh
      mutinies perpetually broke out; his officers were murdered, his
      authority was insulted, and his life at last sacrificed to the
      fierce discontents of the army. 76 One particular fact well
      deserves to be recorded, as it illustrates the manners of the
      troops, and exhibits a singular instance of their return to a
      sense of duty and obedience. Whilst the emperor lay at Antioch,
      in his Persian expedition, the particulars of which we shall
      hereafter relate, the punishment of some soldiers, who had been
      discovered in the baths of women, excited a sedition in the
      legion to which they belonged. Alexander ascended his tribunal,
      and with a modest firmness represented to the armed multitude the
      absolute necessity, as well as his inflexible resolution, of
      correcting the vices introduced by his impure predecessor, and of
      maintaining the discipline, which could not be relaxed without
      the ruin of the Roman name and empire. Their clamors interrupted
      his mild expostulation. “Reserve your shout,” said the undaunted
      emperor, “till you take the field against the Persians, the
      Germans, and the Sarmatians. Be silent in the presence of your
      sovereign and benefactor, who bestows upon you the corn, the
      clothing, and the money of the provinces. Be silent, or I shall
      no longer style you solders, but _citizens_, 77 if those indeed
      who disclaim the laws of Rome deserve to be ranked among the
      meanest of the people.” His menaces inflamed the fury of the
      legion, and their brandished arms already threatened his person.
      “Your courage,” resumed the intrepid Alexander, “would be more
      nobly displayed in the field of battle; _me_ you may destroy, you
      cannot intimidate; and the severe justice of the republic would
      punish your crime and revenge my death.” The legion still
      persisted in clamorous sedition, when the emperor pronounced,
      with a loud voice, the decisive sentence, “_Citizens!_ lay down
      your arms, and depart in peace to your respective habitations.”
      The tempest was instantly appeased: the soldiers, filled with
      grief and shame, silently confessed the justice of their
      punishment, and the power of discipline, yielded up their arms
      and military ensigns, and retired in confusion, not to their
      camp, but to the several inns of the city. Alexander enjoyed,
      during thirty days, the edifying spectacle of their repentance;
      nor did he restore them to their former rank in the army, till he
      had punished with death those tribunes whose connivance had
      occasioned the mutiny. The grateful legion served the emperor
      whilst living, and revenged him when dead. 78

      76 (return) [ Annot. Reimar. ad Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. p. 1369.]

      77 (return) [ Julius Cæsar had appeased a sedition with the same
      word, Quirites; which, thus opposed to soldiers, was used in a
      sense of contempt, and reduced the offenders to the less
      honorable condition of mere citizens. Tacit. Annal. i. 43.]

      78 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 132.]

      The resolutions of the multitude generally depend on a moment;
      and the caprice of passion might equally determine the seditious
      legion to lay down their arms at the emperor’s feet, or to plunge
      them into his breast. Perhaps, if this singular transaction had
      been investigated by the penetration of a philosopher, we should
      discover the secret causes which on that occasion authorized the
      boldness of the prince, and commanded the obedience of the
      troops; and perhaps, if it had been related by a judicious
      historian, we should find this action, worthy of Cæsar himself,
      reduced nearer to the level of probability and the common
      standard of the character of Alexander Severus. The abilities of
      that amiable prince seem to have been inadequate to the
      difficulties of his situation, the firmness of his conduct
      inferior to the purity of his intentions. His virtues, as well as
      the vices of Elagabalus, contracted a tincture of weakness and
      effeminacy from the soft climate of Syria, of which he was a
      native; though he blushed at his foreign origin, and listened
      with a vain complacency to the flattering genealogists, who
      derived his race from the ancient stock of Roman nobility. 79 The
      pride and avarice of his mother cast a shade on the glories of
      his reign; and by exacting from his riper years the same dutiful
      obedience which she had justly claimed from his unexperienced
      youth, Mamæa exposed to public ridicule both her son’s character
      and her own. 80 The fatigues of the Persian war irritated the
      military discontent; the unsuccessful event 801 degraded the
      reputation of the emperor as a general, and even as a soldier.
      Every cause prepared, and every circumstance hastened, a
      revolution, which distracted the Roman empire with a long series
      of intestine calamities.

      79 (return) [ From the Metelli. Hist. August. p. 119. The choice
      was judicious. In one short period of twelve years, the Metelli
      could reckon seven consulships and five triumphs. See Velleius
      Paterculus, ii. 11, and the Fasti.]

      80 (return) [ The life of Alexander, in the Augustan History, is
      the mere idea of a perfect prince, an awkward imitation of the
      Cyropædia. The account of his reign, as given by Herodian, is
      rational and moderate, consistent with the general history of the
      age; and, in some of the most invidious particulars, confirmed by
      the decisive fragments of Dion. Yet from a very paltry prejudice,
      the greater number of our modern writers abuse Herodian, and copy
      the Augustan History. See Mess de Tillemont and Wotton. From the
      opposite prejudice, the emperor Julian (in Cæsarib. p. 315)
      dwells with a visible satisfaction on the effeminate weakness of
      the Syrian, and the ridiculous avarice of his mother.]

      801 (return) [ Historians are divided as to the success of the
      campaign against the Persians; Herodian alone speaks of defeat.
      Lampridius, Eutropius, Victor, and others, say that it was very
      glorious to Alexander; that he beat Artaxerxes in a great battle,
      and repelled him from the frontiers of the empire. This much is
      certain, that Alexander, on his return to Rome, (Lamp. Hist. Aug.
      c. 56, 133, 134,) received the honors of a triumph, and that he
      said, in his oration to the people. Quirites, vicimus Persas,
      milites divites reduximus, vobis congiarium pollicemur, cras
      ludos circenses Persicos donabimus. Alexander, says Eckhel, had
      too much modesty and wisdom to permit himself to receive honors
      which ought only to be the reward of victory, if he had not
      deserved them; he would have contented himself with dissembling
      his losses. Eckhel, Doct. Num. vet. vii. 276. The medals
      represent him as in triumph; one, among others, displays him
      crowned by Victory between two rivers, the Euphrates and the
      Tigris. P. M. TR. P. xii. Cos. iii. PP. Imperator paludatus D.
      hastam. S. parazonium, stat inter duos fluvios humi jacentes, et
      ab accedente retro Victoria coronatur. Æ. max. mod. (Mus. Reg.
      Gall.) Although Gibbon treats this question more in detail when
      he speaks of the Persian monarchy, I have thought fit to place
      here what contradicts his opinion.—G]

      The dissolute tyranny of Commodus, the civil wars occasioned by
      his death, and the new maxims of policy introduced by the house
      of Severus, had all contributed to increase the dangerous power
      of the army, and to obliterate the faint image of laws and
      liberty that was still impressed on the minds of the Romans. The
      internal change, which undermined the foundations of the empire,
      we have endeavored to explain with some degree of order and
      perspicuity. The personal characters of the emperors, their
      victories, laws, follies, and fortunes, can interest us no
      farther than as they are connected with the general history of
      the Decline and Fall of the monarchy. Our constant attention to
      that great object will not suffer us to overlook a most important
      edict of Antoninus Caracalla, which communicated to all the free
      inhabitants of the empire the name and privileges of Roman
      citizens. His unbounded liberality flowed not, however, from the
      sentiments of a generous mind; it was the sordid result of
      avarice, and will naturally be illustrated by some observations
      on the finances of that state, from the victorious ages of the
      commonwealth to the reign of Alexander Severus.

      The siege of Veii in Tuscany, the first considerable enterprise
      of the Romans, was protracted to the tenth year, much less by the
      strength of the place than by the unskilfulness of the besiegers.
      The unaccustomed hardships of so many winter campaigns, at the
      distance of near twenty miles from home, 81 required more than
      common encouragements; and the senate wisely prevented the
      clamors of the people, by the institution of a regular pay for
      the soldiers, which was levied by a general tribute, assessed
      according to an equitable proportion on the property of the
      citizens. 82 During more than two hundred years after the
      conquest of Veii, the victories of the republic added less to the
      wealth than to the power of Rome. The states of Italy paid their
      tribute in military service only, and the vast force, both by sea
      and land, which was exerted in the Punic wars, was maintained at
      the expense of the Romans themselves. That high-spirited people
      (such is often the generous enthusiasm of freedom) cheerfully
      submitted to the most excessive but voluntary burdens, in the
      just confidence that they should speedily enjoy the rich harvest
      of their labors. Their expectations were not disappointed. In the
      course of a few years, the riches of Syracuse, of Carthage, of
      Macedonia, and of Asia, were brought in triumph to Rome. The
      treasures of Perseus alone amounted to near two millions
      sterling, and the Roman people, the sovereign of so many nations,
      was forever delivered from the weight of taxes. 83 The increasing
      revenue of the provinces was found sufficient to defray the
      ordinary establishment of war and government, and the superfluous
      mass of gold and silver was deposited in the temple of Saturn,
      and reserved for any unforeseen emergency of the state. 84

      81 (return) [ According to the more accurate Dionysius, the city
      itself was only a hundred stadia, or twelve miles and a half,
      from Rome, though some out-posts might be advanced farther on the
      side of Etruria. Nardini, in a professed treatise, has combated
      the popular opinion and the authority of two popes, and has
      removed Veii from Civita Castellana, to a little spot called
      Isola, in the midway between Rome and the Lake Bracianno. * Note:
      See the interesting account of the site and ruins of Veii in Sir
      W Gell’s topography of Rome and its Vicinity. v. ii. p. 303.—M.]

      82 (return) [ See the 4th and 5th books of Livy. In the Roman
      census, property, power, and taxation were commensurate with each
      other.]

      83 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. c. 3. Cicero de
      Offic. ii. 22. Plutarch, P. Æmil. p. 275.]

      84 (return) [ See a fine description of this accumulated wealth
      of ages in Phars. l. iii. v. 155, &c.]

      History has never, perhaps, suffered a greater or more
      irreparable injury than in the loss of the curious register 841
      bequeathed by Augustus to the senate, in which that experienced
      prince so accurately balanced the revenues and expenses of the
      Roman empire. 85 Deprived of this clear and comprehensive
      estimate, we are reduced to collect a few imperfect hints from
      such of the ancients as have accidentally turned aside from the
      splendid to the more useful parts of history. We are informed
      that, by the conquests of Pompey, the tributes of Asia were
      raised from fifty to one hundred and thirty-five millions of
      drachms; or about four millions and a half sterling. 86 861 Under
      the last and most indolent of the Ptolemies, the revenue of Egypt
      is said to have amounted to twelve thousand five hundred talents;
      a sum equivalent to more than two millions and a half of our
      money, but which was afterwards considerably improved by the more
      exact economy of the Romans, and the increase of the trade of
      Æthiopia and India. 87 Gaul was enriched by rapine, as Egypt was
      by commerce, and the tributes of those two great provinces have
      been compared as nearly equal to each other in value. 88 The ten
      thousand Euboic or Phœnician talents, about four millions
      sterling, 89 which vanquished Carthage was condemned to pay
      within the term of fifty years, were a slight acknowledgment of
      the superiority of Rome, 90 and cannot bear the least proportion
      with the taxes afterwards raised both on the lands and on the
      persons of the inhabitants, when the fertile coast of Africa was
      reduced into a province. 91

      841 (return) [ See Rationarium imperii. Compare besides Tacitus,
      Suet. Aug. c. ult. Dion, p. 832. Other emperors kept and
      published similar registers. See a dissertation of Dr. Wolle, de
      Rationario imperii Rom. Leipsig, 1773. The last book of Appian
      also contained the statistics of the Roman empire, but it is
      lost.—W.]

      85 (return) [ Tacit. in Annal. i. ll. It seems to have existed in
      the time of Appian.]

      86 (return) [ Plutarch, in Pompeio, p. 642.]

      861 (return) [ Wenck contests the accuracy of Gibbon’s version of
      Plutarch, and supposes that Pompey only raised the revenue from
      50,000,000 to 85,000,000 of drachms; but the text of Plutarch
      seems clearly to mean that his conquests added 85,000,000 to the
      ordinary revenue. Wenck adds, “Plutarch says in another part,
      that Antony made Asia pay, at one time, 200,000 talents, that is
      to say, 38,875,000 L. sterling.” But Appian explains this by
      saying that it was the revenue of ten years, which brings the
      annual revenue, at the time of Antony, to 3,875,000 L.
      sterling.—M.]

      87 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvii. p. 798.]

      88 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 39. He seems to give
      the preference to the revenue of Gaul.]

      89 (return) [ The Euboic, the Phœnician, and the Alexandrian
      talents were double in weight to the Attic. See Hooper on ancient
      weights and measures, p. iv. c. 5. It is very probable that the
      same talent was carried from Tyre to Carthage.]

      90 (return) [ Polyb. l. xv. c. 2.]

      91 (return) [ Appian in Punicis, p. 84.]

      Spain, by a very singular fatality, was the Peru and Mexico of
      the old world. The discovery of the rich western continent by the
      Phœnicians, and the oppression of the simple natives, who were
      compelled to labor in their own mines for the benefit of
      strangers, form an exact type of the more recent history of
      Spanish America. 92 The Phœnicians were acquainted only with the
      sea-coast of Spain; avarice, as well as ambition, carried the
      arms of Rome and Carthage into the heart of the country, and
      almost every part of the soil was found pregnant with copper,
      silver, and gold. 921 Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena
      which yielded every day twenty-five thousand drachmns of silver,
      or about three hundred thousand pounds a year. 93 Twenty thousand
      pound weight of gold was annually received from the provinces of
      Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania. 94

      92 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. 5. Oadiz was built by the
      Phœnicians a little more than a thousand years before Christ. See
      Vell. Pa ter. i.2.]

      921 (return) [ Compare Heeren’s Researches vol. i. part ii. p.]

      93 (return) [ Strabo, l. iii. p. 148.]

      94 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxiii. c. 3. He mentions
      likewise a silver mine in Dalmatia, that yielded every day fifty
      pounds to the state.] We want both leisure and materials to
      pursue this curious inquiry through the many potent states that
      were annihilated in the Roman empire. Some notion, however, may
      be formed of the revenue of the provinces where considerable
      wealth had been deposited by nature, or collected by man, if we
      observe the severe attention that was directed to the abodes of
      solitude and sterility. Augustus once received a petition from
      the inhabitants of Gyarus, humbly praying that they might be
      relieved from one third of their excessive impositions. Their
      whole tax amounted indeed to no more than one hundred and fifty
      drachms, or about five pounds: but Gyarus was a little island, or
      rather a rock, of the Ægean Sea, destitute of fresh water and
      every necessary of life, and inhabited only by a few wretched
      fishermen. 95

      95 (return) [ Strabo, l. x. p. 485. Tacit. Annal. iu. 69, and iv.
      30. See Tournefort (Voyages au Levant, Lettre viii.) a very
      lively picture of the actual misery of Gyarus.]

      From the faint glimmerings of such doubtful and scattered lights,
      we should be inclined to believe, 1st, That (with every fair
      allowance for the differences of times and circumstances) the
      general income of the Roman provinces could seldom amount to less
      than fifteen or twenty millions of our money; 96 and, 2dly, That
      so ample a revenue must have been fully adequate to all the
      expenses of the moderate government instituted by Augustus, whose
      court was the modest family of a private senator, and whose
      military establishment was calculated for the defence of the
      frontiers, without any aspiring views of conquest, or any serious
      apprehension of a foreign invasion.

      96 (return) [ Lipsius de magnitudine Romana (l. ii. c. 3)
      computes the revenue at one hundred and fifty millions of gold
      crowns; but his whole book, though learned and ingenious, betrays
      a very heated imagination. Note: If Justus Lipsius has
      exaggerated the revenue of the Roman empire Gibbon, on the other
      hand, has underrated it. He fixes it at fifteen or twenty
      millions of our money. But if we take only, on a moderate
      calculation, the taxes in the provinces which he has already
      cited, they will amount, considering the augmentations made by
      Augustus, to nearly that sum. There remain also the provinces of
      Italy, of Rhætia, of Noricum, Pannonia, and Greece, &c., &c. Let
      us pay attention, besides, to the prodigious expenditure of some
      emperors, (Suet. Vesp. 16;) we shall see that such a revenue
      could not be sufficient. The authors of the Universal History,
      part xii., assign forty millions sterling as the sum to about
      which the public revenue might amount.—G. from W.]

      Notwithstanding the seeming probability of both these
      conclusions, the latter of them at least is positively disowned
      by the language and conduct of Augustus. It is not easy to
      determine whether, on this occasion, he acted as the common
      father of the Roman world, or as the oppressor of liberty;
      whether he wished to relieve the provinces, or to impoverish the
      senate and the equestrian order. But no sooner had he assumed the
      reins of government, than he frequently intimated the
      insufficiency of the tributes, and the necessity of throwing an
      equitable proportion of the public burden upon Rome and Italy.
      961 In the prosecution of this unpopular design, he advanced,
      however, by cautious and well-weighed steps. The introduction of
      customs was followed by the establishment of an excise, and the
      scheme of taxation was completed by an artful assessment on the
      real and personal property of the Roman citizens, who had been
      exempted from any kind of contribution above a century and a
      half.

      961 (return) [ It is not astonishing that Augustus held this
      language. The senate declared also under Nero, that the state
      could not exist without the imposts as well augmented as founded
      by Augustus. Tac. Ann. xiii. 50. After the abolition of the
      different tributes paid by Italy, an abolition which took place
      A. U. 646, 694, and 695, the state derived no revenues from that
      great country, but the twentieth part of the manumissions,
      (vicesima manumissionum,) and Ciero laments this in many places,
      particularly in his epistles to ii. 15.—G. from W.]

      I. In a great empire like that of Rome, a natural balance of
      money must have gradually established itself. It has been already
      observed, that as the wealth of the provinces was attracted to
      the capital by the strong hand of conquest and power, so a
      considerable part of it was restored to the industrious provinces
      by the gentle influence of commerce and arts. In the reign of
      Augustus and his successors, duties were imposed on every kind of
      merchandise, which through a thousand channels flowed to the
      great centre of opulence and luxury; and in whatsoever manner the
      law was expressed, it was the Roman purchaser, and not the
      provincial merchant, who paid the tax. 97 The rate of the customs
      varied from the eighth to the fortieth part of the value of the
      commodity; and we have a right to suppose that the variation was
      directed by the unalterable maxims of policy; that a higher duty
      was fixed on the articles of luxury than on those of necessity,
      and that the productions raised or manufactured by the labor of
      the subjects of the empire were treated with more indulgence than
      was shown to the pernicious, or at least the unpopular, commerce
      of Arabia and India. 98 There is still extant a long but
      imperfect catalogue of eastern commodities, which about the time
      of Alexander Severus were subject to the payment of duties;
      cinnamon, myrrh, pepper, ginger, and the whole tribe of
      aromatics; a great variety of precious stones, among which the
      diamond was the most remarkable for its price, and the emerald
      for its beauty; 99 Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons,
      silks, both raw and manufactured, ebony ivory, and eunuchs. 100
      We may observe that the use and value of those effeminate slaves
      gradually rose with the decline of the empire.

      97 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 31. * Note: The customs
      (portoria) existed in the times of the ancient kings of Rome.
      They were suppressed in Italy, A. U. 694, by the Prætor, Cecilius
      Matellus Nepos. Augustus only reestablished them. See note
      above.—W.]

      98 (return) [See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. l. vi. c. 23, lxii. c. 18.)
      His observation that the Indian commodities were sold at Rome at
      a hundred times their original price, may give us some notion of
      the produce of the customs, since that original price amounted to
      more than eight hundred thousand pounds.]

      99 (return) [ The ancients were unacquainted with the art of
      cutting diamonds.]

      100 (return) [ M. Bouchaud, in his treatise de l’Impot chez les
      Romains, has transcribed this catalogue from the Digest, and
      attempts to illustrate it by a very prolix commentary. * Note: In
      the Pandects, l. 39, t. 14, de Publican. Compare Cicero in
      Verrem. c. 72—74.—W.]

      II. The excise, introduced by Augustus after the civil wars, was
      extremely moderate, but it was general. It seldom exceeded one
      _per cent_.; but it comprehended whatever was sold in the markets
      or by public auction, from the most considerable purchases of
      lands and houses, to those minute objects which can only derive a
      value from their infinite multitude and daily consumption. Such a
      tax, as it affects the body of the people, has ever been the
      occasion of clamor and discontent. An emperor well acquainted
      with the wants and resources of the state was obliged to declare,
      by a public edict, that the support of the army depended in a
      great measure on the produce of the excise. 101

      101 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. i. 78. Two years afterwards, the
      reduction of the poor kingdom of Cappadocia gave Tiberius a
      pretence for diminishing the excise of one half, but the relief
      was of very short duration.]

      III. When Augustus resolved to establish a permanent military
      force for the defence of his government against foreign and
      domestic enemies, he instituted a peculiar treasury for the pay
      of the soldiers, the rewards of the veterans, and the
      extra-ordinary expenses of war. The ample revenue of the excise,
      though peculiarly appropriated to those uses, was found
      inadequate. To supply the deficiency, the emperor suggested a new
      tax of five per cent. on all legacies and inheritances. But the
      nobles of Rome were more tenacious of property than of freedom.
      Their indignant murmurs were received by Augustus with his usual
      temper. He candidly referred the whole business to the senate,
      and exhorted them to provide for the public service by some other
      expedient of a less odious nature. They were divided and
      perplexed. He insinuated to them, that their obstinacy would
      oblige him to _propose_ a general land tax and capitation. They
      acquiesced in silence. 102 The new imposition on legacies and
      inheritances was, however, mitigated by some restrictions. It did
      not take place unless the object was of a certain value, most
      probably of fifty or a hundred pieces of gold; 103 nor could it
      be exacted from the nearest of kin on the father’s side. 104 When
      the rights of nature and poverty were thus secured, it seemed
      reasonable, that a stranger, or a distant relation, who acquired
      an unexpected accession of fortune, should cheerfully resign a
      twentieth part of it, for the benefit of the state. 105

      102 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lv. p. 794, l. lvi. p. 825. Note:
      Dion neither mentions this proposition nor the capitation. He
      only says that the emperor imposed a tax upon landed property,
      and sent every where men employed to make a survey, without
      fixing how much, and for how much each was to pay. The senators
      then preferred giving the tax on legacies and inheritances.—W.]

      103 (return) [ The sum is only fixed by conjecture.]

      104 (return) [ As the Roman law subsisted for many ages, the
      Cognati, or relations on the mother’s side, were not called to
      the succession. This harsh institution was gradually undermined
      by humanity, and finally abolished by Justinian.]

      105 (return) [ Plin. Panegyric. c. 37.]

      Such a tax, plentiful as it must prove in every wealthy
      community, was most happily suited to the situation of the
      Romans, who could frame their arbitrary wills, according to the
      dictates of reason or caprice, without any restraint from the
      modern fetters of entails and settlements. From various causes,
      the partiality of paternal affection often lost its influence
      over the stern patriots of the commonwealth, and the dissolute
      nobles of the empire; and if the father bequeathed to his son the
      fourth part of his estate, he removed all ground of legal
      complaint. 106 But a rich childish old man was a domestic tyrant,
      and his power increased with his years and infirmities. A servile
      crowd, in which he frequently reckoned prætors and consuls,
      courted his smiles, pampered his avarice, applauded his follies,
      served his passions, and waited with impatience for his death.
      The arts of attendance and flattery were formed into a most
      lucrative science; those who professed it acquired a peculiar
      appellation; and the whole city, according to the lively
      descriptions of satire, was divided between two parties, the
      hunters and their game. 107 Yet, while so many unjust and
      extravagant wills were every day dictated by cunning and
      subscribed by folly, a few were the result of rational esteem and
      virtuous gratitude. Cicero, who had so often defended the lives
      and fortunes of his fellow-citizens, was rewarded with legacies
      to the amount of a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; 108 nor
      do the friends of the younger Pliny seem to have been less
      generous to that amiable orator. 109 Whatever was the motive of
      the testator, the treasury claimed, without distinction, the
      twentieth part of his estate: and in the course of two or three
      generations, the whole property of the subject must have
      gradually passed through the coffers of the state.

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

      107 (return) [ Horat. l. ii. Sat. v. Potron. c. 116, &c. Plin. l.
      ii. Epist. 20.]

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

      109 (return) [ See his epistles. Every such will gave him an
      occasion of displaying his reverence to the dead, and his justice
      to the living. He reconciled both in his behavior to a son who
      had been disinherited by his mother, (v.l.)]

      In the first and golden years of the reign of Nero, that prince,
      from a desire of popularity, and perhaps from a blind impulse of
      benevolence, conceived a wish of abolishing the oppression of the
      customs and excise. The wisest senators applauded his
      magnanimity: but they diverted him from the execution of a design
      which would have dissolved the strength and resources of the
      republic. 110 Had it indeed been possible to realize this dream
      of fancy, such princes as Trajan and the Antonines would surely
      have embraced with ardor the glorious opportunity of conferring
      so signal an obligation on mankind. Satisfied, however, with
      alleviating the public burden, they attempted not to remove it.
      The mildness and precision of their laws ascertained the rule and
      measure of taxation, and protected the subject of every rank
      against arbitrary interpretations, antiquated claims, and the
      insolent vexation of the farmers of the revenue. 111 For it is
      somewhat singular, that, in every age, the best and wisest of the
      Roman governors persevered in this pernicious method of
      collecting the principal branches at least of the excise and
      customs. 112

      110 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xiii. 50. Esprit des Loix, l. xii.
      c. 19.]

      111 (return) [ See Pliny’s Panegyric, the Augustan History, and
      Burman de Vectigal. passim.]

      112 (return) [ The tributes (properly so called) were not farmed;
      since the good princes often remitted many millions of arrears.]

      The sentiments, and, indeed, the situation, of Caracalla were
      very different from those of the Antonines. Inattentive, or
      rather averse, to the welfare of his people, he found himself
      under the necessity of gratifying the insatiate avarice which he
      had excited in the army. Of the several impositions introduced by
      Augustus, the twentieth on inheritances and legacies was the most
      fruitful, as well as the most comprehensive. As its influence was
      not confined to Rome or Italy, the produce continually increased
      with the gradual extension of the Roman City. The new citizens,
      though charged, on equal terms, 113 with the payment of new
      taxes, which had not affected them as subjects, derived an ample
      compensation from the rank they obtained, the privileges they
      acquired, and the fair prospect of honors and fortune that was
      thrown open to their ambition. But the favor which implied a
      distinction was lost in the prodigality of Caracalla, and the
      reluctant provincials were compelled to assume the vain title,
      and the real obligations, of Roman citizens. 1131 Nor was the
      rapacious son of Severus contented with such a measure of
      taxation as had appeared sufficient to his moderate predecessors.
      Instead of a twentieth, he exacted a tenth of all legacies and
      inheritances; and during his reign (for the ancient proportion
      was restored after his death) he crushed alike every part of the
      empire under the weight of his iron sceptre. 114

      113 (return) [ The situation of the new citizens is minutely
      described by Pliny, (Panegyric, c. 37, 38, 39). Trajan published
      a law very much in their favor.]

      1131 (return) [ Gibbon has adopted the opinion of Spanheim and of
      Burman, which attributes to Caracalla this edict, which gave the
      right of the city to all the inhabitants of the provinces. This
      opinion may be disputed. Several passages of Spartianus, of
      Aurelius Victor, and of Aristides, attribute this edict to Marc.
      Aurelius. See a learned essay, entitled Joh. P. Mahneri Comm. de
      Marc. Aur. Antonino Constitutionis de Civitate Universo Orbi
      Romano data auctore. Halæ, 1772, 8vo. It appears that Marc.
      Aurelius made some modifications of this edict, which released
      the provincials from some of the charges imposed by the right of
      the city, and deprived them of some of the advantages which it
      conferred. Caracalla annulled these modifications.—W.]

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

      When all the provincials became liable to the peculiar
      impositions of Roman citizens, they seemed to acquire a legal
      exemption from the tributes which they had paid in their former
      condition of subjects. Such were not the maxims of government
      adopted by Caracalla and his pretended son. The old as well as
      the new taxes were, at the same time, levied in the provinces. It
      was reserved for the virtue of Alexander to relieve them in a
      great measure from this intolerable grievance, by reducing the
      tributes to a thirteenth part of the sum exacted at the time of
      his accession. 115 It is impossible to conjecture the motive that
      engaged him to spare so trifling a remnant of the public evil;
      but the noxious weed, which had not been totally eradicated,
      again sprang up with the most luxuriant growth, and in the
      succeeding age darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade. In
      the course of this history, we shall be too often summoned to
      explain the land tax, the capitation, and the heavy contributions
      of corn, wine, oil, and meat, which were exacted from the
      provinces for the use of the court, the army, and the capital.

      115 (return) [ He who paid ten aurei, the usual tribute, was
      charged with no more than the third part of an aureus, and
      proportional pieces of gold were coined by Alexander’s order.
      Hist. August. p. 127, with the commentary of Salmasius.]

      As long as Rome and Italy were respected as the centre of
      government, a national spirit was preserved by the ancient, and
      insensibly imbibed by the adopted, citizens. The principal
      commands of the army were filled by men who had received a
      liberal education, were well instructed in the advantages of laws
      and letters, and who had risen, by equal steps, through the
      regular succession of civil and military honors. 116 To their
      influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience
      of the legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial
      history.

      116 (return) [ See the lives of Agricola, Vespasian, Trajan,
      Severus, and his three competitors; and indeed of all the eminent
      men of those times.]

      But when the last enclosure of the Roman constitution was
      trampled down by Caracalla, the separation of professions
      gradually succeeded to the distinction of ranks. The more
      polished citizens of the internal provinces were alone qualified
      to act as lawyers and magistrates. The rougher trade of arms was
      abandoned to the peasants and barbarians of the frontiers, who
      knew no country but their camp, no science but that of war, no
      civil laws, and scarcely those of military discipline. With
      bloody hands, savage manners, and desperate resolutions, they
      sometimes guarded, but much oftener subverted, the throne of the
      emperors.




      Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
      Maximin.—Part I.

     The Elevation And Tyranny Of Maximin.—Rebellion In Africa And
     Italy, Under The Authority Of The Senate.—Civil Wars And
     Seditions.—Violent Deaths Of Maximin And His Son, Of Maximus And
     Balbinus, And Of The Three Gordians.— Usurpation And Secular Games
     Of Philip.

      Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the
      world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope
      for ridicule. Is it possible to relate without an indignant
      smile, that, on the father’s decease, the property of a nation,
      like that of a drove of oxen, descends to his infant son, as yet
      unknown to mankind and to himself; and that the bravest warriors
      and the wisest statesmen, relinquishing their natural right to
      empire, approach the royal cradle with bended knees and
      protestations of inviolable fidelity? Satire and declamation may
      paint these obvious topics in the most dazzling colors, but our
      more serious thoughts will respect a useful prejudice, that
      establishes a rule of succession, independent of the passions of
      mankind; and we shall cheerfully acquiesce in any expedient which
      deprives the multitude of the dangerous, and indeed the ideal,
      power of giving themselves a master.

      In the cool shade of retirement, we may easily devise imaginary
      forms of government, in which the sceptre shall be constantly
      bestowed on the most worthy, by the free and incorrupt suffrage
      of the whole community. Experience overturns these airy fabrics,
      and teaches us, that in a large society, the election of a
      monarch can never devolve to the wisest, or to the most numerous
      part of the people. The army is the only order of men
      sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and
      powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their
      fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once
      to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of
      a legal, or even a civil constitution. Justice, humanity, or
      political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted
      with in themselves, to appreciate them in others. Valor will
      acquire their esteem, and liberality will purchase their
      suffrage; but the first of these merits is often lodged in the
      most savage breasts; the latter can only exert itself at the
      expense of the public; and both may be turned against the
      possessor of the throne, by the ambition of a daring rival.

      The superior prerogative of birth, when it has obtained the
      sanction of time and popular opinion, is the plainest and least
      invidious of all distinctions among mankind. The acknowledged
      right extinguishes the hopes of faction, and the conscious
      security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm
      establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and
      mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it
      we must attribute the frequent civil wars, through which an
      Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his
      fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is
      usually limited to the princes of the reigning house, and as soon
      as the more fortunate competitor has removed his brethren by the
      sword and the bowstring, he no longer entertains any jealousy of
      his meaner subjects. But the Roman empire, after the authority of
      the senate had sunk into contempt, was a vast scene of confusion.
      The royal, and even noble, families of the provinces had long
      since been led in triumph before the car of the haughty
      republicans. The ancient families of Rome had successively fallen
      beneath the tyranny of the Cæsars; and whilst those princes were
      shackled by the forms of a commonwealth, and disappointed by the
      repeated failure of their posterity, 1 it was impossible that any
      idea of hereditary succession should have taken root in the minds
      of their subjects. The right to the throne, which none could
      claim from birth, every one assumed from merit. The daring hopes
      of ambition were set loose from the salutary restraints of law
      and prejudice; and the meanest of mankind might, without folly,
      entertain a hope of being raised by valor and fortune to a rank
      in the army, in which a single crime would enable him to wrest
      the sceptre of the world from his feeble and unpopular master.
      After the murder of Alexander Severus, and the elevation of
      Maximin, no emperor could think himself safe upon the throne, and
      every barbarian peasant of the frontier might aspire to that
      august, but dangerous station.

      1 (return) [ There had been no example of three successive
      generations on the throne; only three instances of sons who
      succeeded their fathers. The marriages of the Cæsars
      (notwithstanding the permission, and the frequent practice of
      divorces) were generally unfruitful.]

      About thirty-two years before that event, the emperor Severus,
      returning from an eastern expedition, halted in Thrace, to
      celebrate, with military games, the birthday of his younger son,
      Geta. The country flocked in crowds to behold their sovereign,
      and a young barbarian of gigantic stature earnestly solicited, in
      his rude dialect, that he might be allowed to contend for the
      prize of wrestling. As the pride of discipline would have been
      disgraced in the overthrow of a Roman soldier by a Thracian
      peasant, he was matched with the stoutest followers of the camp,
      sixteen of whom he successively laid on the ground. His victory
      was rewarded by some trifling gifts, and a permission to enlist
      in the troops. The next day, the happy barbarian was
      distinguished above a crowd of recruits, dancing and exulting
      after the fashion of his country. As soon as he perceived that he
      had attracted the emperor’s notice, he instantly ran up to his
      horse, and followed him on foot, without the least appearance of
      fatigue, in a long and rapid career. “Thracian,” said Severus
      with astonishment, “art thou disposed to wrestle after thy race?”
      “Most willingly, sir,” replied the unwearied youth; and, almost
      in a breath, overthrew seven of the strongest soldiers in the
      army. A gold collar was the prize of his matchless vigor and
      activity, and he was immediately appointed to serve in the
      horseguards who always attended on the person of the sovereign. 2

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

      Maximin, for that was his name, though born on the territories of
      the empire, descended from a mixed race of barbarians. His father
      was a Goth, and his mother of the nation of the Alani. He
      displayed on every occasion a valor equal to his strength; and
      his native fierceness was soon tempered or disguised by the
      knowledge of the world. Under the reign of Severus and his son,
      he obtained the rank of centurion, with the favor and esteem of
      both those princes, the former of whom was an excellent judge of
      merit. Gratitude forbade Maximin to serve under the assassin of
      Caracalla. Honor taught him to decline the effeminate insults of
      Elagabalus. On the accession of Alexander he returned to court,
      and was placed by that prince in a station useful to the service,
      and honorable to himself. The fourth legion, to which he was
      appointed tribune, soon became, under his care, the best
      disciplined of the whole army. With the general applause of the
      soldiers, who bestowed on their favorite hero the names of Ajax
      and Hercules, he was successively promoted to the first military
      command; 3 and had not he still retained too much of his savage
      origin, the emperor might perhaps have given his own sister in
      marriage to the son of Maximin. 4

      3 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 140. Herodian, l. vi. p. 223.
      Aurelius Victor. By comparing these authors, it should seem that
      Maximin had the particular command of the Tribellian horse, with
      the general commission of disciplining the recruits of the whole
      army. His biographer ought to have marked, with more care, his
      exploits, and the successive steps of his military promotions.]

      4 (return) [ See the original letter of Alexander Severus, Hist.
      August. p. 149.]

      Instead of securing his fidelity, these favors served only to
      inflame the ambition of the Thracian peasant, who deemed his
      fortune inadequate to his merit, as long as he was constrained to
      acknowledge a superior. Though a stranger to real wisdom, he was
      not devoid of a selfish cunning, which showed him that the
      emperor had lost the affection of the army, and taught him to
      improve their discontent to his own advantage. It is easy for
      faction and calumny to shed their poison on the administration of
      the best of princes, and to accuse even their virtues by artfully
      confounding them with those vices to which they bear the nearest
      affinity. The troops listened with pleasure to the emissaries of
      Maximin. They blushed at their own ignominious patience, which,
      during thirteen years, had supported the vexatious discipline
      imposed by an effeminate Syrian, the timid slave of his mother
      and of the senate. It was time, they cried, to cast away that
      useless phantom of the civil power, and to elect for their prince
      and general a real soldier, educated in camps, exercised in war,
      who would assert the glory, and distribute among his companions
      the treasures, of the empire. A great army was at that time
      assembled on the banks of the Rhine, under the command of the
      emperor himself, who, almost immediately after his return from
      the Persian war, had been obliged to march against the barbarians
      of Germany. The important care of training and reviewing the new
      levies was intrusted to Maximin. One day, as he entered the field
      of exercise, the troops, either from a sudden impulse, or a
      formed conspiracy, saluted him emperor, silenced by their loud
      acclamations his obstinate refusal, and hastened to consummate
      their rebellion by the murder of Alexander Severus.

      The circumstances of his death are variously related. The
      writers, who suppose that he died in ignorance of the ingratitude
      and ambition of Maximin affirm that, after taking a frugal repast
      in the sight of the army, he retired to sleep, and that, about
      the seventh hour of the day, a part of his own guards broke into
      the imperial tent, and, with many wounds, assassinated their
      virtuous and unsuspecting prince. 5 If we credit another, and
      indeed a more probable account, Maximin was invested with the
      purple by a numerous detachment, at the distance of several miles
      from the head-quarters; and he trusted for success rather to the
      secret wishes than to the public declarations of the great army.
      Alexander had sufficient time to awaken a faint sense of loyalty
      among the troops; but their reluctant professions of fidelity
      quickly vanished on the appearance of Maximin, who declared
      himself the friend and advocate of the military order, and was
      unanimously acknowledged emperor of the Romans by the applauding
      legions. The son of Mamæa, betrayed and deserted, withdrew into
      his tent, desirous at least to conceal his approaching fate from
      the insults of the multitude. He was soon followed by a tribune
      and some centurions, the ministers of death; but instead of
      receiving with manly resolution the inevitable stroke, his
      unavailing cries and entreaties disgraced the last moments of his
      life, and converted into contempt some portion of the just pity
      which his innocence and misfortunes must inspire. His mother,
      Mamæa, whose pride and avarice he loudly accused as the cause of
      his ruin, perished with her son. The most faithful of his friends
      were sacrificed to the first fury of the soldiers. Others were
      reserved for the more deliberate cruelty of the usurper; and
      those who experienced the mildest treatment, were stripped of
      their employments, and ignominiously driven from the court and
      army. 6

      5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 135. I have softened some of the
      most improbable circumstances of this wretched biographer. From
      his ill-worded narration, it should seem that the prince’s
      buffoon having accidentally entered the tent, and awakened the
      slumbering monarch, the fear of punishment urged him to persuade
      the disaffected soldiers to commit the murder.]

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

      The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla,
      were all dissolute and unexperienced youths, 7 educated in the
      purple, and corrupted by the pride of empire, the luxury of Rome,
      and the perfidious voice of flattery. The cruelty of Maximin was
      derived from a different source, the fear of contempt. Though he
      depended on the attachment of the soldiers, who loved him for
      virtues like their own, he was conscious that his mean and
      barbarian origin, his savage appearance, and his total ignorance
      of the arts and institutions of civil life, 8 formed a very
      unfavorable contrast with the amiable manners of the unhappy
      Alexander. He remembered, that, in his humbler fortune, he had
      often waited before the door of the haughty nobles of Rome, and
      had been denied admittance by the insolence of their slaves. He
      recollected too the friendship of a few who had relieved his
      poverty, and assisted his rising hopes. But those who had
      spurned, and those who had protected, the Thracian, were guilty
      of the same crime, the knowledge of his original obscurity. For
      this crime many were put to death; and by the execution of
      several of his benefactors, Maximin published, in characters of
      blood, the indelible history of his baseness and ingratitude. 9

      7 (return) [ Caligula, the eldest of the four, was only
      twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne; Caracalla
      was twenty-three, Commodus nineteen, and Nero no more than
      seventeen.]

      8 (return) [ It appears that he was totally ignorant of the Greek
      language; which, from its universal use in conversation and
      letters, was an essential part of every liberal education.]

      9 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 141. Herodian, l. vii. p. 237. The
      latter of these historians has been most unjustly censured for
      sparing the vices of Maximin.]

      The dark and sanguinary soul of the tyrant was open to every
      suspicion against those among his subjects who were the most
      distinguished by their birth or merit. Whenever he was alarmed
      with the sound of treason, his cruelty was unbounded and
      unrelenting. A conspiracy against his life was either discovered
      or imagined, and Magnus, a consular senator, was named as the
      principal author of it. Without a witness, without a trial, and
      without an opportunity of defence, Magnus, with four thousand of
      his supposed accomplices, was put to death. Italy and the whole
      empire were infested with innumerable spies and informers. On the
      slightest accusation, the first of the Roman nobles, who had
      governed provinces, commanded armies, and been adorned with the
      consular and triumphal ornaments, were chained on the public
      carriages, and hurried away to the emperor’s presence.
      Confiscation, exile, or simple death, were esteemed uncommon
      instances of his lenity. Some of the unfortunate sufferers he
      ordered to be sewed up in the hides of slaughtered animals,
      others to be exposed to wild beasts, others again to be beaten to
      death with clubs. During the three years of his reign, he
      disdained to visit either Rome or Italy. His camp, occasionally
      removed from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Danube, was
      the seat of his stern despotism, which trampled on every
      principle of law and justice, and was supported by the avowed
      power of the sword. 10 No man of noble birth, elegant
      accomplishments, or knowledge of civil business, was suffered
      near his person; and the court of a Roman emperor revived the
      idea of those ancient chiefs of slaves and gladiators, whose
      savage power had left a deep impression of terror and
      detestation. 11

      10 (return) [ The wife of Maximin, by insinuating wise counsels
      with female gentleness, sometimes brought back the tyrant to the
      way of truth and humanity. See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xiv. c.
      l, where he alludes to the fact which he had more fully related
      under the reign of the Gordians. We may collect from the medals,
      that Paullina was the name of this benevolent empress; and from
      the title of Diva, that she died before Maximin. (Valesius ad
      loc. cit. Ammian.) Spanheim de U. et P. N. tom. ii. p. 300. Note:
      If we may believe Syrcellus and Zonaras, in was Maximin himself
      who ordered her death—G]

      11 (return) [ He was compared to Spartacus and Athenio. Hist.
      August p. 141.]

      As long as the cruelty of Maximin was confined to the illustrious
      senators, or even to the bold adventurers, who in the court or
      army expose themselves to the caprice of fortune, the body of the
      people viewed their sufferings with indifference, or perhaps with
      pleasure. But the tyrant’s avarice, stimulated by the insatiate
      desires of the soldiers, at length attacked the public property.
      Every city of the empire was possessed of an independent revenue,
      destined to purchase corn for the multitude, and to supply the
      expenses of the games and entertainments. By a single act of
      authority, the whole mass of wealth was at once confiscated for
      the use of the Imperial treasury. The temples were stripped of
      their most valuable offerings of gold and silver, and the statues
      of gods, heroes, and emperors, were melted down and coined into
      money. These impious orders could not be executed without tumults
      and massacres, as in many places the people chose rather to die
      in the defence of their altars, than to behold in the midst of
      peace their cities exposed to the rapine and cruelty of war. The
      soldiers themselves, among whom this sacrilegious plunder was
      distributed, received it with a blush; and hardened as they were
      in acts of violence, they dreaded the just reproaches of their
      friends and relations. Throughout the Roman world a general cry
      of indignation was heard, imploring vengeance on the common enemy
      of human kind; and at length, by an act of private oppression, a
      peaceful and unarmed province was driven into rebellion against
      him. 12

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

      The procurator of Africa was a servant worthy of such a master,
      who considered the fines and confiscations of the rich as one of
      the most fruitful branches of the Imperial revenue. An iniquitous
      sentence had been pronounced against some opulent youths of that
      country, the execution of which would have stripped them of far
      the greater part of their patrimony. In this extremity, a
      resolution that must either complete or prevent their ruin, was
      dictated by despair. A respite of three days, obtained with
      difficulty from the rapacious treasurer, was employed in
      collecting from their estates a great number of slaves and
      peasants blindly devoted to the commands of their lords, and
      armed with the rustic weapons of clubs and axes. The leaders of
      the conspiracy, as they were admitted to the audience of the
      procurator, stabbed him with the daggers concealed under their
      garments, and, by the assistance of their tumultuary train,
      seized on the little town of Thysdrus, 13 and erected the
      standard of rebellion against the sovereign of the Roman empire.
      They rested their hopes on the hatred of mankind against Maximin,
      and they judiciously resolved to oppose to that detested tyrant
      an emperor whose mild virtues had already acquired the love and
      esteem of the Romans, and whose authority over the province would
      give weight and stability to the enterprise. Gordianus, their
      proconsul, and the object of their choice, refused, with
      unfeigned reluctance, the dangerous honor, and begged with tears,
      that they would suffer him to terminate in peace a long and
      innocent life, without staining his feeble age with civil blood.
      Their menaces compelled him to accept the Imperial purple, his
      only refuge, indeed, against the jealous cruelty of Maximin;
      since, according to the reasoning of tyrants, those who have been
      esteemed worthy of the throne deserve death, and those who
      deliberate have already rebelled. 14

      13 (return) [ In the fertile territory of Byzacium, one hundred
      and fifty miles to the south of Carthage. This city was
      decorated, probably by the Gordians, with the title of colony,
      and with a fine amphitheatre, which is still in a very perfect
      state. See Intinerar. Wesseling, p. 59; and Shaw’s Travels, p.
      117.]

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

      The family of Gordianus was one of the most illustrious of the
      Roman senate. On the father’s side he was descended from the
      Gracchi; on his mother’s, from the emperor Trajan. A great estate
      enabled him to support the dignity of his birth, and in the
      enjoyment of it, he displayed an elegant taste and beneficent
      disposition. The palace in Rome, formerly inhabited by the great
      Pompey, had been, during several generations, in the possession
      of Gordian’s family. 15 It was distinguished by ancient trophies
      of naval victories, and decorated with the works of modern
      painting. His villa on the road to Præneste was celebrated for
      baths of singular beauty and extent, for three stately rooms of a
      hundred feet in length, and for a magnificent portico, supported
      by two hundred columns of the four most curious and costly sorts
      of marble. 16 The public shows exhibited at his expense, and in
      which the people were entertained with many hundreds of wild
      beasts and gladiators, 17 seem to surpass the fortune of a
      subject; and whilst the liberality of other magistrates was
      confined to a few solemn festivals at Rome, the magnificence of
      Gordian was repeated, when he was ædile, every month in the year,
      and extended, during his consulship, to the principal cities of
      Italy. He was twice elevated to the last-mentioned dignity, by
      Caracalla and by Alexander; for he possessed the uncommon talent
      of acquiring the esteem of virtuous princes, without alarming the
      jealousy of tyrants. His long life was innocently spent in the
      study of letters and the peaceful honors of Rome; and, till he
      was named proconsul of Africa by the voice of the senate and the
      approbation of Alexander, 18 he appears prudently to have
      declined the command of armies and the government of provinces.
      181 As long as that emperor lived, Africa was happy under the
      administration of his worthy representative: after the barbarous
      Maximin had usurped the throne, Gordianus alleviated the miseries
      which he was unable to prevent. When he reluctantly accepted the
      purple, he was above fourscore years old; a last and valuable
      remains of the happy age of the Antonines, whose virtues he
      revived in his own conduct, and celebrated in an elegant poem of
      thirty books. With the venerable proconsul, his son, who had
      accompanied him into Africa as his lieutenant, was likewise
      declared emperor. His manners were less pure, but his character
      was equally amiable with that of his father. Twenty-two
      acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand
      volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations; and from the
      productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former
      as well as the latter were designed for use rather than for
      ostentation. 19 The Roman people acknowledged in the features of
      the younger Gordian the resemblance of Scipio Africanus, 191
      recollected with pleasure that his mother was the granddaughter
      of Antoninus Pius, and rested the public hope on those latent
      virtues which had hitherto, as they fondly imagined, lain
      concealed in the luxurious indolence of private life.

      15 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 152. The celebrated house of Pompey
      in carinis was usurped by Marc Antony, and consequently became,
      after the Triumvir’s death, a part of the Imperial domain. The
      emperor Trajan allowed, and even encouraged, the rich senators to
      purchase those magnificent and useless places, (Plin. Panegyric.
      c. 50;) and it may seem probable, that, on this occasion,
      Pompey’s house came into the possession of Gordian’s
      great-grandfather.]

      16 (return) [ The Claudian, the Numidian, the Carystian, and the
      Synnadian. The colors of Roman marbles have been faintly
      described and imperfectly distinguished. It appears, however,
      that the Carystian was a sea-green, and that the marble of
      Synnada was white mixed with oval spots of purple. See Salmasius
      ad Hist. August. p. 164.]

      17 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 151, 152. He sometimes gave five
      hundred pair of gladiators, never less than one hundred and
      fifty. He once gave for the use of the circus one hundred
      Sicilian, and as many Cappæcian Cappadecian horses. The animals
      designed for hunting were chiefly bears, boars, bulls, stags,
      elks, wild asses, &c. Elephants and lions seem to have been
      appropriated to Imperial magnificence.]

      18 (return) [ See the original letter, in the Augustan History,
      p. 152, which at once shows Alexander’s respect for the authority
      of the senate, and his esteem for the proconsul appointed by that
      assembly.]

      181 (return) [ Herodian expressly says that he had administered
      many provinces, lib. vii. 10.—W.]

      19 (return) [ By each of his concubines, the younger Gordian left
      three or four children. His literary productions, though less
      numerous, were by no means contemptible.]

      191 (return) [ Not the personal likeness, but the family descent
      from the Scipiod.—W.]

      As soon as the Gordians had appeased the first tumult of a
      popular election, they removed their court to Carthage. They were
      received with the acclamations of the Africans, who honored their
      virtues, and who, since the visit of Hadrian, had never beheld
      the majesty of a Roman emperor. But these vain acclamations
      neither strengthened nor confirmed the title of the Gordians.
      They were induced by principle, as well as interest, to solicit
      the approbation of the senate; and a deputation of the noblest
      provincials was sent, without delay, to Rome, to relate and
      justify the conduct of their countrymen, who, having long
      suffered with patience, were at length resolved to act with
      vigor. The letters of the new princes were modest and respectful,
      excusing the necessity which had obliged them to accept the
      Imperial title; but submitting their election and their fate to
      the supreme judgment of the senate. 20

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

      The inclinations of the senate were neither doubtful nor divided.
      The birth and noble alliances of the Gordians had intimately
      connected them with the most illustrious houses of Rome. Their
      fortune had created many dependants in that assembly, their merit
      had acquired many friends. Their mild administration opened the
      flattering prospect of the restoration, not only of the civil but
      even of the republican government. The terror of military
      violence, which had first obliged the senate to forget the murder
      of Alexander, and to ratify the election of a barbarian peasant,
      21 now produced a contrary effect, and provoked them to assert
      the injured rights of freedom and humanity. The hatred of Maximin
      towards the senate was declared and implacable; the tamest
      submission had not appeased his fury, the most cautious innocence
      would not remove his suspicions; and even the care of their own
      safety urged them to share the fortune of an enterprise, of which
      (if unsuccessful) they were sure to be the first victims. These
      considerations, and perhaps others of a more private nature, were
      debated in a previous conference of the consuls and the
      magistrates. As soon as their resolution was decided, they
      convoked in the temple of Castor the whole body of the senate,
      according to an ancient form of secrecy, 22 calculated to awaken
      their attention, and to conceal their decrees. “Conscript
      fathers,” said the consul Syllanus, “the two Gordians, both of
      consular dignity, the one your proconsul, the other your
      lieutenant, have been declared emperors by the general consent of
      Africa. Let us return thanks,” he boldly continued, “to the youth
      of Thysdrus; let us return thanks to the faithful people of
      Carthage, our generous deliverers from a horrid monster—Why do
      you hear me thus coolly, thus timidly? Why do you cast those
      anxious looks on each other? Why hesitate? Maximin is a public
      enemy! may his enmity soon expire with him, and may we long enjoy
      the prudence and felicity of Gordian the father, the valor and
      constancy of Gordian the son!” 23 The noble ardor of the consul
      revived the languid spirit of the senate. By a unanimous decree,
      the election of the Gordians was ratified, Maximin, his son, and
      his adherents, were pronounced enemies of their country, and
      liberal rewards were offered to whomsoever had the courage and
      good fortune to destroy them.

      21 (return) [ Quod. tamen patres dum periculosum existimant;
      inermes armato esistere approbaverunt.—Aurelius Victor.]

      22 (return) [ Even the servants of the house, the scribes, &c.,
      were excluded, and their office was filled by the senators
      themselves. We are obliged to the Augustan History. p. 159, for
      preserving this curious example of the old discipline of the
      commonwealth.]

      23 (return) [ This spirited speech, translated from the Augustan
      historian, p. 156, seems transcribed by him from the origina
      registers of the senate]

      During the emperor’s absence, a detachment of the Prætorian
      guards remained at Rome, to protect, or rather to command, the
      capital. The præfect Vitalianus had signalized his fidelity to
      Maximin, by the alacrity with which he had obeyed, and even
      prevented the cruel mandates of the tyrant. His death alone could
      rescue the authority of the senate, and the lives of the senators
      from a state of danger and suspense. Before their resolves had
      transpired, a quæstor and some tribunes were commissioned to take
      his devoted life. They executed the order with equal boldness and
      success; and, with their bloody daggers in their hands, ran
      through the streets, proclaiming to the people and the soldiers
      the news of the happy revolution. The enthusiasm of liberty was
      seconded by the promise of a large donative, in lands and money;
      the statues of Maximin were thrown down; the capital of the
      empire acknowledged, with transport, the authority of the two
      Gordians and the senate; 24 and the example of Rome was followed
      by the rest of Italy.

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

      A new spirit had arisen in that assembly, whose long patience had
      been insulted by wanton despotism and military license. The
      senate assumed the reins of government, and, with a calm
      intrepidity, prepared to vindicate by arms the cause of freedom.
      Among the consular senators recommended by their merit and
      services to the favor of the emperor Alexander, it was easy to
      select twenty, not unequal to the command of an army, and the
      conduct of a war. To these was the defence of Italy intrusted.
      Each was appointed to act in his respective department,
      authorized to enroll and discipline the Italian youth; and
      instructed to fortify the ports and highways, against the
      impending invasion of Maximin. A number of deputies, chosen from
      the most illustrious of the senatorian and equestrian orders,
      were despatched at the same time to the governors of the several
      provinces, earnestly conjuring them to fly to the assistance of
      their country, and to remind the nations of their ancient ties of
      friendship with the Roman senate and people. The general respect
      with which these deputies were received, and the zeal of Italy
      and the provinces in favor of the senate, sufficiently prove that
      the subjects of Maximin were reduced to that uncommon distress,
      in which the body of the people has more to fear from oppression
      than from resistance. The consciousness of that melancholy truth,
      inspires a degree of persevering fury, seldom to be found in
      those civil wars which are artificially supported for the benefit
      of a few factious and designing leaders. 25

      25 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 247, l. viii. p. 277. Hist.
      August. p 156-158.]

      For while the cause of the Gordians was embraced with such
      diffusive ardor, the Gordians themselves were no more. The feeble
      court of Carthage was alarmed by the rapid approach of
      Capelianus, governor of Mauritania, who, with a small band of
      veterans, and a fierce host of barbarians, attacked a faithful,
      but unwarlike province. The younger Gordian sallied out to meet
      the enemy at the head of a few guards, and a numerous
      undisciplined multitude, educated in the peaceful luxury of
      Carthage. His useless valor served only to procure him an
      honorable death on the field of battle. His aged father, whose
      reign had not exceeded thirty-six days, put an end to his life on
      the first news of the defeat. Carthage, destitute of defence,
      opened her gates to the conqueror, and Africa was exposed to the
      rapacious cruelty of a slave, obliged to satisfy his unrelenting
      master with a large account of blood and treasure. 26

      26 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 254. Hist. August. p. 150-160.
      We may observe, that one month and six days, for the reign of
      Gordian, is a just correction of Casaubon and Panvinius, instead
      of the absurd reading of one year and six months. See Commentar.
      p. 193. Zosimus relates, l. i. p. 17, that the two Gordians
      perished by a tempest in the midst of their navigation. A strange
      ignorance of history, or a strange abuse of metaphors!]

      The fate of the Gordians filled Rome with just but unexpected
      terror. The senate, convoked in the temple of Concord, affected
      to transact the common business of the day; and seemed to
      decline, with trembling anxiety, the consideration of their own
      and the public danger. A silent consternation prevailed in the
      assembly, till a senator, of the name and family of Trajan,
      awakened his brethren from their fatal lethargy. He represented
      to them that the choice of cautious, dilatory measures had been
      long since out of their power; that Maximin, implacable by
      nature, and exasperated by injuries, was advancing towards Italy,
      at the head of the military force of the empire; and that their
      only remaining alternative was either to meet him bravely in the
      field, or tamely to expect the tortures and ignominious death
      reserved for unsuccessful rebellion. “We have lost,” continued
      he, “two excellent princes; but unless we desert ourselves, the
      hopes of the republic have not perished with the Gordians. Many
      are the senators whose virtues have deserved, and whose abilities
      would sustain, the Imperial dignity. Let us elect two emperors,
      one of whom may conduct the war against the public enemy, whilst
      his colleague remains at Rome to direct the civil administration.
      I cheerfully expose myself to the danger and envy of the
      nomination, and give my vote in favor of Maximus and Balbinus.
      Ratify my choice, conscript fathers, or appoint in their place,
      others more worthy of the empire.” The general apprehension
      silenced the whispers of jealousy; the merit of the candidates
      was universally acknowledged; and the house resounded with the
      sincere acclamations of “Long life and victory to the emperors
      Maximus and Balbinus. You are happy in the judgment of the
      senate; may the republic be happy under your administration!” 27

      27 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 166, from the
      registers of the senate; the date is confessedly faulty but the
      coincidence of the Apollinatian games enables us to correct it.]




      Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
      Maximin.—Part II.

      The virtues and the reputation of the new emperors justified the
      most sanguine hopes of the Romans. The various nature of their
      talents seemed to appropriate to each his peculiar department of
      peace and war, without leaving room for jealous emulation.
      Balbinus was an admired orator, a poet of distinguished fame, and
      a wise magistrate, who had exercised with innocence and applause
      the civil jurisdiction in almost all the interior provinces of
      the empire. His birth was noble, 28 his fortune affluent, his
      manners liberal and affable. In him the love of pleasure was
      corrected by a sense of dignity, nor had the habits of ease
      deprived him of a capacity for business. The mind of Maximus was
      formed in a rougher mould. By his valor and abilities he had
      raised himself from the meanest origin to the first employments
      of the state and army. His victories over the Sarmatians and the
      Germans, the austerity of his life, and the rigid impartiality of
      his justice, while he was a Præfect of the city, commanded the
      esteem of a people whose affections were engaged in favor of the
      more amiable Balbinus. The two colleagues had both been consuls,
      (Balbinus had twice enjoyed that honorable office,) both had been
      named among the twenty lieutenants of the senate; and since the
      one was sixty and the other seventy-four years old, 29 they had
      both attained the full maturity of age and experience.

      28 (return) [ He was descended from Cornelius Balbus, a noble
      Spaniard, and the adopted son of Theophanes, the Greek historian.
      Balbus obtained the freedom of Rome by the favor of Pompey, and
      preserved it by the eloquence of Cicero. (See Orat. pro Cornel.
      Balbo.) The friendship of Cæsar, (to whom he rendered the most
      important secret services in the civil war) raised him to the
      consulship and the pontificate, honors never yet possessed by a
      stranger. The nephew of this Balbus triumphed over the
      Garamantes. See Dictionnaire de Bayle, au mot Balbus, where he
      distinguishes the several persons of that name, and rectifies,
      with his usual accuracy, the mistakes of former writers
      concerning them.]

      29 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 622. But little dependence is
      to be had on the authority of a modern Greek, so grossly ignorant
      of the history of the third century, that he creates several
      imaginary emperors, and confounds those who really existed.]

      After the senate had conferred on Maximus and Balbinus an equal
      portion of the consular and tribunitian powers, the title of
      Fathers of their country, and the joint office of Supreme
      Pontiff, they ascended to the Capitol to return thanks to the
      gods, protectors of Rome. 30 The solemn rites of sacrifice were
      disturbed by a sedition of the people. The licentious multitude
      neither loved the rigid Maximus, nor did they sufficiently fear
      the mild and humane Balbinus. Their increasing numbers surrounded
      the temple of Jupiter; with obstinate clamors they asserted their
      inherent right of consenting to the election of their sovereign;
      and demanded, with an apparent moderation, that, besides the two
      emperors, chosen by the senate, a third should be added of the
      family of the Gordians, as a just return of gratitude to those
      princes who had sacrificed their lives for the republic. At the
      head of the city-guards, and the youth of the equestrian order,
      Maximus and Balbinus attempted to cut their way through the
      seditious multitude. The multitude, armed with sticks and stones,
      drove them back into the Capitol. It is prudent to yield when the
      contest, whatever may be the issue of it, must be fatal to both
      parties. A boy, only thirteen years of age, the grandson of the
      elder, and nephew 301 of the younger Gordian, was produced to the
      people, invested with the ornaments and title of Cæsar. The
      tumult was appeased by this easy condescension; and the two
      emperors, as soon as they had been peaceably acknowledged in
      Rome, prepared to defend Italy against the common enemy.

      30 (return) [ Herodian, l. vii. p. 256, supposes that the senate
      was at first convoked in the Capitol, and is very eloquent on the
      occasion. The Augustar History p. 116, seems much more
      authentic.]

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

      Whilst in Rome and Africa, revolutions succeeded each other with
      such amazing rapidity, that the mind of Maximin was agitated by
      the most furious passions. He is said to have received the news
      of the rebellion of the Gordians, and of the decree of the senate
      against him, not with the temper of a man, but the rage of a wild
      beast; which, as it could not discharge itself on the distant
      senate, threatened the life of his son, of his friends, and of
      all who ventured to approach his person. The grateful
      intelligence of the death of the Gordians was quickly followed by
      the assurance that the senate, laying aside all hopes of pardon
      or accommodation, had substituted in their room two emperors,
      with whose merit he could not be unacquainted. Revenge was the
      only consolation left to Maximin, and revenge could only be
      obtained by arms. The strength of the legions had been assembled
      by Alexander from all parts of the empire. Three successful
      campaigns against the Germans and the Sarmatians, had raised
      their fame, confirmed their discipline, and even increased their
      numbers, by filling the ranks with the flower of the barbarian
      youth. The life of Maximin had been spent in war, and the candid
      severity of history cannot refuse him the valor of a soldier, or
      even the abilities of an experienced general. 31 It might
      naturally be expected, that a prince of such a character, instead
      of suffering the rebellion to gain stability by delay, should
      immediately have marched from the banks of the Danube to those of
      the Tyber, and that his victorious army, instigated by contempt
      for the senate, and eager to gather the spoils of Italy, should
      have burned with impatience to finish the easy and lucrative
      conquest. Yet as far as we can trust to the obscure chronology of
      that period, 32 it appears that the operations of some foreign
      war deferred the Italian expedition till the ensuing spring. From
      the prudent conduct of Maximin, we may learn that the savage
      features of his character have been exaggerated by the pencil of
      party, that his passions, however impetuous, submitted to the
      force of reason, and that the barbarian possessed something of
      the generous spirit of Sylla, who subdued the enemies of Rome
      before he suffered himself to revenge his private injuries. 33

      31 (return) [ In Herodian, l. vii. p. 249, and in the Augustan
      History, we have three several orations of Maximin to his army,
      on the rebellion of Africa and Rome: M. de Tillemont has very
      justly observed that they neither agree with each other nor with
      truth. Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 799.]

      32 (return) [ The carelessness of the writers of that age, leaves
      us in a singular perplexity. 1. We know that Maximus and Balbinus
      were killed during the Capitoline games. Herodian, l. viii. p.
      285. The authority of Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 18) enables
      us to fix those games with certainty to the year 238, but leaves
      us in ignorance of the month or day. 2. The election of Gordian
      by the senate is fixed with equal certainty to the 27th of May;
      but we are at a loss to discover whether it was in the same or
      the preceding year. Tillemont and Muratori, who maintain the two
      opposite opinions, bring into the field a desultory troop of
      authorities, conjectures and probabilities. The one seems to draw
      out, the other to contract the series of events between those
      periods, more than can be well reconciled to reason and history.
      Yet it is necessary to choose between them. Note: Eckhel has more
      recently treated these chronological questions with a perspicuity
      which gives great probability to his conclusions. Setting aside
      all the historians, whose contradictions are irreconcilable, he
      has only consulted the medals, and has arranged the events before
      us in the following order:— Maximin, A. U. 990, after having
      conquered the Germans, reenters Pannonia, establishes his winter
      quarters at Sirmium, and prepares himself to make war against the
      people of the North. In the year 991, in the cal ends of January,
      commences his fourth tribunate. The Gordians are chosen emperors
      in Africa, probably at the beginning of the month of March. The
      senate confirms this election with joy, and declares Maximin the
      enemy of Rome. Five days after he had heard of this revolt,
      Maximin sets out from Sirmium on his march to Italy. These events
      took place about the beginning of April; a little after, the
      Gordians are slain in Africa by Capellianus, procurator of
      Mauritania. The senate, in its alarm, names as emperors Balbus
      and Maximus Pupianus, and intrusts the latter with the war
      against Maximin. Maximin is stopped on his road near Aquileia, by
      the want of provisions, and by the melting of the snows: he
      begins the siege of Aquileia at the end of April. Pupianus
      assembles his army at Ravenna. Maximin and his son are
      assassinated by the soldiers enraged at the resistance of
      Aquileia: and this was probably in the middle of May. Pupianus
      returns to Rome, and assumes the government with Balbinus; they
      are assassinated towards the end of July Gordian the younger
      ascends the throne. Eckhel de Doct. Vol vii 295.—G.]

      33 (return) [ Velleius Paterculus, l. ii. c. 24. The president de
      Montesquieu (in his dialogue between Sylla and Eucrates)
      expresses the sentiments of the dictator in a spirited, and even
      a sublime manner.]

      When the troops of Maximin, advancing in excellent order, arrived
      at the foot of the Julian Alps, they were terrified by the
      silence and desolation that reigned on the frontiers of Italy.
      The villages and open towns had been abandoned on their approach
      by the inhabitants, the cattle was driven away, the provisions
      removed or destroyed, the bridges broken down, nor was any thing
      left which could afford either shelter or subsistence to an
      invader. Such had been the wise orders of the generals of the
      senate: whose design was to protract the war, to ruin the army of
      Maximin by the slow operation of famine, and to consume his
      strength in the sieges of the principal cities of Italy, which
      they had plentifully stored with men and provisions from the
      deserted country. Aquileia received and withstood the first shock
      of the invasion. The streams that issue from the head of the
      Hadriatic Gulf, swelled by the melting of the winter snows, 34
      opposed an unexpected obstacle to the arms of Maximin. At length,
      on a singular bridge, constructed with art and difficulty, of
      large hogsheads, he transported his army to the opposite bank,
      rooted up the beautiful vineyards in the neighborhood of
      Aquileia, demolished the suburbs, and employed the timber of the
      buildings in the engines and towers, with which on every side he
      attacked the city. The walls, fallen to decay during the security
      of a long peace, had been hastily repaired on this sudden
      emergency: but the firmest defence of Aquileia consisted in the
      constancy of the citizens; all ranks of whom, instead of being
      dismayed, were animated by the extreme danger, and their
      knowledge of the tyrant’s unrelenting temper. Their courage was
      supported and directed by Crispinus and Menophilus, two of the
      twenty lieutenants of the senate, who, with a small body of
      regular troops, had thrown themselves into the besieged place.
      The army of Maximin was repulsed in repeated attacks, his
      machines destroyed by showers of artificial fire; and the
      generous enthusiasm of the Aquileians was exalted into a
      confidence of success, by the opinion that Belenus, their tutelar
      deity, combated in person in the defence of his distressed
      worshippers. 35

      34 (return) [ Muratori (Annali d’ Italia, tom. ii. p. 294) thinks
      the melting of the snows suits better with the months of June or
      July, than with those of February. The opinion of a man who
      passed his life between the Alps and the Apennines, is
      undoubtedly of great weight; yet I observe, 1. That the long
      winter, of which Muratori takes advantage, is to be found only in
      the Latin version, and not in the Greek text of Herodian. 2. That
      the vicissitudes of suns and rains, to which the soldiers of
      Maximin were exposed, (Herodian, l. viii. p. 277,) denote the
      spring rather than the summer. We may observe, likewise, that
      these several streams, as they melted into one, composed the
      Timavus, so poetically (in every sense of the word) described by
      Virgil. They are about twelve miles to the east of Aquileia. See
      Cluver. Italia Antiqua, tom. i. p. 189, &c.]

      35 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 272. The Celtic deity was
      supposed to be Apollo, and received under that name the thanks of
      the senate. A temple was likewise built to Venus the Bald, in
      honor of the women of Aquileia, who had given up their hair to
      make ropes for the military engines.]

      The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to
      secure that important place, and to hasten the military
      preparations, beheld the event of the war in the more faithful
      mirror of reason and policy. He was too sensible, that a single
      town could not resist the persevering efforts of a great army;
      and he dreaded, lest the enemy, tired with the obstinate
      resistance of Aquileia, should on a sudden relinquish the
      fruitless siege, and march directly towards Rome. The fate of the
      empire and the cause of freedom must then be committed to the
      chance of a battle; and what arms could he oppose to the veteran
      legions of the Rhine and Danube? Some troops newly levied among
      the generous but enervated youth of Italy; and a body of German
      auxiliaries, on whose firmness, in the hour of trial, it was
      dangerous to depend. In the midst of these just alarms, the
      stroke of domestic conspiracy punished the crimes of Maximin, and
      delivered Rome and the senate from the calamities that would
      surely have attended the victory of an enraged barbarian.

      The people of Aquileia had scarcely experienced any of the common
      miseries of a siege; their magazines were plentifully supplied,
      and several fountains within the walls assured them of an
      inexhaustible resource of fresh water. The soldiers of Maximin
      were, on the contrary, exposed to the inclemency of the season,
      the contagion of disease, and the horrors of famine. The open
      country was ruined, the rivers filled with the slain, and
      polluted with blood. A spirit of despair and disaffection began
      to diffuse itself among the troops; and as they were cut off from
      all intelligence, they easily believed that the whole empire had
      embraced the cause of the senate, and that they were left as
      devoted victims to perish under the impregnable walls of
      Aquileia. The fierce temper of the tyrant was exasperated by
      disappointments, which he imputed to the cowardice of his army;
      and his wanton and ill-timed cruelty, instead of striking terror,
      inspired hatred, and a just desire of revenge. A party of
      Prætorian guards, who trembled for their wives and children in
      the camp of Alba, near Rome, executed the sentence of the senate.
      Maximin, abandoned by his guards, was slain in his tent, with his
      son (whom he had associated to the honors of the purple),
      Anulinus the præfect, and the principal ministers of his tyranny.
      36 The sight of their heads, borne on the point of spears,
      convinced the citizens of Aquileia that the siege was at an end;
      the gates of the city were thrown open, a liberal market was
      provided for the hungry troops of Maximin, and the whole army
      joined in solemn protestations of fidelity to the senate and the
      people of Rome, and to their lawful emperors Maximus and
      Balbinus. Such was the deserved fate of a brutal savage,
      destitute, as he has generally been represented, of every
      sentiment that distinguishes a civilized, or even a human being.
      The body was suited to the soul. The stature of Maximin exceeded
      the measure of eight feet, and circumstances almost incredible
      are related of his matchless strength and appetite. 37 Had he
      lived in a less enlightened age, tradition and poetry might well
      have described him as one of those monstrous giants, whose
      supernatural power was constantly exerted for the destruction of
      mankind.

      36 (return) [ Herodian, l. viii. p. 279. Hist. August. p. 146.
      The duration of Maximin’s reign has not been defined with much
      accuracy, except by Eutropius, who allows him three years and a
      few days, (l. ix. 1;) we may depend on the integrity of the text,
      as the Latin original is checked by the Greek version of
      Pæanius.]

      37 (return) [ Eight Roman feet and one third, which are equal to
      above eight English feet, as the two measures are to each other
      in the proportion of 967 to 1000. See Graves’s discourse on the
      Roman foot. We are told that Maximin could drink in a day an
      amphora (or about seven gallons) of wine, and eat thirty or forty
      pounds of meat. He could move a loaded wagon, break a horse’s leg
      with his fist, crumble stones in his hand, and tear up small
      trees by the roots. See his life in the Augustan History.]

      It is easier to conceive than to describe the universal joy of
      the Roman world on the fall of the tyrant, the news of which is
      said to have been carried in four days from Aquileia to Rome. The
      return of Maximus was a triumphal procession; his colleague and
      young Gordian went out to meet him, and the three princes made
      their entry into the capital, attended by the ambassadors of
      almost all the cities of Italy, saluted with the splendid
      offerings of gratitude and superstition, and received with the
      unfeigned acclamations of the senate and people, who persuaded
      themselves that a golden age would succeed to an age of iron. 38
      The conduct of the two emperors corresponded with these
      expectations. They administered justice in person; and the rigor
      of the one was tempered by the other’s clemency. The oppressive
      taxes with which Maximin had loaded the rights of inheritance and
      succession, were repealed, or at least moderated. Discipline was
      revived, and with the advice of the senate many wise laws were
      enacted by their imperial ministers, who endeavored to restore a
      civil constitution on the ruins of military tyranny. “What reward
      may we expect for delivering Rome from a monster?” was the
      question asked by Maximus, in a moment of freedom and confidence.

      Balbinus answered it without hesitation—“The love of the senate,
      of the people, and of all mankind.” “Alas!” replied his more
      penetrating colleague—“alas! I dread the hatred of the soldiers,
      and the fatal effects of their resentment.” 39 His apprehensions
      were but too well justified by the event.

      38 (return) [ See the congratulatory letter of Claudius Julianus,
      the consul to the two emperors, in the Augustan History.]

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

      Whilst Maximus was preparing to defend Italy against the common
      foe, Balbinus, who remained at Rome, had been engaged in scenes
      of blood and intestine discord. Distrust and jealousy reigned in
      the senate; and even in the temples where they assembled, every
      senator carried either open or concealed arms. In the midst of
      their deliberations, two veterans of the guards, actuated either
      by curiosity or a sinister motive, audaciously thrust themselves
      into the house, and advanced by degrees beyond the altar of
      Victory. Gallicanus, a consular, and Mæcenas, a Prætorian
      senator, viewed with indignation their insolent intrusion:
      drawing their daggers, they laid the spies (for such they deemed
      them) dead at the foot of the altar, and then, advancing to the
      door of the senate, imprudently exhorted the multitude to
      massacre the Prætorians, as the secret adherents of the tyrant.
      Those who escaped the first fury of the tumult took refuge in the
      camp, which they defended with superior advantage against the
      reiterated attacks of the people, assisted by the numerous bands
      of gladiators, the property of opulent nobles. The civil war
      lasted many days, with infinite loss and confusion on both sides.
      When the pipes were broken that supplied the camp with water, the
      Prætorians were reduced to intolerable distress; but in their
      turn they made desperate sallies into the city, set fire to a
      great number of houses, and filled the streets with the blood of
      the inhabitants. The emperor Balbinus attempted, by ineffectual
      edicts and precarious truces, to reconcile the factions at Rome.
      But their animosity, though smothered for a while, burnt with
      redoubled violence. The soldiers, detesting the senate and the
      people, despised the weakness of a prince, who wanted either the
      spirit or the power to command the obedience of his subjects. 40

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

      After the tyrant’s death, his formidable army had acknowledged,
      from necessity rather than from choice, the authority of Maximus,
      who transported himself without delay to the camp before
      Aquileia. As soon as he had received their oath of fidelity, he
      addressed them in terms full of mildness and moderation;
      lamented, rather than arraigned the wild disorders of the times,
      and assured the soldiers, that of all their past conduct the
      senate would remember only their generous desertion of the
      tyrant, and their voluntary return to their duty. Maximus
      enforced his exhortations by a liberal donative, purified the
      camp by a solemn sacrifice of expiation, and then dismissed the
      legions to their several provinces, impressed, as he hoped, with
      a lively sense of gratitude and obedience. 41 But nothing could
      reconcile the haughty spirit of the Prætorians. They attended the
      emperors on the memorable day of their public entry into Rome;
      but amidst the general acclamations, the sullen, dejected
      countenance of the guards sufficiently declared that they
      considered themselves as the object, rather than the partners, of
      the triumph. When the whole body was united in their camp, those
      who had served under Maximin, and those who had remained at Rome,
      insensibly communicated to each other their complaints and
      apprehensions. The emperors chosen by the army had perished with
      ignominy; those elected by the senate were seated on the throne.
      42 The long discord between the civil and military powers was
      decided by a war, in which the former had obtained a complete
      victory. The soldiers must now learn a new doctrine of submission
      to the senate; and whatever clemency was affected by that politic
      assembly, they dreaded a slow revenge, colored by the name of
      discipline, and justified by fair pretences of the public good.
      But their fate was still in their own hands; and if they had
      courage to despise the vain terrors of an impotent republic, it
      was easy to convince the world, that those who were masters of
      the arms, were masters of the authority, of the state.

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

      42 (return) [ The observation had been made imprudently enough in
      the acclamations of the senate, and with regard to the soldiers
      it carried the appearance of a wanton insult. Hist. August. p.
      170.]

      When the senate elected two princes, it is probable that, besides
      the declared reason of providing for the various emergencies of
      peace and war, they were actuated by the secret desire of
      weakening by division the despotism of the supreme magistrate.
      Their policy was effectual, but it proved fatal both to their
      emperors and to themselves. The jealousy of power was soon
      exasperated by the difference of character. Maximus despised
      Balbinus as a luxurious noble, and was in his turn disdained by
      his colleague as an obscure soldier. Their silent discord was
      understood rather than seen; 43 but the mutual consciousness
      prevented them from uniting in any vigorous measures of defence
      against their common enemies of the Prætorian camp. The whole
      city was employed in the Capitoline games, and the emperors were
      left almost alone in the palace. On a sudden, they were alarmed
      by the approach of a troop of desperate assassins. Ignorant of
      each other’s situation or designs (for they already occupied very
      distant apartments), afraid to give or to receive assistance,
      they wasted the important moments in idle debates and fruitless
      recriminations. The arrival of the guards put an end to the vain
      strife. They seized on these emperors of the senate, for such
      they called them with malicious contempt, stripped them of their
      garments, and dragged them in insolent triumph through the
      streets of Rome, with the design of inflicting a slow and cruel
      death on these unfortunate princes. The fear of a rescue from the
      faithful Germans of the Imperial guards shortened their tortures;
      and their bodies, mangled with a thousand wounds, were left
      exposed to the insults or to the pity of the populace. 44

      43 (return) [ Discordiæ tacitæ, et quæ intelligerentur potius
      quam viderentur. _Hist. August_. p. 170. This well-chosen
      expression is probably stolen from some better writer.]

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

      In the space of a few months, six princes had been cut off by the
      sword. Gordian, who had already received the title of Cæsar, was
      the only person that occurred to the soldiers as proper to fill
      the vacant throne. 45 They carried him to the camp, and
      unanimously saluted him Augustus and Emperor. His name was dear
      to the senate and people; his tender age promised a long impunity
      of military license; and the submission of Rome and the provinces
      to the choice of the Prætorian guards saved the republic, at the
      expense indeed of its freedom and dignity, from the horrors of a
      new civil war in the heart of the capital. 46

      45 (return) [ Quia non alius erat in præsenti, is the expression
      of the Augustan History.]

      46 (return) [ Quintus Curtius (l. x. c. 9,) pays an elegant
      compliment to the emperor of the day, for having, by his happy
      accession, extinguished so many firebrands, sheathed so many
      swords, and put an end to the evils of a divided government.
      After weighing with attention every word of the passage, I am of
      opinion, that it suits better with the elevation of Gordian, than
      with any other period of the Roman history. In that case, it may
      serve to decide the age of Quintus Curtius. Those who place him
      under the first Cæsars, argue from the purity of his style but
      are embarrassed by the silence of Quintilian, in his accurate
      list of Roman historians. * Note: This conjecture of Gibbon is
      without foundation. Many passages in the work of Quintus Curtius
      clearly place him at an earlier period. Thus, in speaking of the
      Parthians, he says, Hinc in Parthicum perventum est, tunc
      ignobilem gentem: nunc caput omnium qui post Euphratem et Tigrim
      amnes siti Rubro mari terminantur. The Parthian empire had this
      extent only in the first age of the vulgar æra: to that age,
      therefore, must be assigned the date of Quintus Curtius. Although
      the critics (says M. de Sainte Croix) have multiplied conjectures
      on this subject, most of them have ended by adopting the opinion
      which places Quintus Curtius under the reign of Claudius. See
      Just. Lips. ad Ann. Tac. ii. 20. Michel le Tellier Præf. in Curt.
      Tillemont Hist. des Emp. i. p. 251. Du Bos Reflections sur la
      Poesie, 2d Partie. Tiraboschi Storia della, Lett. Ital. ii. 149.
      Examen. crit. des Historiens d’Alexandre, 2d ed. p. 104, 849,
      850.—G. ——This interminable question seems as much perplexed as
      ever. The first argument of M. Guizot is a strong one, except
      that Parthian is often used by later writers for Persian.
      Cunzius, in his preface to an edition published at Helmstadt,
      (1802,) maintains the opinion of Bagnolo, which assigns Q.
      Curtius to the time of Constantine the Great. Schmieder, in his
      edit. Gotting. 1803, sums up in this sentence, ætatem Curtii
      ignorari pala mest.—M.]

      As the third Gordian was only nineteen years of age at the time
      of his death, the history of his life, were it known to us with
      greater accuracy than it really is, would contain little more
      than the account of his education, and the conduct of the
      ministers, who by turns abused or guided the simplicity of his
      unexperienced youth. Immediately after his accession, he fell
      into the hands of his mother’s eunuchs, that pernicious vermin of
      the East, who, since the days of Elagabalus, had infested the
      Roman palace. By the artful conspiracy of these wretches, an
      impenetrable veil was drawn between an innocent prince and his
      oppressed subjects, the virtuous disposition of Gordian was
      deceived, and the honors of the empire sold without his
      knowledge, though in a very public manner, to the most worthless
      of mankind. We are ignorant by what fortunate accident the
      emperor escaped from this ignominious slavery, and devolved his
      confidence on a minister, whose wise counsels had no object
      except the glory of his sovereign and the happiness of the
      people. It should seem that love and learning introduced
      Misitheus to the favor of Gordian. The young prince married the
      daughter of his master of rhetoric, and promoted his
      father-in-law to the first offices of the empire. Two admirable
      letters that passed between them are still extant. The minister,
      with the conscious dignity of virtue, congratulates Gordian that
      he is delivered from the tyranny of the eunuchs, 47 and still
      more that he is sensible of his deliverance. The emperor
      acknowledges, with an amiable confusion, the errors of his past
      conduct; and laments, with singular propriety, the misfortune of
      a monarch from whom a venal tribe of courtiers perpetually labor
      to conceal the truth. 48

      47 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 161. From some hints in the two
      letters, I should expect that the eunuchs were not expelled the
      palace without some degree of gentle violence, and that the young
      Gordian rather approved of, than consented to, their disgrace.]

      48 (return) [ Duxit uxorem filiam Misithei, quem causa eloquentiæ
      dignum parentela sua putavit; et præfectum statim fecit; post
      quod, non puerile jam et contemptibile videbatur imperium.]

      The life of Misitheus had been spent in the profession of
      letters, not of arms; yet such was the versatile genius of that
      great man, that, when he was appointed Prætorian Præfect, he
      discharged the military duties of his place with vigor and
      ability. The Persians had invaded Mesopotamia, and threatened
      Antioch. By the persuasion of his father-in-law, the young
      emperor quitted the luxury of Rome, opened, for the last time
      recorded in history, the temple of Janus, and marched in person
      into the East. On his approach, with a great army, the Persians
      withdrew their garrisons from the cities which they had already
      taken, and retired from the Euphrates to the Tigris. Gordian
      enjoyed the pleasure of announcing to the senate the first
      success of his arms, which he ascribed, with a becoming modesty
      and gratitude, to the wisdom of his father and Præfect. During
      the whole expedition, Misitheus watched over the safety and
      discipline of the army; whilst he prevented their dangerous
      murmurs by maintaining a regular plenty in the camp, and by
      establishing ample magazines of vinegar, bacon, straw, barley,
      and wheat in all the cities of the frontier. 49 But the
      prosperity of Gordian expired with Misitheus, who died of a flux,
      not without very strong suspicions of poison. Philip, his
      successor in the præfecture, was an Arab by birth, and
      consequently, in the earlier part of his life, a robber by
      profession. His rise from so obscure a station to the first
      dignities of the empire, seems to prove that he was a bold and
      able leader. But his boldness prompted him to aspire to the
      throne, and his abilities were employed to supplant, not to
      serve, his indulgent master. The minds of the soldiers were
      irritated by an artificial scarcity, created by his contrivance
      in the camp; and the distress of the army was attributed to the
      youth and incapacity of the prince. It is not in our power to
      trace the successive steps of the secret conspiracy and open
      sedition, which were at length fatal to Gordian. A sepulchral
      monument was erected to his memory on the spot 50 where he was
      killed, near the conflux of the Euphrates with the little river
      Aboras. 51 The fortunate Philip, raised to the empire by the
      votes of the soldiers, found a ready obedience from the senate
      and the provinces. 52

      49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 162. Aurelius Victor. Porphyrius
      in Vit Plotin. ap. Fabricium, Biblioth. Græc. l. iv. c. 36. The
      philosopher Plotinus accompanied the army, prompted by the love
      of knowledge, and by the hope of penetrating as far as India.]

      50 (return) [ About twenty miles from the little town of
      Circesium, on the frontier of the two empires. * Note: Now
      Kerkesia; placed in the angle formed by the juncture of the
      Chaboras, or al Khabour, with the Euphrates. This situation
      appeared advantageous to Diocletian, that he raised
      fortifications to make it the but wark of the empire on the side
      of Mesopotamia. D’Anville. Geog. Anc. ii. 196.—G. It is the
      Carchemish of the Old Testament, 2 Chron. xxxv. 20. ler. xlvi.
      2.—M.]

      51 (return) [ The inscription (which contained a very singular
      pun) was erased by the order of Licinius, who claimed some degree
      of relationship to Philip, (Hist. August. p. 166;) but the
      tumulus, or mound of earth which formed the sepulchre, still
      subsisted in the time of Julian. See Ammian Marcellin. xxiii. 5.]

      52 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Eutrop. ix. 2. Orosius, vii. 20.
      Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 5. Zosimus, l. i. p. 19. Philip, who
      was a native of Bostra, was about forty years of age. * Note: Now
      Bosra. It was once the metropolis of a province named Arabia, and
      the chief city of Auranitis, of which the name is preserved in
      Beled Hauran, the limits of which meet the desert. D’Anville.
      Geog. Anc. ii. 188. According to Victor, (in Cæsar.,) Philip was
      a native of Tracbonitis another province of Arabia.—G.]

      We cannot forbear transcribing the ingenious, though somewhat
      fanciful description, which a celebrated writer of our own times
      has traced of the military government of the Roman empire. What
      in that age was called the Roman empire, was only an irregular
      republic, not unlike the aristocracy 53 of Algiers, 54 where the
      militia, possessed of the sovereignty, creates and deposes a
      magistrate, who is styled a Dey. Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid
      down as a general rule, that a military government is, in some
      respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor can it be said
      that the soldiers only partook of the government by their
      disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the
      emperors, were they not at length of the same nature as those
      formerly pronounced to the people by the consuls and the
      tribunes? And although the armies had no regular place or forms
      of assembly; though their debates were short, their action
      sudden, and their resolves seldom the result of cool reflection,
      did they not dispose, with absolute sway, of the public fortune?
      What was the emperor, except the minister of a violent
      government, elected for the private benefit of the soldiers?

      53 (return) [ Can the epithet of Aristocracy be applied, with any
      propriety, to the government of Algiers? Every military
      government floats between two extremes of absolute monarchy and
      wild democracy.]

      54 (return) [ The military republic of the Mamelukes in Egypt
      would have afforded M. de Montesquieu (see Considerations sur la
      Grandeur et la Decadence des Romains, c. 16) a juster and more
      noble parallel.]

      “When the army had elected Philip, who was Prætorian præfect to
      the third Gordian, the latter demanded that he might remain sole
      emperor; he was unable to obtain it. He requested that the power
      might be equally divided between them; the army would not listen
      to his speech. He consented to be degraded to the rank of Cæsar;
      the favor was refused him. He desired, at least, he might be
      appointed Prætorian præfect; his prayer was rejected. Finally, he
      pleaded for his life. The army, in these several judgments,
      exercised the supreme magistracy.” According to the historian,
      whose doubtful narrative the President De Montesquieu has
      adopted, Philip, who, during the whole transaction, had preserved
      a sullen silence, was inclined to spare the innocent life of his
      benefactor; till, recollecting that his innocence might excite a
      dangerous compassion in the Roman world, he commanded, without
      regard to his suppliant cries, that he should be seized,
      stripped, and led away to instant death. After a moment’s pause,
      the inhuman sentence was executed. 55

      55 (return) [ The Augustan History (p. 163, 164) cannot, in this
      instance, be reconciled with itself or with probability. How
      could Philip condemn his predecessor, and yet consecrate his
      memory? How could he order his public execution, and yet, in his
      letters to the senate, exculpate himself from the guilt of his
      death? Philip, though an ambitious usurper, was by no means a mad
      tyrant. Some chronological difficulties have likewise been
      discovered by the nice eyes of Tillemont and Muratori, in this
      supposed association of Philip to the empire. * Note: Wenck
      endeavors to reconcile these discrepancies. He supposes that
      Gordian was led away, and died a natural death in prison. This is
      directly contrary to the statement of Capitolinus and of Zosimus,
      whom he adduces in support of his theory. He is more successful
      in his precedents of usurpers deifying the victims of their
      ambition. Sit divus, dummodo non sit vivus.—M.]




      Chapter VII: Tyranny Of Maximin, Rebellion, Civil Wars, Death Of
      Maximin.—Part III.

      On his return from the East to Rome, Philip, desirous of
      obliterating the memory of his crimes, and of captivating the
      affections of the people, solemnized the secular games with
      infinite pomp and magnificence. Since their institution or
      revival by Augustus, 56 they had been celebrated by Claudius, by
      Domitian, and by Severus, and were now renewed the fifth time, on
      the accomplishment of the full period of a thousand years from
      the foundation of Rome. Every circumstance of the secular games
      was skillfully adapted to inspire the superstitious mind with
      deep and solemn reverence. The long interval between them 57
      exceeded the term of human life; and as none of the spectators
      had already seen them, none could flatter themselves with the
      expectation of beholding them a second time. The mystic
      sacrifices were performed, during three nights, on the banks of
      the Tyber; and the Campus Martius resounded with music and
      dances, and was illuminated with innumerable lamps and torches.
      Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in
      these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven youths, and
      as many virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were both
      alive, implored the propitious gods in favor of the present, and
      for the hope of the rising generation; requesting, in religious
      hymns, that according to the faith of their ancient oracles, they
      would still maintain the virtue, the felicity, and the empire of
      the Roman people. The magnificence of Philip’s shows and
      entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The devout were
      employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting few
      revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future
      fate of the empire.58

      56 (return) [ The account of the last supposed celebration,
      though in an enlightened period of history, was so very doubtful
      and obscure, that the alternative seems not doubtful. When the
      popish jubilees, the copy of the secular games, were invented by
      Boniface VII., the crafty pope pretended that he only revived an
      ancient institution. See M. le Chais, Lettres sur les Jubiles.]

      57 (return) [ Either of a hundred or a hundred and ten years.
      Varro and Livy adopted the former opinion, but the infallible
      authority of the Sybil consecrated the latter, (Censorinus de Die
      Natal. c. 17.) The emperors Claudius and Philip, however, did not
      treat the oracle with implicit respect.]

      58 (return) [ The idea of the secular games is best understood
      from the poem of Horace, and the description of Zosimus, 1. l.
      ii. p. 167, &c.] Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds
      and outlaws, fortified himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten
      centuries had already elapsed. 59 During the four first ages, the
      Romans, in the laborious school of poverty, had acquired the
      virtues of war and government: by the vigorous exertion of those
      virtues, and by the assistance of fortune, they had obtained, in
      the course of the three succeeding centuries, an absolute empire
      over many countries of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The last three
      hundred years had been consumed in apparent prosperity and
      internal decline. The nation of soldiers, magistrates, and
      legislators, who composed the thirty-five tribes of the Roman
      people, were dissolved into the common mass of mankind, and
      confounded with the millions of servile provincials, who had
      received the name, without adopting the spirit, of Romans. A
      mercenary army, levied among the subjects and barbarians of the
      frontier, was the only order of men who preserved and abused
      their independence. By their tumultuary election, a Syrian, a
      Goth, or an Arab, was exalted to the throne of Rome, and invested
      with despotic power over the conquests and over the country of
      the Scipios.

      59 (return) [The received calculation of Varro assigns to the
      foundation of Rome an æra that corresponds with the 754th year
      before Christ. But so little is the chronology of Rome to be
      depended on, in the more early ages, that Sir Isaac Newton has
      brought the same event as low as the year 627 (Compare Niebuhr
      vol. i. p. 271.—M.)]

      The limits of the Roman empire still extended from the Western
      Ocean to the Tigris, and from Mount Atlas to the Rhine and the
      Danube. To the undiscerning eye of the vulgar, Philip appeared a
      monarch no less powerful than Hadrian or Augustus had formerly
      been. The form was still the same, but the animating health and
      vigor were fled. The industry of the people was discouraged and
      exhausted by a long series of oppression. The discipline of the
      legions, which alone, after the extinction of every other virtue,
      had propped the greatness of the state, was corrupted by the
      ambition, or relaxed by the weakness, of the emperors. The
      strength of the frontiers, which had always consisted in arms
      rather than in fortifications, was insensibly undermined; and the
      fairest provinces were left exposed to the rapaciousness or
      ambition of the barbarians, who soon discovered the decline of
      the Roman empire.




      Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The
      Monarchy.—Part I.

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

      Whenever Tacitus indulges himself in those beautiful episodes, in
      which he relates some domestic transaction of the Germans or of
      the Parthians, his principal object is to relieve the attention
      of the reader from a uniform scene of vice and misery. From the
      reign of Augustus to the time of Alexander Severus, the enemies
      of Rome were in her bosom—the tyrants and the soldiers; and her
      prosperity had a very distant and feeble interest in the
      revolutions that might happen beyond the Rhine and the Euphrates.
      But when the military order had levelled, in wild anarchy, the
      power of the prince, the laws of the senate, and even the
      discipline of the camp, the barbarians of the North and of the
      East, who had long hovered on the frontier, boldly attacked the
      provinces of a declining monarchy. Their vexatious inroads were
      changed into formidable irruptions, and, after a long vicissitude
      of mutual calamities, many tribes of the victorious invaders
      established themselves in the provinces of the Roman Empire. To
      obtain a clearer knowledge of these great events, we shall
      endeavor to form a previous idea of the character, forces, and
      designs of those nations who avenged the cause of Hannibal and
      Mithridates.

      In the more early ages of the world, whilst the forest that
      covered Europe afforded a retreat to a few wandering savages, the
      inhabitants of Asia were already collected into populous cities,
      and reduced under extensive empires the seat of the arts, of
      luxury, and of despotism. The Assyrians reigned over the East, 1
      till the sceptre of Ninus and Semiramis dropped from the hands of
      their enervated successors. The Medes and the Babylonians divided
      their power, and were themselves swallowed up in the monarchy of
      the Persians, whose arms could not be confined within the narrow
      limits of Asia. Followed, as it is said, by two millions of
      _men_, Xerxes, the descendant of Cyrus, invaded Greece.

      Thirty thousand _soldiers_, under the command of Alexander, the
      son of Philip, who was intrusted by the Greeks with their glory
      and revenge, were sufficient to subdue Persia. The princes of the
      house of Seleucus usurped and lost the Macedonian command over
      the East. About the same time, that, by an ignominious treaty,
      they resigned to the Romans the country on this side Mount Tarus,
      they were driven by the Parthians, 1001 an obscure horde of
      Scythian origin, from all the provinces of Upper Asia. The
      formidable power of the Parthians, which spread from India to the
      frontiers of Syria, was in its turn subverted by Ardshir, or
      Artaxerxes; the founder of a new dynasty, which, under the name
      of Sassanides, governed Persia till the invasion of the Arabs.
      This great revolution, whose fatal influence was soon experienced
      by the Romans, happened in the fourth year of Alexander Severus,
      two hundred and twenty-six years after the Christian era. 2 201

      1 (return) [ An ancient chronologist, quoted by Valleius
      Paterculus, (l. i. c. 6,) observes, that the Assyrians, the
      Medes, the Persians, and the Macedonians, reigned over Asia one
      thousand nine hundred and ninety-five years, from the accession
      of Ninus to the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans. As the latter
      of these great events happened 289 years before Christ, the
      former may be placed 2184 years before the same æra. The
      Astronomical Observations, found at Babylon, by Alexander, went
      fifty years higher.]

      1001 (return) [ The Parthians were a tribe of the Indo-Germanic
      branch which dwelt on the south-east of the Caspian, and belonged
      to the same race as the Getæ, the Massagetæ, and other nations,
      confounded by the ancients under the vague denomination of
      Scythians. Klaproth, Tableaux Hist. d l’Asie, p. 40. Strabo (p.
      747) calls the Parthians Carduchi, i.e., the inhabitants of
      Curdistan.—M.]

      2 (return) [ In the five hundred and thirty-eighth year of the
      æra of Seleucus. See Agathias, l. ii. p. 63. This great event
      (such is the carelessness of the Orientals) is placed by
      Eutychius as high as the tenth year of Commodus, and by Moses of
      Chorene as low as the reign of Philip. Ammianus Marcellinus has
      so servilely copied (xxiii. 6) his ancient materials, which are
      indeed very good, that he describes the family of the Arsacides
      as still seated on the Persian throne in the middle of the fourth
      century.]

      201 (return) [ The Persian History, if the poetry of the Shah
      Nameh, the Book of Kings, may deserve that name mentions four
      dynasties from the earliest ages to the invasion of the Saracens.
      The Shah Nameh was composed with the view of perpetuating the
      remains of the original Persian records or traditions which had
      survived the Saracenic invasion. The task was undertaken by the
      poet Dukiki, and afterwards, under the patronage of Mahmood of
      Ghazni, completed by Ferdusi. The first of these dynasties is
      that of Kaiomors, as Sir W. Jones observes, the dark and fabulous
      period; the second, that of the Kaianian, the heroic and
      poetical, in which the earned have discovered some curious, and
      imagined some fanciful, analogies with the Jewish, the Greek, and
      the Roman accounts of the eastern world. See, on the Shah Nameh,
      Translation by Goerres, with Von Hammer’s Review, Vienna Jahrbuch
      von Lit. 17, 75, 77. Malcolm’s Persia, 8vo. ed. i. 503. Macan’s
      Preface to his Critical Edition of the Shah Nameh. On the early
      Persian History, a very sensible abstract of various opinions in
      Malcolm’s Hist. of Persian.—M.]

      Artaxerxes had served with great reputation in the armies of
      Artaban, the last king of the Parthians, and it appears that he
      was driven into exile and rebellion by royal ingratitude, the
      customary reward for superior merit. His birth was obscure, and
      the obscurity equally gave room to the aspersions of his enemies,
      and the flattery of his adherents. If we credit the scandal of
      the former, Artaxerxes sprang from the illegitimate commerce of a
      tanner’s wife with a common soldier. 3 The latter represent him
      as descended from a branch of the ancient kings of Persian,
      though time and misfortune had gradually reduced his ancestors to
      the humble station of private citizens. 4 As the lineal heir of
      the monarchy, he asserted his right to the throne, and challenged
      the noble task of delivering the Persians from the oppression
      under which they groaned above five centuries since the death of
      Darius. The Parthians were defeated in three great battles. 401
      In the last of these their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit
      of the nation was forever broken. 5 The authority of Artaxerxes
      was solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch in
      Khorasan. 501 Two younger branches of the royal house of Arsaces
      were confounded among the prostrate satraps. A third, more
      mindful of ancient grandeur than of present necessity, attempted
      to retire, with a numerous train of vessels, towards their
      kinsman, the king of Armenia; but this little army of deserters
      was intercepted, and cut off, by the vigilance of the conqueror,
      6 who boldly assumed the double diadem, and the title of King of
      Kings, which had been enjoyed by his predecessor. But these
      pompous titles, instead of gratifying the vanity of the Persian,
      served only to admonish him of his duty, and to inflame in his
      soul the ambition of restoring in their full splendor, the
      religion and empire of Cyrus.

      3 (return) [ The tanner’s name was Babec; the soldier’s, Sassan:
      from the former Artaxerxes obtained the surname of Babegan, from
      the latter all his descendants have been styled Sassanides.]

      4 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, Ardshir.]

      401 (return) [ In the plain of Hoormuz, the son of Babek was
      hailed in the field with the proud title of Shahan Shah, king of
      kings—a name ever since assumed by the sovereigns of Persia.
      Malcolm, i. 71.—M.]

      5 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxxx. Herodian, l. vi. p. 207.
      Abulpharagins Dynast. p. 80.]

      501 (return) [ See the Persian account of the rise of Ardeschir
      Babegan in Malcolm l 69.—M.]

      6 (return) [ See Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 65—71.]

      I. During the long servitude of Persia under the Macedonian and
      the Parthian yoke, the nations of Europe and Asia had mutually
      adopted and corrupted each other’s superstitions. The Arsacides,
      indeed, practised the worship of the Magi; but they disgraced and
      polluted it with a various mixture of foreign idolatry. 601 The
      memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the
      Persians, 7 was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and
      mysterious language, in which the Zendavesta was composed, 8
      opened a field of dispute to seventy sects, who variously
      explained the fundamental doctrines of their religion, and were
      all indifferently devided by a crowd of infidels, who rejected
      the divine mission and miracles of the prophet. To suppress the
      idolaters, reunite the schismatics, and confute the unbelievers,
      by the infallible decision of a general council, the pious
      Artaxerxes summoned the Magi from all parts of his dominions.
      These priests, who had so long sighed in contempt and obscurity
      obeyed the welcome summons; and, on the appointed day, appeared,
      to the number of about eighty thousand. But as the debates of so
      tumultuous an assembly could not have been directed by the
      authority of reason, or influenced by the art of policy, the
      Persian synod was reduced, by successive operations, to forty
      thousand, to four thousand, to four hundred, to forty, and at
      last to seven Magi, the most respected for their learning and
      piety. One of these, Erdaviraph, a young but holy prelate,
      received from the hands of his brethren three cups of
      soporiferous wine. He drank them off, and instantly fell into a
      long and profound sleep. As soon as he waked, he related to the
      king and to the believing multitude, his journey to heaven, and
      his intimate conferences with the Deity. Every doubt was silenced
      by this supernatural evidence; and the articles of the faith of
      Zoroaster were fixed with equal authority and precision. 9 A
      short delineation of that celebrated system will be found useful,
      not only to display the character of the Persian nation, but to
      illustrate many of their most important transactions, both in
      peace and war, with the Roman empire. 10

      601 (return) [ Silvestre de Sacy (Antiquites de la Perse) had
      proved the neglect of the Zoroastrian religion under the Parthian
      kings.—M.]

      7 (return) [ Hyde and Prideaux, working up the Persian legends
      and their own conjectures into a very agreeable story, represent
      Zoroaster as a contemporary of Darius Hystaspes. But it is
      sufficient to observe, that the Greek writers, who lived almost
      in the age of Darius, agree in placing the æra of Zoroaster many
      hundred, or even thousand, years before their own time. The
      judicious criticisms of Mr. Moyle perceived, and maintained
      against his uncle, Dr. Prideaux, the antiquity of the Persian
      prophet. See his work, vol. ii. * Note: There are three leading
      theories concerning the age of Zoroaster: 1. That which assigns
      him to an age of great and almost indefinite antiquity—it is that
      of Moyle, adopted by Gibbon, Volney, Recherches sur l’Histoire,
      ii. 2. Rhode, also, (die Heilige Sage, &c.,) in a very ingenious
      and ably-developed theory, throws the Bactrian prophet far back
      into antiquity 2. Foucher, (Mem. de l’Acad. xxvii. 253,) Tychsen,
      (in Com. Soc. Gott. ii. 112), Heeren, (ldeen. i. 459,) and
      recently Holty, identify the Gushtasp of the Persian mythological
      history with Cyaxares the First, the king of the Medes, and
      consider the religion to be Median in its origin. M. Guizot
      considers this opinion most probable, note in loc. 3. Hyde,
      Prideaux, Anquetil du Perron, Kleuker, Herder, Goerres,
      (Mythen-Geschichte,) Von Hammer. (Wien. Jahrbuch, vol. ix.,)
      Malcolm, (i. 528,) De Guigniaut, (Relig. de l’Antiq. 2d part,
      vol. iii.,) Klaproth, (Tableaux de l’Asie, p. 21,) make Gushtasp
      Darius Hystaspes, and Zoroaster his contemporary. The silence of
      Herodotus appears the great objection to this theory. Some
      writers, as M. Foucher (resting, as M. Guizot observes, on the
      doubtful authority of Pliny,) make more than one Zoroaster, and
      so attempt to reconcile the conflicting theories.— M.]

      8 (return) [ That ancient idiom was called the Zend. The language
      of the commentary, the Pehlvi, though much more modern, has
      ceased many ages ago to be a living tongue. This fact alone (if
      it is allowed as authentic) sufficiently warrants the antiquity
      of those writings which M d’Anquetil has brought into Europe, and
      translated into French. * Note: Zend signifies life, living. The
      word means, either the collection of the canonical books of the
      followers of Zoroaster, or the language itself in which they are
      written. They are the books that contain the word of life whether
      the language was originally called Zend, or whether it was so
      called from the contents of the books. Avesta means word, oracle,
      revelation: this term is not the title of a particular work, but
      of the collection of the books of Zoroaster, as the revelation of
      Ormuzd. This collection is sometimes called Zendavesta, sometimes
      briefly Zend. The Zend was the ancient language of Media, as is
      proved by its affinity with the dialects of Armenia and Georgia;
      it was already a dead language under the Arsacides in the country
      which was the scene of the events recorded in the Zendavesta.
      Some critics, among others Richardson and Sir W. Jones, have
      called in question the antiquity of these books. The former
      pretended that Zend had never been a written or spoken language,
      but had been invented in the later times by the Magi, for the
      purposes of their art; but Kleuker, in the dissertations which he
      added to those of Anquetil and the Abbé Foucher, has proved that
      the Zend was a living and spoken language.—G. Sir W. Jones
      appears to have abandoned his doubts, on discovering the affinity
      between the Zend and the Sanskrit. Since the time of Kleuker,
      this question has been investigated by many learned scholars. Sir
      W. Jones, Leyden, (Asiat. Research. x. 283,) and Mr. Erskine,
      (Bombay Trans. ii. 299,) consider it a derivative from the
      Sanskrit. The antiquity of the Zendavesta has likewise been
      asserted by Rask, the great Danish linguist, who, according to
      Malcolm, brought back from the East fresh transcripts and
      additions to those published by Anquetil. According to Rask, the
      Zend and Sanskrit are sister dialects; the one the parent of the
      Persian, the other of the Indian family of languages.—G. and
      M.——But the subject is more satisfactorily illustrated in Bopp’s
      comparative Grammar of the Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Latin,
      Lithuanian, Gothic, and German languages. Berlin. 1833-5.
      According to Bopp, the Zend is, in some respects, of a more
      remarkable structure than the Sanskrit. Parts of the Zendavesta
      have been published in the original, by M. Bournouf, at Paris,
      and M. Ol. shausen, in Hamburg.—M.——The Pehlvi was the language
      of the countries bordering on Assyria, and probably of Assyria
      itself. Pehlvi signifies valor, heroism; the Pehlvi, therefore,
      was the language of the ancient heroes and kings of Persia, the
      valiant. (Mr. Erskine prefers the derivation from Pehla, a
      border.—M.) It contains a number of Aramaic roots. Anquetil
      considered it formed from the Zend. Kleuker does not adopt this
      opinion. The Pehlvi, he says, is much more flowing, and less
      overcharged with vowels, than the Zend. The books of Zoroaster,
      first written in Zend, were afterwards translated into Pehlvi and
      Parsi. The Pehlvi had fallen into disuse under the dynasty of the
      Sassanides, but the learned still wrote it. The Parsi, the
      dialect of Pars or Farristan, was then prevailing dialect.
      Kleuker, Anhang zum Zend Avesta, 2, ii. part i. p. 158, part ii.
      31.—G.——Mr. Erskine (Bombay Transactions) considers the existing
      Zendavesta to have been compiled in the time of Ardeschir
      Babegan.—M.]

      9 (return) [ Hyde de Religione veterum Pers. c. 21.]

      10 (return) [ I have principally drawn this account from the
      Zendavesta of M. d’Anquetil, and the Sadder, subjoined to Dr.
      Hyde’s treatise. It must, however, be confessed, that the studied
      obscurity of a prophet, the figurative style of the East, and the
      deceitful medium of a French or Latin version may have betrayed
      us into error and heresy, in this abridgment of Persian theology.
      * Note: It is to be regretted that Gibbon followed the
      post-Mahometan Sadder of Hyde.—M.]

      The great and fundamental article of the system was the
      celebrated doctrine of the two principles; a bold and injudicious
      attempt of Eastern philosophy to reconcile the existence of moral
      and physical evil with the attributes of a beneficent Creator and
      Governor of the world. The first and original Being, in whom, or
      by whom, the universe exists, is denominated in the writings of
      Zoroaster, _Time without bounds_; 1001a but it must be confessed,
      that this infinite substance seems rather a metaphysical
      abstraction of the mind than a real object endowed with
      self-consciousness, or possessed of moral perfections. From
      either the blind or the intelligent operation of this infinite
      Time, which bears but too near an affinity with the chaos of the
      Greeks, the two secondary but active principles of the universe
      were from all eternity produced, Ormusd and Ahriman, each of them
      possessed of the powers of creation, but each disposed, by his
      invariable nature, to exercise them with different designs. 1002
      The principle of good is eternally aborbed in light; the
      principle of evil eternally buried in darkness. The wise
      benevolence of Ormusd formed man capable of virtue, and
      abundantly provided his fair habitation with the materials of
      happiness. By his vigilant providence, the motion of the planets,
      the order of the seasons, and the temperate mixture of the
      elements, are preserved. But the malice of Ahriman has long since
      pierced _Ormusd’s egg;_ or, in other words, has violated the
      harmony of his works. Since that fatal eruption, the most minute
      articles of good and evil are intimately intermingled and
      agitated together; the rankest poisons spring up amidst the most
      salutary plants; deluges, earthquakes, and conflagrations attest
      the conflict of Nature, and the little world of man is
      perpetually shaken by vice and misfortune. Whilst the rest of
      human kind are led away captives in the chains of their infernal
      enemy, the faithful Persian alone reserves his religious
      adoration for his friend and protector Ormusd, and fights under
      his banner of light, in the full confidence that he shall, in the
      last day, share the glory of his triumph. At that decisive
      period, the enlightened wisdom of goodness will render the power
      of Ormusd superior to the furious malice of his rival. Ahriman
      and his followers, disarmed and subdued, will sink into their
      native darkness; and virtue will maintain the eternal peace and
      harmony of the universe. 11 1101

      1001a (return) [ Zeruane Akerene, so translated by Anquetil and
      Kleuker. There is a dissertation of Foucher on this subject, Mem.
      de l’Acad. des Inscr. t. xxix. According to Bohlen (das alte
      Indien) it is the Sanskrit Sarvan Akaranam, the Uncreated Whole;
      or, according to Fred. Schlegel, Sarvan Akharyam the Uncreate
      Indivisible.—M.]

      1002 (return) [ This is an error. Ahriman was not forced by his
      invariable nature to do evil; the Zendavesta expressly recognizes
      (see the Izeschne) that he was born good, that in his origin he
      was light; envy rendered him evil; he became jealous of the power
      and attributes of Ormuzd; then light was changed into darkness,
      and Ahriman was precipitated into the abyss. See the Abridgment
      of the Doctrine of the Ancient Persians, by Anquetil, c. ii
      Section 2.—G.]

      11 (return) [ The modern Parsees (and in some degree the Sadder)
      exalt Ormusd into the first and omnipotent cause, whilst they
      degrade Ahriman into an inferior but rebellious spirit. Their
      desire of pleasing the Mahometans may have contributed to refine
      their theological systems.]

      1101 (return) [ According to the Zendavesta, Ahriman will not be
      annihilated or precipitated forever into darkness: at the
      resurrection of the dead he will be entirely defeated by Ormuzd,
      his power will be destroyed, his kingdom overthrown to its
      foundations, he will himself be purified in torrents of melting
      metal; he will change his heart and his will, become holy,
      heavenly establish in his dominions the law and word of Ormuzd,
      unite himself with him in everlasting friendship, and both will
      sing hymns in honor of the Great Eternal. See Anquetil’s
      Abridgment. Kleuker, Anhang part iii. p 85, 36; and the Izeschne,
      one of the books of the Zendavesta. According to the Sadder
      Bun-Dehesch, a more modern work, Ahriman is to be annihilated:
      but this is contrary to the text itself of the Zendavesta, and to
      the idea its author gives of the kingdom of Eternity, after the
      twelve thousand years assigned to the contest between Good and
      Evil.—G.]




      Chapter VIII: State Of Persia And Restoration Of The
      Monarchy.—Part II.

      The theology of Zoroaster was darkly comprehended by foreigners,
      and even by the far greater number of his disciples; but the most
      careless observers were struck with the philosophic simplicity of
      the Persian worship. “That people,” said Herodotus, 12 “rejects
      the use of temples, of altars, and of statues, and smiles at the
      folly of those nations who imagine that the gods are sprung from,
      or bear any affinity with, the human nature. The tops of the
      highest mountains are the places chosen for sacrifices. Hymns and
      prayers are the principal worship; the Supreme God, who fills the
      wide circle of heaven, is the object to whom they are addressed.”
      Yet, at the same time, in the true spirit of a polytheist, he
      accuseth them of adoring Earth, Water, Fire, the Winds, and the
      Sun and Moon. But the Persians of every age have denied the
      charge, and explained the equivocal conduct, which might appear
      to give a color to it. The elements, and more particularly Fire,
      Light, and the Sun, whom they called Mithra, 1201 were the
      objects of their religious reverence because they considered them
      as the purest symbols, the noblest productions, and the most
      powerful agents of the Divine Power and Nature. 13

      12 (return) [ Herodotus, l. i. c. 131. But Dr. Prideaux thinks,
      with reason, that the use of temples was afterwards permitted in
      the Magian religion. Note: The Pyræa, or fire temples of the
      Zoroastrians, (observes Kleuker, Persica, p. 16,) were only to be
      found in Media or Aderbidjan, provinces into which Herodotus did
      not penetrate.—M.]

      1201 (return) [ Among the Persians Mithra is not the Sun:
      Anquetil has contested and triumphantly refuted the opinion of
      those who confound them, and it is evidently contrary to the text
      of the Zendavesta. Mithra is the first of the genii, or jzeds,
      created by Ormuzd; it is he who watches over all nature. Hence
      arose the misapprehension of some of the Greeks, who have said
      that Mithra was the summus deus of the Persians: he has a
      thousand ears and ten thousand eyes. The Chaldeans appear to have
      assigned him a higher rank than the Persians. It is he who
      bestows upon the earth the light of the sun. The sun. named Khor,
      (brightness,) is thus an inferior genius, who, with many other
      genii, bears a part in the functions of Mithra. These assistant
      genii to another genius are called his kamkars; but in the
      Zendavesta they are never confounded. On the days sacred to a
      particular genius, the Persian ought to recite, not only the
      prayers addressed to him, but those also which are addressed to
      his kamkars; thus the hymn or iescht of Mithra is recited on the
      day of the sun, (Khor,) and vice versa. It is probably this which
      has sometimes caused them to be confounded; but Anquetil had
      himself exposed this error, which Kleuker, and all who have
      studied the Zendavesta, have noticed. See viii. Diss. of
      Anquetil. Kleuker’s Anhang, part iii. p. 132.—G. M. Guizot is
      unquestionably right, according to the pure and original doctrine
      of the Zend. The Mithriac worship, which was so extensively
      propagated in the West, and in which Mithra and the sun were
      perpetually confounded, seems to have been formed from a fusion
      of Zoroastrianism and Chaldaism, or the Syrian worship of the
      sun. An excellent abstract of the question, with references to
      the works of the chief modern writers on his curious subject, De
      Sacy, Kleuker, Von Hammer, &c., may be found in De Guigniaut’s
      translation of Kreuzer. Relig. d’Antiquite, notes viii. ix. to
      book ii. vol. i. 2d part, page 728.—M.]

      13 (return) [ Hyde de Relig. Pers. c. 8. Notwithstanding all
      their distinctions and protestations, which seem sincere enough,
      their tyrants, the Mahometans, have constantly stigmatized them
      as idolatrous worshippers of the fire.]

      Every mode of religion, to make a deep and lasting impression on
      the human mind, must exercise our obedience, by enjoining
      practices of devotion, for which we can assign no reason; and
      must acquire our esteem, by inculcating moral duties analogous to
      the dictates of our own hearts. The religion of Zoroaster was
      abundantly provided with the former and possessed a sufficient
      portion of the latter. At the age of puberty, the faithful
      Persian was invested with a mysterious girdle, the badge of the
      divine protection; and from that moment all the actions of his
      life, even the most indifferent, or the most necessary, were
      sanctified by their peculiar prayers, ejaculations, or
      genuflections; the omission of which, under any circumstances,
      was a grievous sin, not inferior in guilt to the violation of the
      moral duties. The moral duties, however, of justice, mercy,
      liberality, &c., were in their turn required of the disciple of
      Zoroaster, who wished to escape the persecution of Ahriman, and
      to live with Ormusd in a blissful eternity, where the degree of
      felicity will be exactly proportioned to the degree of virtue and
      piety. 14

      14 (return) [ See the Sadder, the smallest part of which consists
      of moral precepts. The ceremonies enjoined are infinite and
      trifling. Fifteen genuflections, prayers, &c., were required
      whenever the devout Persian cut his nails or made water; or as
      often as he put on the sacred girdle Sadder, Art. 14, 50, 60. *
      Note: Zoroaster exacted much less ceremonial observance, than at
      a later period, the priests of his doctrines. This is the
      progress of all religions the worship, simple in its origin, is
      gradually overloaded with minute superstitions. The maxim of the
      Zendavesta, on the relative merit of sowing the earth and of
      prayers, quoted below by Gibbon, proves that Zoroaster did not
      attach too much importance to these observances. Thus it is not
      from the Zendavesta that Gibbon derives the proof of his
      allegation, but from the Sadder, a much later work.—G]

      But there are some remarkable instances in which Zoroaster lays
      aside the prophet, assumes the legislator, and discovers a
      liberal concern for private and public happiness, seldom to be
      found among the grovelling or visionary schemes of superstition.
      Fasting and celibacy, the common means of purchasing the divine
      favor, he condemns with abhorrence as a criminal rejection of the
      best gifts of Providence. The saint, in the Magian religion, is
      obliged to beget children, to plant useful trees, to destroy
      noxious animals, to convey water to the dry lands of Persia, and
      to work out his salvation by pursuing all the labors of
      agriculture. 1401 We may quote from the Zendavesta a wise and
      benevolent maxim, which compensates for many an absurdity. “He
      who sows the ground with care and diligence acquires a greater
      stock of religious merit than he could gain by the repetition of
      ten thousand prayers.” 15 In the spring of every year a festival
      was celebrated, destined to represent the primitive equality, and
      the present connection, of mankind. The stately kings of Persia,
      exchanging their vain pomp for more genuine greatness, freely
      mingled with the humblest but most useful of their subjects. On
      that day the husbandmen were admitted, without distinction, to
      the table of the king and his satraps. The monarch accepted their
      petitions, inquired into their grievances, and conversed with
      them on the most equal terms. “From your labors,” was he
      accustomed to say, (and to say with truth, if not with
      sincerity,) “from your labors we receive our subsistence; you
      derive your tranquillity from our vigilance: since, therefore, we
      are mutually necessary to each other, let us live together like
      brothers in concord and love.” 16 Such a festival must indeed
      have degenerated, in a wealthy and despotic empire, into a
      theatrical representation; but it was at least a comedy well
      worthy of a royal audience, and which might sometimes imprint a
      salutary lesson on the mind of a young prince.

      1401 (return) [ See, on Zoroaster’s encouragement of agriculture,
      the ingenious remarks of Heeren, Ideen, vol. i. p. 449, &c., and
      Rhode, Heilige Sage, p. 517—M.]

      15 (return) [ Zendavesta, tom. i. p. 224, and Precis du Systeme
      de Zoroastre, tom. iii.]

      16 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 19.]

      Had Zoroaster, in all his institutions, invariably supported this
      exalted character, his name would deserve a place with those of
      Numa and Confucius, and his system would be justly entitled to
      all the applause, which it has pleased some of our divines, and
      even some of our philosophers, to bestow on it. But in that
      motley composition, dictated by reason and passion, by enthusiasm
      and by selfish motives, some useful and sublime truths were
      disgraced by a mixture of the most abject and dangerous
      superstition. The Magi, or sacerdotal order, were extremely
      numerous, since, as we have already seen, fourscore thousand of
      them were convened in a general council. Their forces were
      multiplied by discipline. A regular hierarchy was diffused
      through all the provinces of Persia; and the Archimagus, who
      resided at Balch, was respected as the visible head of the
      church, and the lawful successor of Zoroaster. 17 The property of
      the Magi was very considerable. Besides the less invidious
      possession of a large tract of the most fertile lands of Media,
      18 they levied a general tax on the fortunes and the industry of
      the Persians. 19 “Though your good works,” says the interested
      prophet, “exceed in number the leaves of the trees, the drops of
      rain, the stars in the heaven, or the sands on the sea-shore,
      they will all be unprofitable to you, unless they are accepted by
      the _destour_, or priest. To obtain the acceptation of this guide
      to salvation, you must faithfully pay him _tithes_ of all you
      possess, of your goods, of your lands, and of your money. If the
      destour be satisfied, your soul will escape hell tortures; you
      will secure praise in this world and happiness in the next. For
      the destours are the teachers of religion; they know all things,
      and they deliver all men.” 20 201a

      17 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persarum, c. 28. Both Hyde and
      Prideaux affect to apply to the Magian the terms consecrated to
      the Christian hierarchy.]

      18 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. xxiii. 6. He informs us (as far
      as we may credit him) of two curious particulars: 1. That the
      Magi derived some of their most secret doctrines from the Indian
      Brachmans; and 2. That they were a tribe, or family, as well as
      order.]

      19 (return) [ The divine institution of tithes exhibits a
      singular instance of conformity between the law of Zoroaster and
      that of Moses. Those who cannot otherwise account for it, may
      suppose, if they please that the Magi of the latter times
      inserted so useful an interpolation into the writings of their
      prophet.]

      20 (return) [ Sadder, Art. viii.]

      201a (return) [ The passage quoted by Gibbon is not taken from
      the writings of Zoroaster, but from the Sadder, a work, as has
      been before said, much later than the books which form the
      Zendavesta. and written by a Magus for popular use; what it
      contains, therefore, cannot be attributed to Zoroaster. It is
      remarkable that Gibbon should fall into this error, for Hyde
      himself does not ascribe the Sadder to Zoroaster; he remarks that
      it is written inverse, while Zoroaster always wrote in prose.
      Hyde, i. p. 27. Whatever may be the case as to the latter
      assertion, for which there appears little foundation, it is
      unquestionable that the Sadder is of much later date. The Abbé
      Foucher does not even believe it to be an extract from the works
      of Zoroaster. See his Diss. before quoted. Mem. de l’Acad. des
      Ins. t. xxvii.—G. Perhaps it is rash to speak of any part of the
      Zendavesta as the writing of Zoroaster, though it may be a
      genuine representation of his. As to the Sadder, Hyde (in Præf.)
      considered it not above 200 years old. It is manifestly
      post-Mahometan. See Art. xxv. on fasting.—M.]

      These convenient maxims of reverence and implicit faith were
      doubtless imprinted with care on the tender minds of youth; since
      the Magi were the masters of education in Persia, and to their
      hands the children even of the royal family were intrusted. 21
      The Persian priests, who were of a speculative genius, preserved
      and investigated the secrets of Oriental philosophy; and
      acquired, either by superior knowledge, or superior art, the
      reputation of being well versed in some occult sciences, which
      have derived their appellation from the Magi. 22 Those of more
      active dispositions mixed with the world in courts and cities;
      and it is observed, that the administration of Artaxerxes was in
      a great measure directed by the counsels of the sacerdotal order,
      whose dignity, either from policy or devotion, that prince
      restored to its ancient splendor. 23

      21 (return) [ Plato in Alcibiad.]

      22 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. l. xxx. c. 1) observes, that
      magic held mankind by the triple chain of religion, of physic,
      and of astronomy.]

      23 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 134.]

      The first counsel of the Magi was agreeable to the unsociable
      genius of their faith, 24 to the practice of ancient kings, 25
      and even to the example of their legislator, who had fallen a
      victim to a religious war, excited by his own intolerant zeal. 26
      By an edict of Artaxerxes, the exercise of every worship, except
      that of Zoroaster, was severely prohibited. The temples of the
      Parthians, and the statues of their deified monarchs, were thrown
      down with ignominy. 27 The sword of Aristotle (such was the name
      given by the Orientals to the polytheism and philosophy of the
      Greeks) was easily broken; 28 the flames of persecution soon
      reached the more stubborn Jews and Christians; 29 nor did they
      spare the heretics of their own nation and religion. The majesty
      of Ormusd, who was jealous of a rival, was seconded by the
      despotism of Artaxerxes, who could not suffer a rebel; and the
      schismatics within his vast empire were soon reduced to the
      inconsiderable number of eighty thousand. 30 301 This spirit of
      persecution reflects dishonor on the religion of Zoroaster; but
      as it was not productive of any civil commotion, it served to
      strengthen the new monarchy, by uniting all the various
      inhabitants of Persia in the bands of religious zeal. 302

      24 (return) [ Mr. Hume, in the Natural History of Religion,
      sagaciously remarks, that the most refined and philosophic sects
      are constantly the most intolerant. * Note: Hume’s comparison is
      rather between theism and polytheism. In India, in Greece, and in
      modern Europe, philosophic religion has looked down with
      contemptuous toleration on the superstitions of the vulgar.—M.]

      25 (return) [ Cicero de Legibus, ii. 10. Xerxes, by the advice of
      the Magi, destroyed the temples of Greece.]

      26 (return) [ Hyde de Relig. Persar. c. 23, 24. D’Herbelot,
      Bibliotheque Orientale, Zurdusht. Life of Zoroaster in tom. ii.
      of the Zendavesta.]

      27 (return) [ Compare Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 74, with
      Ammian. Marcel lin. xxiii. 6. Hereafter I shall make use of these
      passages.]

      28 (return) [ Rabbi Abraham, in the Tarikh Schickard, p. 108,
      109.]

      29 (return) [ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. viii. c. 3.
      Sozomen, l. ii. c. 1 Manes, who suffered an ignominious death,
      may be deemed a Magian as well as a Christian heretic.]

      30 (return) [ Hyde de Religione Persar. c. 21.]

      301 (return) [ It is incorrect to attribute these persecutions to
      Artaxerxes. The Jews were held in honor by him, and their schools
      flourished during his reign. Compare Jost, Geschichte der
      Isræliter, b. xv. 5, with Basnage. Sapor was forced by the people
      to temporary severities; but their real persecution did not begin
      till the reigns of Yezdigerd and Kobad. Hist. of Jews, iii. 236.
      According to Sozomen, i. viii., Sapor first persecuted the
      Christians. Manes was put to death by Varanes the First, A. D.
      277. Beausobre, Hist. de Man. i. 209.—M.]

      302 (return) [ In the testament of Ardischer in Ferdusi, the poet
      assigns these sentiments to the dying king, as he addresses his
      son: Never forget that as a king, you are at once the protector
      of religion and of your country. Consider the altar and the
      throne as inseparable; they must always sustain each other.
      Malcolm’s Persia. i. 74—M]

      II. Artaxerxes, by his valor and conduct, had wrested the sceptre
      of the East from the ancient royal family of Parthia. There still
      remained the more difficult task of establishing, throughout the
      vast extent of Persia, a uniform and vigorous administration. The
      weak indulgence of the Arsacides had resigned to their sons and
      brothers the principal provinces, and the greatest offices of the
      kingdom in the nature of hereditary possessions. The _vitaxæ_, or
      eighteen most powerful satraps, were permitted to assume the
      regal title; and the vain pride of the monarch was delighted with
      a nominal dominion over so many vassal kings. Even tribes of
      barbarians in their mountains, and the Greek cities of Upper
      Asia, 31 within their walls, scarcely acknowledged, or seldom
      obeyed. any superior; and the Parthian empire exhibited, under
      other names, a lively image of the feudal system 32 which has
      since prevailed in Europe. But the active victor, at the head of
      a numerous and disciplined army, visited in person every province
      of Persia. The defeat of the boldest rebels, and the reduction of
      the strongest fortifications, 33 diffused the terror of his arms,
      and prepared the way for the peaceful reception of his authority.
      An obstinate resistance was fatal to the chiefs; but their
      followers were treated with lenity. 34 A cheerful submission was
      rewarded with honors and riches, but the prudent Artaxerxes,
      suffering no person except himself to assume the title of king,
      abolished every intermediate power between the throne and the
      people. His kingdom, nearly equal in extent to modern Persia,
      was, on every side, bounded by the sea, or by great rivers; by
      the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Araxes, the Oxus, and the Indus,
      by the Caspian Sea, and the Gulf of Persia. 35 That country was
      computed to contain, in the last century, five hundred and
      fifty-four cities, sixty thousand villages, and about forty
      millions of souls. 36 If we compare the administration of the
      house of Sassan with that of the house of Sefi, the political
      influence of the Magian with that of the Mahometan religion, we
      shall probably infer, that the kingdom of Artaxerxes contained at
      least as great a number of cities, villages, and inhabitants. But
      it must likewise be confessed, that in every age the want of
      harbors on the sea-coast, and the scarcity of fresh water in the
      inland provinces, have been very unfavorable to the commerce and
      agriculture of the Persians; who, in the calculation of their
      numbers, seem to have indulged one of the meanest, though most
      common, artifices of national vanity.

      31 (return) [ These colonies were extremely numerous. Seleucus
      Nicator founded thirty-nine cities, all named from himself, or
      some of his relations, (see Appian in Syriac. p. 124.) The æra of
      Seleucus (still in use among the eastern Christians) appears as
      late as the year 508, of Christ 196, on the medals of the Greek
      cities within the Parthian empire. See Moyle’s works, vol. i. p.
      273, &c., and M. Freret, Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xix.]

      32 (return) [ The modern Persians distinguish that period as the
      dynasty of the kings of the nations. See Plin. Hist. Nat. vi.
      25.]

      33 (return) [ Eutychius (tom. i. p. 367, 371, 375) relates the
      siege of the island of Mesene in the Tigris, with some
      circumstances not unlike the story of Nysus and Scylla.]

      34 (return) [ Agathias, ii. 64, [and iv. p. 260.] The princes of
      Segestan de fended their independence during many years. As
      romances generally transport to an ancient period the events of
      their own time, it is not impossible that the fabulous exploits
      of Rustan, Prince of Segestan, many have been grafted on this
      real history.]

      35 (return) [ We can scarcely attribute to the Persian monarchy
      the sea-coast of Gedrosia or Macran, which extends along the
      Indian Ocean from Cape Jask (the promontory Capella) to Cape
      Goadel. In the time of Alexander, and probably many ages
      afterwards, it was thinly inhabited by a savage people of
      Icthyophagi, or Fishermen, who knew no arts, who acknowledged no
      master, and who were divided by in-hospitable deserts from the
      rest of the world. (See Arrian de Reb. Indicis.) In the twelfth
      century, the little town of Taiz (supposed by M. d’Anville to be
      the Teza of Ptolemy) was peopled and enriched by the resort of
      the Arabian merchants. (See Geographia Nubiens, p. 58, and
      d’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 283.) In the last
      age, the whole country was divided between three princes, one
      Mahometan and two Idolaters, who maintained their independence
      against the successors of Shah Abbas. (Voyages de Tavernier, part
      i. l. v. p. 635.)]

      36 (return) [ Chardin, tom. iii c 1 2, 3.]

      As soon as the ambitious mind of Artaxerxes had triumphed ever
      the resistance of his vassals, he began to threaten the
      neighboring states, who, during the long slumber of his
      predecessors, had insulted Persia with impunity. He obtained some
      easy victories over the wild Scythians and the effeminate
      Indians; but the Romans were an enemy, who, by their past
      injuries and present power, deserved the utmost efforts of his
      arms. A forty years’ tranquillity, the fruit of valor and
      moderation, had succeeded the victories of Trajan. During the
      period that elapsed from the accession of Marcus to the reign of
      Alexander, the Roman and the Parthian empires were twice engaged
      in war; and although the whole strength of the Arsacides
      contended with a part only of the forces of Rome, the event was
      most commonly in favor of the latter. Macrinus, indeed, prompted
      by his precarious situation and pusillanimous temper, purchased a
      peace at the expense of near two millions of our money; 37 but
      the generals of Marcus, the emperor Severus, and his son, erected
      many trophies in Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Among their
      exploits, the imperfect relation of which would have unseasonably
      interrupted the more important series of domestic revolutions, we
      shall only mention the repeated calamities of the two great
      cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon.

      37 (return) [ Dion, l. xxviii. p. 1335.]

      Seleucia, on the western bank of the Tigris, about forty-five
      miles to the north of ancient Babylon, was the capital of the
      Macedonian conquests in Upper Asia. 38 Many ages after the fall
      of their empire, Seleucia retained the genuine characters of a
      Grecian colony, arts, military virtue, and the love of freedom.
      The independent republic was governed by a senate of three
      hundred nobles; the people consisted of six hundred thousand
      citizens; the walls were strong, and as long as concord prevailed
      among the several orders of the state, they viewed with contempt
      the power of the Parthian: but the madness of faction was
      sometimes provoked to implore the dangerous aid of the common
      enemy, who was posted almost at the gates of the colony. 39 The
      Parthian monarchs, like the Mogul sovereigns of Hindostan,
      delighted in the pastoral life of their Scythian ancestors; and
      the Imperial camp was frequently pitched in the plain of
      Ctesiphon, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, at the distance of
      only three miles from Seleucia. 40 The innumerable attendants on
      luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little
      village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city. 41
      Under the reign of Marcus, the Roman generals penetrated as far
      as Ctesiphon and Seleucia. They were received as friends by the
      Greek colony; they attacked as enemies the seat of the Parthian
      kings; yet both cities experienced the same treatment. The sack
      and conflagration of Seleucia, with the massacre of three hundred
      thousand of the inhabitants, tarnished the glory of the Roman
      triumph. 42 Seleucia, already exhausted by the neighborhood of a
      too powerful rival, sunk under the fatal blow; but Ctesiphon, in
      about thirty-three years, had sufficiently recovered its strength
      to maintain an obstinate siege against the emperor Severus. The
      city was, however, taken by assault; the king, who defended it in
      person, escaped with precipitation; a hundred thousand captives,
      and a rich booty, rewarded the fatigues of the Roman soldiers. 43
      Notwithstanding these misfortunes, Ctesiphon succeeded to Babylon
      and to Seleucia, as one of the great capitals of the East. In
      summer, the monarch of Persia enjoyed at Ecbatana the cool
      breezes of the mountains of Media; but the mildness of the
      climate engaged him to prefer Ctesiphon for his winter residence.

      38 (return) [ For the precise situation of Babylon, Seleucia,
      Ctesiphon, Moiain, and Bagdad, cities often confounded with each
      other, see an excellent Geographical Tract of M. d’Anville, in
      Mem. de l’Academie, tom. xxx.]

      39 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 42. Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 26.]

      40 (return) [ This may be inferred from Strabo, l. xvi. p. 743.]

      41 (return) [ That most curious traveller, Bernier, who followed
      the camp of Aurengzebe from Delhi to Cashmir, describes with
      great accuracy the immense moving city. The guard of cavalry
      consisted of 35,000 men, that of infantry of 10,000. It was
      computed that the camp contained 150,000 horses, mules, and
      elephants; 50,000 camels, 50,000 oxen, and between 300,000 and
      400,000 persons. Almost all Delhi followed the court, whose
      magnificence supported its industry.]

      42 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. p. 1178. Hist. August. p. 38.
      Eutrop. viii. 10 Euseb. in Chronic. Quadratus (quoted in the
      Augustan History) attempted to vindicate the Romans by alleging
      that the citizens of Seleucia had first violated their faith.]

      43 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1263. Herodian, l. iii. p. 120.
      Hist. August. p. 70.]

      From these successful inroads the Romans derived no real or
      lasting benefit; nor did they attempt to preserve such distant
      conquests, separated from the provinces of the empire by a large
      tract of intermediate desert. The reduction of the kingdom of
      Osrhoene was an acquisition of less splendor indeed, but of a far
      more solid advantage. That little state occupied the northern and
      most fertile part of Mesopotamia, between the Euphrates and the
      Tigris. Edessa, its capital, was situated about twenty miles
      beyond the former of those rivers; and the inhabitants, since the
      time of Alexander, were a mixed race of Greeks, Arabs, Syrians,
      and Armenians. 44 The feeble sovereigns of Osrhoene, placed on
      the dangerous verge of two contending empires, were attached from
      inclination to the Parthian cause; but the superior power of Rome
      exacted from them a reluctant homage, which is still attested by
      their medals. After the conclusion of the Parthian war under
      Marcus, it was judged prudent to secure some substantial pledges
      of their doubtful fidelity. Forts were constructed in several
      parts of the country, and a Roman garrison was fixed in the
      strong town of Nisibis. During the troubles that followed the
      death of Commodus, the princes of Osrhoene attempted to shake off
      the yoke; but the stern policy of Severus confirmed their
      dependence, 45 and the perfidy of Caracalla completed the easy
      conquest. Abgarus, the last king of Edessa, was sent in chains to
      Rome, his dominions reduced into a province, and his capital
      dignified with the rank of colony; and thus the Romans, about ten
      years before the fall of the Parthian monarchy, obtained a firm
      and permanent establishment beyond the Euphrates. 46

      44 (return) [ The polished citizens of Antioch called those of
      Edessa mixed barbarians. It was, however, some praise, that of
      the three dialects of the Syriac, the purest and most elegant
      (the Aramæan) was spoken at Edessa. This remark M. Bayer (Hist.
      Edess. p 5) has borrowed from George of Malatia, a Syrian
      writer.]

      45 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxv. p. 1248, 1249, 1250. M. Bayer has
      neglected to use this most important passage.]

      46 (return) [ This kingdom, from Osrhoes, who gave a new name to
      the country, to the last Abgarus, had lasted 353 years. See the
      learned work of M. Bayer, Historia Osrhoena et Edessena.]

      Prudence as well as glory might have justified a war on the side
      of Artaxerxes, had his views been confined to the defence or
      acquisition of a useful frontier. but the ambitious Persian
      openly avowed a far more extensive design of conquest; and he
      thought himself able to support his lofty pretensions by the arms
      of reason as well as by those of power. Cyrus, he alleged, had
      first subdued, and his successors had for a long time possessed,
      the whole extent of Asia, as far as the Propontis and the Ægean
      Sea; the provinces of Caria and Ionia, under their empire, had
      been governed by Persian satraps, and all Egypt, to the confines
      of Æthiopia, had acknowledged their sovereignty. 47 Their rights
      had been suspended, but not destroyed, by a long usurpation; and
      as soon as he received the Persian diadem, which birth and
      successful valor had placed upon his head, the first great duty
      of his station called upon him to restore the ancient limits and
      splendor of the monarchy. The Great King, therefore, (such was
      the haughty style of his embassies to the emperor Alexander,)
      commanded the Romans instantly to depart from all the provinces
      of his ancestors, and, yielding to the Persians the empire of
      Asia, to content themselves with the undisturbed possession of
      Europe. This haughty mandate was delivered by four hundred of the
      tallest and most beautiful of the Persians; who, by their fine
      horses, splendid arms, and rich apparel, displayed the pride and
      greatness of their master. 48 Such an embassy was much less an
      offer of negotiation than a declaration of war. Both Alexander
      Severus and Artaxerxes, collecting the military force of the
      Roman and Persian monarchies, resolved in this important contest
      to lead their armies in person.

      47 (return) [ Xenophon, in the preface to the Cyropædia, gives a
      clear and magnificent idea of the extent of the empire of Cyrus.
      Herodotus (l. iii. c. 79, &c.) enters into a curious and
      particular description of the twenty great Satrapies into which
      the Persian empire was divided by Darius Hystaspes.]

      48 (return) [ Herodian, vi. 209, 212.]

      If we credit what should seem the most authentic of all records,
      an oration, still extant, and delivered by the emperor himself to
      the senate, we must allow that the victory of Alexander Severus
      was not inferior to any of those formerly obtained over the
      Persians by the son of Philip. The army of the Great King
      consisted of one hundred and twenty thousand horse, clothed in
      complete armor of steel; of seven hundred elephants, with towers
      filled with archers on their backs, and of eighteen hundred
      chariots armed with scythes. This formidable host, the like of
      which is not to be found in eastern history, and has scarcely
      been imagined in eastern romance, 49 was discomfited in a great
      battle, in which the Roman Alexander proved himself an intrepid
      soldier and a skilful general. The Great King fled before his
      valor; an immense booty, and the conquest of Mesopotamia, were
      the immediate fruits of this signal victory. Such are the
      circumstances of this ostentatious and improbable relation,
      dictated, as it too plainly appears, by the vanity of the
      monarch, adorned by the unblushing servility of his flatterers,
      and received without contradiction by a distant and obsequious
      senate. 50 Far from being inclined to believe that the arms of
      Alexander obtained any memorable advantage over the Persians, we
      are induced to suspect that all this blaze of imaginary glory was
      designed to conceal some real disgrace.

      49 (return) [ There were two hundred scythed chariots at the
      battle of Arbela, in the host of Darius. In the vast army of
      Tigranes, which was vanquished by Lucullus, seventeen thousand
      horse only were completely armed. Antiochus brought fifty-four
      elephants into the field against the Romans: by his frequent wars
      and negotiations with the princes of India, he had once collected
      a hundred and fifty of those great animals; but it may be
      questioned whether the most powerful monarch of Hindostan evci
      formed a line of battle of seven hundred elephants. Instead of
      three or four thousand elephants, which the Great Mogul was
      supposed to possess, Tavernier (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 198)
      discovered, by a more accurate inquiry, that he had only five
      hundred for his baggage, and eighty or ninety for the service of
      war. The Greeks have varied with regard to the number which Porus
      brought into the field; but Quintus Curtius, (viii. 13,) in this
      instance judicious and moderate, is contented with eighty-five
      elephants, distinguished by their size and strength. In Siam,
      where these animals are the most numerous and the most esteemed,
      eighteen elephants are allowed as a sufficient proportion for
      each of the nine brigades into which a just army is divided. The
      whole number, of one hundred and sixty-two elephants of war, may
      sometimes be doubled. Hist. des Voyages, tom. ix. p. 260. * Note:
      Compare Gibbon’s note 10 to ch. lvii—M.]

      50 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 133. * Note: See M. Guizot’s note,
      p. 267. According to the Persian authorities Ardeschir extended
      his conquests to the Euphrates. Malcolm i. 71.—M.]

      Our suspicions are confirmed by the authority of a contemporary
      historian, who mentions the virtues of Alexander with respect,
      and his faults with candor. He describes the judicious plan which
      had been formed for the conduct of the war. Three Roman armies
      were destined to invade Persia at the same time, and by different
      roads. But the operations of the campaign, though wisely
      concerted, were not executed either with ability or success. The
      first of these armies, as soon as it had entered the marshy
      plains of Babylon, towards the artificial conflux of the
      Euphrates and the Tigris, 51 was encompassed by the superior
      numbers, and destroyed by the arrows of the enemy. The alliance
      of Chosroes, king of Armenia, 52 and the long tract of
      mountainous country, in which the Persian cavalry was of little
      service, opened a secure entrance into the heart of Media, to the
      second of the Roman armies. These brave troops laid waste the
      adjacent provinces, and by several successful actions against
      Artaxerxes, gave a faint color to the emperor’s vanity. But the
      retreat of this victorious army was imprudent, or at least
      unfortunate. In repassing the mountains, great numbers of
      soldiers perished by the badness of the roads, and the severity
      of the winter season. It had been resolved, that whilst these two
      great detachments penetrated into the opposite extremes of the
      Persian dominions, the main body, under the command of Alexander
      himself, should support their attack, by invading the centre of
      the kingdom. But the unexperienced youth, influenced by his
      mother’s counsels, and perhaps by his own fears, deserted the
      bravest troops, and the fairest prospect of victory; and after
      consuming in Mesopotamia an inactive and inglorious summer, he
      led back to Antioch an army diminished by sickness, and provoked
      by disappointment. The behavior of Artaxerxes had been very
      different. Flying with rapidity from the hills of Media to the
      marshes of the Euphrates, he had everywhere opposed the invaders
      in person; and in either fortune had united with the ablest
      conduct the most undaunted resolution. But in several obstinate
      engagements against the veteran legions of Rome, the Persian
      monarch had lost the flower of his troops. Even his victories had
      weakened his power. The favorable opportunities of the absence of
      Alexander, and of the confusions that followed that emperor’s
      death, presented themselves in vain to his ambition. Instead of
      expelling the Romans, as he pretended, from the continent of
      Asia, he found himself unable to wrest from their hands the
      little province of Mesopotamia. 53

      51 (return) [ M. de Tillemont has already observed, that
      Herodian’s geography is somewhat confused.]

      52 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 71)
      illustrates this invasion of Media, by asserting that Chosroes,
      king of Armenia, defeated Artaxerxes, and pursued him to the
      confines of India. The exploits of Chosroes have been magnified;
      and he acted as a dependent ally to the Romans.]

      53 (return) [ For the account of this war, see Herodian, l. vi.
      p. 209, 212. The old abbreviators and modern compilers have
      blindly followed the Augustan History.]

      The reign of Artaxerxes, which, from the last defeat of the
      Parthians, lasted only fourteen years, forms a memorable æra in
      the history of the East, and even in that of Rome. His character
      seems to have been marked by those bold and commanding features,
      that generally distinguish the princes who conquer, from those
      who inherit, an empire. Till the last period of the Persian
      monarchy, his code of laws was respected as the groundwork of
      their civil and religious policy. 54 Several of his sayings are
      preserved. One of them in particular discovers a deep insight
      into the constitution of government. “The authority of the
      prince,” said Artaxerxes, “must be defended by a military force;
      that force can only be maintained by taxes; all taxes must, at
      last, fall upon agriculture; and agriculture can never flourish
      except under the protection of justice and moderation.” 55
      Artaxerxes bequeathed his new empire, and his ambitious designs
      against the Romans, to Sapor, a son not unworthy of his great
      father; but those designs were too extensive for the power of
      Persia, and served only to involve both nations in a long series
      of destructive wars and reciprocal calamities.

      54 (return) [Eutychius, tom. ii. p. 180, vers. Pocock. The great
      Chosroes Noushirwan sent the code of Artaxerxes to all his
      satraps, as the invariable rule of their conduct.]

      55 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, au mot Ardshir.
      We may observe, that after an ancient period of fables, and a
      long interval of darkness, the modern histories of Persia begin
      to assume an air of truth with the dynasty of Sassanides. Compare
      Malcolm, i. 79.—M.]

      The Persians, long since civilized and corrupted, were very far
      from possessing the martial independence, and the intrepid
      hardiness, both of mind and body, which have rendered the
      northern barbarians masters of the world. The science of war,
      that constituted the more rational force of Greece and Rome, as
      it now does of Europe, never made any considerable progress in
      the East. Those disciplined evolutions which harmonize and
      animate a confused multitude, were unknown to the Persians. They
      were equally unskilled in the arts of constructing, besieging, or
      defending regular fortifications. They trusted more to their
      numbers than to their courage; more to their courage than to
      their discipline. The infantry was a half-armed, spiritless crowd
      of peasants, levied in haste by the allurements of plunder, and
      as easily dispersed by a victory as by a defeat. The monarch and
      his nobles transported into the camp the pride and luxury of the
      seraglio. Their military operations were impeded by a useless
      train of women, eunuchs, horses, and camels; and in the midst of
      a successful campaign, the Persian host was often separated or
      destroyed by an unexpected famine. 56

      56 (return) [ Herodian, l. vi. p. 214. Ammianus Marcellinus, l.
      xxiii. c. 6. Some differences may be observed between the two
      historians, the natural effects of the changes produced by a
      century and a half.]

      But the nobles of Persia, in the bosom of luxury and despotism,
      preserved a strong sense of personal gallantry and national
      honor. From the age of seven years they were taught to speak
      truth, to shoot with the bow, and to ride; and it was universally
      confessed that in the two last of these arts they had made a more
      than common proficiency. 57 The most distinguished youth were
      educated under the monarch’s eye, practised their exercises in
      the gate of his palace, and were severely trained up to the
      habits of temperance and obedience, in their long and laborious
      parties of hunting. In every province, the satrap maintained a
      like school of military virtue. The Persian nobles (so natural is
      the idea of feudal tenures) received from the king’s bounty lands
      and houses, on the condition of their service in war. They were
      ready on the first summons to mount on horseback, with a martial
      and splendid train of followers, and to join the numerous bodies
      of guards, who were carefully selected from among the most robust
      slaves, and the bravest adventurers of Asia. These armies, both
      of light and of heavy cavalry, equally formidable by the
      impetuosity of their charge and the rapidity of their motions,
      threatened, as an impending cloud, the eastern provinces of the
      declining empire of Rome. 58

      57 (return) [ The Persians are still the most skilful horsemen,
      and their horses the finest in the East.]

      58 (return) [ From Herodotus, Xenophon, Herodian, Ammianus,
      Chardin, &c., I have extracted such probable accounts of the
      Persian nobility, as seem either common to every age, or
      particular to that of the Sassanides.]




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

     The State Of Germany Till The Invasion Of The Barbarians In The
     Time Of The Emperor Decius.

      The government and religion of Persia have deserved some notice,
      from their connection with the decline and fall of the Roman
      empire. We shall occasionally mention the Scythian or Sarmatian
      tribes, 1001 which, with their arms and horses, their flocks and
      herds, their wives and families, wandered over the immense plains
      which spread themselves from the Caspian Sea to the Vistula, from
      the confines of Persia to those of Germany. But the warlike
      Germans, who first resisted, then invaded, and at length
      overturned the Western monarchy of Rome, will occupy a much more
      important place in this history, and possess a stronger, and, if
      we may use the expression, a more domestic, claim to our
      attention and regard. The most civilized nations of modern Europe
      issued from the woods of Germany; and in the rude institutions of
      those barbarians we may still distinguish the original principles
      of our present laws and manners. In their primitive state of
      simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the
      discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil, of
      Tacitus, 1002 the first of historians who applied the science of
      philosophy to the study of facts. The expressive conciseness of
      his descriptions has served to exercise the diligence of
      innumerable antiquarians, and to excite the genius and
      penetration of the philosophic historians of our own times. The
      subject, however various and important, has already been so
      frequently, so ably, and so successfully discussed, that it is
      now grown familiar to the reader, and difficult to the writer. We
      shall therefore content ourselves with observing, and indeed with
      repeating, some of the most important circumstances of climate,
      of manners, and of institutions, which rendered the wild
      barbarians of Germany such formidable enemies to the Roman power.

      1001 (return) [ The Scythians, even according to the ancients,
      are not Sarmatians. It may be doubted whether Gibbon intended to
      confound them.—M. ——The Greeks, after having divided the world
      into Greeks and barbarians. divided the barbarians into four
      great classes, the Celts, the Scythians, the Indians, and the
      Ethiopians. They called Celts all the inhabitants of Gaul.
      Scythia extended from the Baltic Sea to the Lake Aral: the people
      enclosed in the angle to the north-east, between Celtica and
      Scythia, were called Celto-Scythians, and the Sarmatians were
      placed in the southern part of that angle. But these names of
      Celts, of Scythians, of Celto-Scythians, and Sarmatians, were
      invented, says Schlozer, by the profound cosmographical ignorance
      of the Greeks, and have no real ground; they are purely
      geographical divisions, without any relation to the true
      affiliation of the different races. Thus all the inhabitants of
      Gaul are called Celts by most of the ancient writers; yet Gaul
      contained three totally distinct nations, the Belgæ, the
      Aquitani, and the Gauls, properly so called. Hi omnes lingua
      institutis, legibusque inter se differunt. Cæsar. Com. c. i. It
      is thus the Turks call all Europeans Franks. Schlozer, Allgemeine
      Nordische Geschichte, p. 289. 1771. Bayer (de Origine et priscis
      Sedibus Scytharum, in Opusc. p. 64) says, Primus eorum, de quibus
      constat, Ephorus, in quarto historiarum libro, orbem terrarum
      inter Scythas, Indos, Æthiopas et Celtas divisit. Fragmentum ejus
      loci Cosmas Indicopleustes in topographia Christiana, f. 148,
      conservavit. Video igitur Ephorum, cum locorum positus per certa
      capita distribuere et explicare constitueret, insigniorum nomina
      gentium vastioribus spatiis adhibuisse, nulla mala fraude et
      successu infelici. Nam Ephoro quoquomodo dicta pro exploratis
      habebant Græci plerique et Romani: ita gliscebat error
      posteritate. Igitur tot tamque diversæ stirpis gentes non modo
      intra communem quandam regionem definitæ, unum omnes Scytharum
      nomen his auctoribus subierunt, sed etiam ab illa regionis
      adpellatione in eandem nationem sunt conflatæ. Sic Cimmeriorum
      res cum Scythicis, Scytharum cum Sarmaticis, Russicis, Hunnicis,
      Tataricis commiscentur.—G.]

      1002 (return) [ The Germania of Tacitus has been a fruitful
      source of hypothesis to the ingenuity of modern writers, who have
      endeavored to account for the form of the work and the views of
      the author. According to Luden, (Geschichte des T. V. i. 432, and
      note,) it contains the unfinished and disarranged for a larger
      work. An anonymous writer, supposed by Luden to be M. Becker,
      conceives that it was intended as an episode in his larger
      history. According to M. Guizot, “Tacite a peint les Germains
      comme Montaigne et Rousseau les sauvages, dans un acces d’humeur
      contre sa patrie: son livre est une satire des mœurs Romaines,
      l’eloquente boutade d’un patriote philosophe qui veut voir la
      vertu la, ou il ne rencontre pas la mollesse honteuse et la
      depravation savante d’une vielle societe.” Hist. de la
      Civilisation Moderne, i. 258.—M.]

      Ancient Germany, excluding from its independent limits the
      province westward of the Rhine, which had submitted to the Roman
      yoke, extended itself over a third part of Europe. 1 Almost the
      whole of modern Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland,
      Livonia, Prussia, and the greater part of Poland, were peopled by
      the various tribes of one great nation, whose complexion,
      manners, and language denoted a common origin, and preserved a
      striking resemblance. On the west, ancient Germany was divided by
      the Rhine from the Gallic, and on the south, by the Danube, from
      the Illyrian, provinces of the empire. A ridge of hills, rising
      from the Danube, and called the Carpathian Mountains, covered
      Germany on the side of Dacia or Hungary. The eastern frontier was
      faintly marked by the mutual fears of the Germans and the
      Sarmatians, and was often confounded by the mixture of warring
      and confederating tribes of the two nations. In the remote
      darkness of the north, the ancients imperfectly descried a frozen
      ocean that lay beyond the Baltic Sea, and beyond the Peninsula,
      or islands 1001a of Scandinavia.

      1 (return) [ Germany was not of such vast extent. It is from
      Cæsar, and more particularly from Ptolemy, (says Gatterer,) that
      we can know what was the state of ancient Germany before the wars
      with the Romans had changed the positions of the tribes. Germany,
      as changed by these wars, has been described by Strabo, Pliny,
      and Tacitus. Germany, properly so called, was bounded on the west
      by the Rhine, on the east by the Vistula, on the north by the
      southern point of Norway, by Sweden, and Esthonia. On the south,
      the Maine and the mountains to the north of Bohemia formed the
      limits. Before the time of Cæsar, the country between the Maine
      and the Danube was partly occupied by the Helvetians and other
      Gauls, partly by the Hercynian forest but, from the time of Cæsar
      to the great migration, these boundaries were advanced as far as
      the Danube, or, what is the same thing, to the Suabian Alps,
      although the Hercynian forest still occupied, from north to
      south, a space of nine days’ journey on both banks of the Danube.
      “Gatterer, Versuch einer all-gemeinen Welt-Geschichte,” p. 424,
      edit. de 1792. This vast country was far from being inhabited by
      a single nation divided into different tribes of the same origin.
      We may reckon three principal races, very distinct in their
      language, their origin, and their customs. 1. To the east, the
      Slaves or Vandals. 2. To the west, the Cimmerians or Cimbri. 3.
      Between the Slaves and Cimbrians, the Germans, properly so
      called, the Suevi of Tacitus. The South was inhabited, before
      Julius Cæsar, by nations of Gaulish origin, afterwards by the
      Suevi.—G. On the position of these nations, the German
      antiquaries differ. I. The Slaves, or Sclavonians, or Wendish
      tribes, according to Schlozer, were originally settled in parts
      of Germany unknown to the Romans, Mecklenburgh, Pomerania,
      Brandenburgh, Upper Saxony; and Lusatia. According to Gatterer,
      they remained to the east of the Theiss, the Niemen, and the
      Vistula, till the third century. The Slaves, according to
      Procopius and Jornandes, formed three great divisions. 1. The
      Venedi or Vandals, who took the latter name, (the Wenden,) having
      expelled the Vandals, properly so called, (a Suevian race, the
      conquerors of Africa,) from the country between the Memel and the
      Vistula. 2. The Antes, who inhabited between the Dneister and the
      Dnieper. 3. The Sclavonians, properly so called, in the north of
      Dacia. During the great migration, these races advanced into
      Germany as far as the Saal and the Elbe. The Sclavonian language
      is the stem from which have issued the Russian, the Polish, the
      Bohemian, and the dialects of Lusatia, of some parts of the duchy
      of Luneburgh, of Carniola, Carinthia, and Styria, &c.; those of
      Croatia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p.
      323, 335. II. The Cimbric race. Adelung calls by this name all
      who were not Suevi. This race had passed the Rhine, before the
      time of Cæsar, occupied Belgium, and are the Belgæ of Cæsar and
      Pliny. The Cimbrians also occupied the Isle of Jutland. The Cymri
      of Wales and of Britain are of this race. Many tribes on the
      right bank of the Rhine, the Guthini in Jutland, the Usipeti in
      Westphalia, the Sigambri in the duchy of Berg, were German
      Cimbrians. III. The Suevi, known in very early times by the
      Romans, for they are mentioned by L. Corn. Sisenna, who lived 123
      years before Christ, (Nonius v. Lancea.) This race, the real
      Germans, extended to the Vistula, and from the Baltic to the
      Hercynian forest. The name of Suevi was sometimes confined to a
      single tribe, as by Cæsar to the Catti. The name of the Suevi has
      been preserved in Suabia. These three were the principal races
      which inhabited Germany; they moved from east to west, and are
      the parent stem of the modern natives. But northern Europe,
      according to Schlozer, was not peopled by them alone; other
      races, of different origin, and speaking different languages,
      have inhabited and left descendants in these countries. The
      German tribes called themselves, from very remote times, by the
      generic name of Teutons, (Teuten, Deutschen,) which Tacitus
      derives from that of one of their gods, Tuisco. It appears more
      probable that it means merely men, people. Many savage nations
      have given themselves no other name. Thus the Laplanders call
      themselves Almag, people; the Samoiedes Nilletz, Nissetsch, men,
      &c. As to the name of Germans, (Germani,) Cæsar found it in use
      in Gaul, and adopted it as a word already known to the Romans.
      Many of the learned (from a passage of Tacitus, de Mor Germ. c.
      2) have supposed that it was only applied to the Teutons after
      Cæsar’s time; but Adelung has triumphantly refuted this opinion.
      The name of Germans is found in the Fasti Capitolini. See Gruter,
      Iscrip. 2899, in which the consul Marcellus, in the year of Rome
      531, is said to have defeated the Gauls, the Insubrians, and the
      Germans, commanded by Virdomar. See Adelung, Ælt. Geschichte der
      Deutsch, p. 102.—Compressed from G.]

      1001a (return) [ The modern philosophers of Sweden seem agreed
      that the waters of the Baltic gradually sink in a regular
      proportion, which they have ventured to estimate at half an inch
      every year. Twenty centuries ago the flat country of Scandinavia
      must have been covered by the sea; while the high lands rose
      above the waters, as so many islands of various forms and
      dimensions. Such, indeed, is the notion given us by Mela, Pliny,
      and Tacitus, of the vast countries round the Baltic. See in the
      Bibliotheque Raisonnee, tom. xl. and xlv. a large abstract of
      Dalin’s History of Sweden, composed in the Swedish language. *
      Note: Modern geologists have rejected this theory of the
      depression of the Baltic, as inconsistent with recent
      observation. The considerable changes which have taken place on
      its shores, Mr. Lyell, from actual observation now decidedly
      attributes to the regular and uniform elevation of the
      land.—Lyell’s Geology, b. ii. c. 17—M.]

      Some ingenious writers 2 have suspected that Europe was much
      colder formerly than it is at present; and the most ancient
      descriptions of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to
      confirm their theory. The general complaints of intense frost and
      eternal winter are perhaps little to be regarded, since we have
      no method of reducing to the accurate standard of the
      thermometer, the feelings, or the expressions, of an orator born
      in the happier regions of Greece or Asia. But I shall select two
      remarkable circumstances of a less equivocal nature. 1. The great
      rivers which covered the Roman provinces, the Rhine and the
      Danube, were frequently frozen over, and capable of supporting
      the most enormous weights. The barbarians, who often chose that
      severe season for their inroads, transported, without
      apprehension or danger, their numerous armies, their cavalry, and
      their heavy wagons, over a vast and solid bridge of ice. 3 Modern
      ages have not presented an instance of a like phenomenon. 2. The
      reindeer, that useful animal, from whom the savage of the North
      derives the best comforts of his dreary life, is of a
      constitution that supports, and even requires, the most intense
      cold. He is found on the rock of Spitzberg, within ten degrees of
      the Pole; he seems to delight in the snows of Lapland and
      Siberia: but at present he cannot subsist, much less multiply, in
      any country to the south of the Baltic. 4 In the time of Cæsar
      the reindeer, as well as the elk and the wild bull, was a native
      of the Hercynian forest, which then overshadowed a great part of
      Germany and Poland. 5 The modern improvements sufficiently
      explain the causes of the diminution of the cold. These immense
      woods have been gradually cleared, which intercepted from the
      earth the rays of the sun. 6 The morasses have been drained, and,
      in proportion as the soil has been cultivated, the air has become
      more temperate. Canada, at this day, is an exact picture of
      ancient Germany. Although situated in the same parallel with the
      finest provinces of France and England, that country experiences
      the most rigorous cold. The reindeer are very numerous, the
      ground is covered with deep and lasting snow, and the great river
      of St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season when the waters
      of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from ice. 7

      2 (return) [ In particular, Mr. Hume, the Abbé du Bos, and M.
      Pelloutier. Hist. des Celtes, tom. i.]

      3 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. v. p. 340, edit. Wessel.
      Herodian, l. vi. p. 221. Jornandes, c. 55. On the banks of the
      Danube, the wine, when brought to table, was frequently frozen
      into great lumps, frusta vini. Ovid. Epist. ex Ponto, l. iv. 7,
      9, 10. Virgil. Georgic. l. iii. 355. The fact is confirmed by a
      soldier and a philosopher, who had experienced the intense cold
      of Thrace. See Xenophon, Anabasis, l. vii. p. 560, edit.
      Hutchinson. Note: The Danube is constantly frozen over. At Pesth
      the bridge is usually taken up, and the traffic and communication
      between the two banks carried on over the ice. The Rhine is
      likewise in many parts passable at least two years out of five.
      Winter campaigns are so unusual, in modern warfare, that I
      recollect but one instance of an army crossing either river on
      the ice. In the thirty years’ war, (1635,) Jan van Werth, an
      Imperialist partisan, crossed the Rhine from Heidelberg on the
      ice with 5000 men, and surprised Spiers. Pichegru’s memorable
      campaign, (1794-5,) when the freezing of the Meuse and Waal
      opened Holland to his conquests, and his cavalry and artillery
      attacked the ships frozen in, on the Zuyder Zee, was in a winter
      of unprecedented severity.—M. 1845.]

      4 (return) [ Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. xii. p. 79, 116.]

      5 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 23, &c. The most
      inquisitive of the Germans were ignorant of its utmost limits,
      although some of them had travelled in it more than sixty days’
      journey. * Note: The passage of Cæsar, “parvis renonum tegumentis
      utuntur,” is obscure, observes Luden, (Geschichte des Teutschen
      Volkes,) and insufficient to prove the reindeer to have existed
      in Germany. It is supported however, by a fragment of Sallust.
      Germani intectum rhenonibus corpus tegunt.—M. It has been
      suggested to me that Cæsar (as old Gesner supposed) meant the
      reindeer in the following description. Est bos cervi figura cujus
      a media fronte inter aures unum cornu existit, excelsius magisque
      directum (divaricatum, qu?) his quæ nobis nota sunt cornibus. At
      ejus summo, sicut palmæ, rami quam late diffunduntur. Bell.
      vi.—M. 1845.]

      6 (return) [ Cluverius (Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 47)
      investigates the small and scattered remains of the Hercynian
      wood.]

      7 (return) [ Charlevoix, Histoire du Canada.]

      It is difficult to ascertain, and easy to exaggerate, the
      influence of the climate of ancient Germany over the minds and
      bodies of the natives. Many writers have supposed, and most have
      allowed, though, as it should seem, without any adequate proof,
      that the rigorous cold of the North was favorable to long life
      and generative vigor, that the women were more fruitful, and the
      human species more prolific, than in warmer or more temperate
      climates. 8 We may assert, with greater confidence, that the keen
      air of Germany formed the large and masculine limbs of the
      natives, who were, in general, of a more lofty stature than the
      people of the South, 9 gave them a kind of strength better
      adapted to violent exertions than to patient labor, and inspired
      them with constitutional bravery, which is the result of nerves
      and spirits. The severity of a winter campaign, that chilled the
      courage of the Roman troops, was scarcely felt by these hardy
      children of the North, 10 who, in their turn, were unable to
      resist the summer heats, and dissolved away in languor and
      sickness under the beams of an Italian sun. 11

      8 (return) [ Olaus Rudbeck asserts that the Swedish women often
      bear ten or twelve children, and not uncommonly twenty or thirty;
      but the authority of Rudbeck is much to be suspected.]

      9 (return) [ In hos artus, in hæc corpora, quæ miramur,
      excrescunt. Tæit Germania, 3, 20. Cluver. l. i. c. 14.]

      10 (return) [ Plutarch. in Mario. The Cimbri, by way of
      amusement, often did down mountains of snow on their broad
      shields.]

      11 (return) [ The Romans made war in all climates, and by their
      excellent discipline were in a great measure preserved in health
      and vigor. It may be remarked, that man is the only animal which
      can live and multiply in every country from the equator to the
      poles. The hog seems to approach the nearest to our species in
      that privilege.]




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

      There is not anywhere upon the globe a large tract of country,
      which we have discovered destitute of inhabitants, or whose first
      population can be fixed with any degree of historical certainty.
      And yet, as the most philosophic minds can seldom refrain from
      investigating the infancy of great nations, our curiosity
      consumes itself in toilsome and disappointed efforts. When
      Tacitus considered the purity of the German blood, and the
      forbidding aspect of the country, he was disposed to pronounce
      those barbarians _Indigenæ_, or natives of the soil. We may allow
      with safety, and perhaps with truth, that ancient Germany was not
      originally peopled by any foreign colonies already formed into a
      political society; 12 but that the name and nation received their
      existence from the gradual union of some wandering savages of the
      Hercynian woods. To assert those savages to have been the
      spontaneous production of the earth which they inhabited would be
      a rash inference, condemned by religion, and unwarranted by
      reason.

      12 (return) [ Facit. Germ. c. 3. The emigration of the Gauls
      followed the course of the Danube, and discharged itself on
      Greece and Asia. Tacitus could discover only one inconsiderable
      tribe that retained any traces of a Gallic origin. * Note: The
      Gothini, who must not be confounded with the Gothi, a Suevian
      tribe. In the time of Cæsar many other tribes of Gaulish origin
      dwelt along the course of the Danube, who could not long resist
      the attacks of the Suevi. The Helvetians, who dwelt on the
      borders of the Black Forest, between the Maine and the Danube,
      had been expelled long before the time of Cæsar. He mentions also
      the Volci Tectosagi, who came from Languedoc and settled round
      the Black Forest. The Boii, who had penetrated into that forest,
      and also have left traces of their name in Bohemia, were subdued
      in the first century by the Marcomanni. The Boii settled in
      Noricum, were mingled afterwards with the Lombards, and received
      the name of Boio Arii (Bavaria) or Boiovarii: var, in some German
      dialects, appearing to mean remains, descendants. Compare Malte
      B-m, Geography, vol. i. p. 410, edit 1832—M.]

      Such rational doubt is but ill suited with the genius of popular
      vanity. Among the nations who have adopted the Mosaic history of
      the world, the ark of Noah has been of the same use, as was
      formerly to the Greeks and Romans the siege of Troy. On a narrow
      basis of acknowledged truth, an immense but rude superstructure
      of fable has been erected; and the wild Irishman, 13 as well as
      the wild Tartar, 14 could point out the individual son of Japhet,
      from whose loins his ancestors were lineally descended. The last
      century abounded with antiquarians of profound learning and easy
      faith, who, by the dim light of legends and traditions, of
      conjectures and etymologies, conducted the great grandchildren of
      Noah from the Tower of Babel to the extremities of the globe. Of
      these judicious critics, one of the most entertaining was Olaus
      Rudbeck, professor in the university of Upsal. 15 Whatever is
      celebrated either in history or fable this zealous patriot
      ascribes to his country. From Sweden (which formed so
      considerable a part of ancient Germany) the Greeks themselves
      derived their alphabetical characters, their astronomy, and their
      religion. Of that delightful region (for such it appeared to the
      eyes of a native) the Atlantis of Plato, the country of the
      Hyperboreans, the gardens of the Hesperides, the Fortunate
      Islands, and even the Elysian Fields, were all but faint and
      imperfect transcripts. A clime so profusely favored by Nature
      could not long remain desert after the flood. The learned Rudbeck
      allows the family of Noah a few years to multiply from eight to
      about twenty thousand persons. He then disperses them into small
      colonies to replenish the earth, and to propagate the human
      species. The German or Swedish detachment (which marched, if I am
      not mistaken, under the command of Askenaz, the son of Gomer, the
      son of Japhet) distinguished itself by a more than common
      diligence in the prosecution of this great work. The northern
      hive cast its swarms over the greatest part of Europe, Africa,
      and Asia; and (to use the author’s metaphor) the blood circulated
      from the extremities to the heart.

      13 (return) [ According to Dr. Keating, (History of Ireland, p.
      13, 14,) the giant Portholanus, who was the son of Seara, the son
      of Esra, the son of Sru, the son of Framant, the son of
      Fathaclan, the son of Magog, the son of Japhet, the son of Noah,
      landed on the coast of Munster the 14th day of May, in the year
      of the world one thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight. Though
      he succeeded in his great enterprise, the loose behavior of his
      wife rendered his domestic life very unhappy, and provoked him to
      such a degree, that he killed—her favorite greyhound. This, as
      the learned historian very properly observes, was the first
      instance of female falsehood and infidelity ever known in
      Ireland.]

      14 (return) [ Genealogical History of the Tartars, by Abulghazi
      Bahadur Khan.]

      15 (return) [ His work, entitled Atlantica, is uncommonly scarce.
      Bayle has given two most curious extracts from it. Republique des
      Lettres Janvier et Fevrier, 1685.]

      But all this well-labored system of German antiquities is
      annihilated by a single fact, too well attested to admit of any
      doubt, and of too decisive a nature to leave room for any reply.
      The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, were unacquainted with the
      use of letters; 16 and the use of letters is the principal
      circumstance that distinguishes a civilized people from a herd of
      savages incapable of knowledge or reflection. Without that
      artificial help, the human memory soon dissipates or corrupts the
      ideas intrusted to her charge; and the nobler faculties of the
      mind, no longer supplied with models or with materials, gradually
      forget their powers; the judgment becomes feeble and lethargic,
      the imagination languid or irregular. Fully to apprehend this
      important truth, let us attempt, in an improved society, to
      calculate the immense distance between the man of learning and
      the _illiterate_ peasant. The former, by reading and reflection,
      multiplies his own experience, and lives in distant ages and
      remote countries; whilst the latter, rooted to a single spot, and
      confined to a few years of existence, surpasses but very little
      his fellow-laborer, the ox, in the exercise of his mental
      faculties. The same, and even a greater, difference will be found
      between nations than between individuals; and we may safely
      pronounce, that without some species of writing, no people has
      ever preserved the faithful annals of their history, ever made
      any considerable progress in the abstract sciences, or ever
      possessed, in any tolerable degree of perfection, the useful and
      agreeable arts of life.

      16 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. ii. 19. Literarum secreta viri pariter
      ac fœminæ ignorant. We may rest contented with this decisive
      authority, without entering into the obscure disputes concerning
      the antiquity of the Runic characters. The learned Celsius, a
      Swede, a scholar, and a philosopher, was of opinion, that they
      were nothing more than the Roman letters, with the curves changed
      into straight lines for the ease of engraving. See Pelloutier,
      Histoire des Celtes, l. ii. c. 11. Dictionnaire Diplomatique,
      tom. i. p. 223. We may add, that the oldest Runic inscriptions
      are supposed to be of the third century, and the most ancient
      writer who mentions the Runic characters is Venan tius
      Frotunatus, (Carm. vii. 18,) who lived towards the end of the
      sixth century. Barbara fraxineis pingatur Runa tabellis. * Note:
      The obscure subject of the Runic characters has exercised the
      industry and ingenuity of the modern scholars of the north. There
      are three distinct theories; one, maintained by Schlozer,
      (Nordische Geschichte, p. 481, &c.,) who considers their sixteen
      letters to be a corruption of the Roman alphabet, post-Christian
      in their date, and Schlozer would attribute their introduction
      into the north to the Alemanni. The second, that of Frederick
      Schlegel, (Vorlesungen uber alte und neue Literatur,) supposes
      that these characters were left on the coasts of the
      Mediterranean and Northern Seas by the Phœnicians, preserved by
      the priestly castes, and employed for purposes of magic. Their
      common origin from the Phœnician would account for heir
      similarity to the Roman letters. The last, to which we incline,
      claims much higher and more venerable antiquity for the Runic,
      and supposes them to have been the original characters of the
      Indo-Teutonic tribes, brought from the East, and preserved among
      the different races of that stock. See Ueber Deutsche Runen von
      W. C. Grimm, 1821. A Memoir by Dr. Legis. Fundgruben des alten
      Nordens. Foreign Quarterly Review vol. ix. p. 438.—M.]

      Of these arts, the ancient Germans were wretchedly destitute.
      1601 They passed their lives in a state of ignorance and poverty,
      which it has pleased some declaimers to dignify with the
      appellation of virtuous simplicity. Modern Germany is said to
      contain about two thousand three hundred walled towns. 17 In a
      much wider extent of country, the geographer Ptolemy could
      discover no more than ninety places which he decorates with the
      name of cities; 18 though, according to our ideas, they would but
      ill deserve that splendid title. We can only suppose them to have
      been rude fortifications, constructed in the centre of the woods,
      and designed to secure the women, children, and cattle, whilst
      the warriors of the tribe marched out to repel a sudden invasion.
      19 But Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans,
      in his time, had _no_ cities; 20 and that they affected to
      despise the works of Roman industry, as places of confinement
      rather than of security. 21 Their edifices were not even
      contiguous, or formed into regular villas; 22 each barbarian
      fixed his independent dwelling on the spot to which a plain, a
      wood, or a stream of fresh water, had induced him to give the
      preference. Neither stone, nor brick, nor tiles, were employed in
      these slight habitations. 23 They were indeed no more than low
      huts, of a circular figure, built of rough timber, thatched with
      straw, and pierced at the top to leave a free passage for the
      smoke. In the most inclement winter, the hardy German was
      satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal.
      The nations who dwelt towards the North clothed themselves in
      furs; and the women manufactured for their own use a coarse kind
      of linen. 24 The game of various sorts, with which the forests of
      Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied its inhabitants with
      food and exercise. 25 Their monstrous herds of cattle, less
      remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their utility, 26
      formed the principal object of their wealth. A small quantity of
      corn was the only produce exacted from the earth; the use of
      orchards or artificial meadows was unknown to the Germans; nor
      can we expect any improvements in agriculture from a people,
      whose prosperity every year experienced a general change by a new
      division of the arable lands, and who, in that strange operation,
      avoided disputes, by suffering a great part of their territory to
      lie waste and without tillage. 27

      1601 (return) [ Luden (the author of the Geschichte des Teutschen
      Volkes) has surpassed most writers in his patriotic enthusiasm
      for the virtues and noble manners of his ancestors. Even the cold
      of the climate, and the want of vines and fruit trees, as well as
      the barbarism of the inhabitants, are calumnies of the luxurious
      Italians. M. Guizot, on the other side, (in his Histoire de la
      Civilisation, vol. i. p. 272, &c.,) has drawn a curious parallel
      between the Germans of Tacitus and the North American
      Indians.—M.]

      17 (return) [ Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains, tom.
      iii. p. 228. The author of that very curious work is, if I am not
      misinformed, a German by birth. (De Pauw.)]

      18 (return) [ The Alexandrian Geographer is often criticized by
      the accurate Cluverius.]

      19 (return) [ See Cæsar, and the learned Mr. Whitaker in his
      History of Manchester, vol. i.]

      20 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 15.]

      21 (return) [ When the Germans commanded the Ubii of Cologne to
      cast off the Roman yoke, and with their new freedom to resume
      their ancient manners, they insisted on the immediate demolition
      of the walls of the colony. “Postulamus a vobis, muros coloniæ,
      munimenta servitii, detrahatis; etiam fera animalia, si clausa
      teneas, virtutis obliviscuntur.” Tacit. Hist. iv. 64.]

      22 (return) [ The straggling villages of Silesia are several
      miles in length. See Cluver. l. i. c. 13.]

      23 (return) [ One hundred and forty years after Tacitus, a few
      more regular structures were erected near the Rhine and Danube.
      Herodian, l. vii. p. 234.]

      24 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 17.]

      25 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 5.]

      26 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gall. vi. 21.]

      27 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 26. Cæsar, vi. 22.]

      Gold, silver, and iron, were extremely scarce in Germany. Its
      barbarous inhabitants wanted both skill and patience to
      investigate those rich veins of silver, which have so liberally
      rewarded the attention of the princes of Brunswick and Saxony.
      Sweden, which now supplies Europe with iron, was equally ignorant
      of its own riches; and the appearance of the arms of the Germans
      furnished a sufficient proof how little iron they were able to
      bestow on what they must have deemed the noblest use of that
      metal. The various transactions of peace and war had introduced
      some Roman coins (chiefly silver) among the borderers of the
      Rhine and Danube; but the more distant tribes were absolutely
      unacquainted with the use of money, carried on their confined
      traffic by the exchange of commodities, and prized their rude
      earthen vessels as of equal value with the silver vases, the
      presents of Rome to their princes and ambassadors. 28 To a mind
      capable of reflection, such leading facts convey more
      instruction, than a tedious detail of subordinate circumstances.
      The value of money has been settled by general consent to express
      our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express
      our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active
      energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have
      contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to
      represent. The use of gold and silver is in a great measure
      factitious; but it would be impossible to enumerate the important
      and various services which agriculture, and all the arts, have
      received from iron, when tempered and fashioned by the operation
      of fire and the dexterous hand of man. Money, in a word, is the
      most universal incitement, iron the most powerful instrument, of
      human industry; and it is very difficult to conceive by what
      means a people, neither actuated by the one, nor seconded by the
      other, could emerge from the grossest barbarism. 29

      28 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 6.]

      29 (return) [ It is said that the Mexicans and Peruvians, without
      the use of either money or iron, had made a very great progress
      in the arts. Those arts, and the monuments they produced, have
      been strangely magnified. See Recherches sur les Americains, tom.
      ii. p. 153, &c]

      If we contemplate a savage nation in any part of the globe, a
      supine indolence and a carelessness of futurity will be found to
      constitute their general character. In a civilized state every
      faculty of man is expanded and exercised; and the great chain of
      mutual dependence connects and embraces the several members of
      society. The most numerous portion of it is employed in constant
      and useful labor. The select few, placed by fortune above that
      necessity, can, however, fill up their time by the pursuits of
      interest or glory, by the improvement of their estate or of their
      understanding, by the duties, the pleasures, and even the follies
      of social life. The Germans were not possessed of these varied
      resources. The care of the house and family, the management of
      the land and cattle, were delegated to the old and the infirm, to
      women and slaves. The lazy warrior, destitute of every art that
      might employ his leisure hours, consumed his days and nights in
      the animal gratifications of sleep and food. And yet, by a
      wonderful diversity of nature, (according to the remark of a
      writer who had pierced into its darkest recesses,) the same
      barbarians are by turns the most indolent and the most restless
      of mankind. They delight in sloth, they detest tranquility. 30
      The languid soul, oppressed with its own weight, anxiously
      required some new and powerful sensation; and war and danger were
      the only amusements adequate to its fierce temper. The sound that
      summoned the German to arms was grateful to his ear. It roused
      him from his uncomfortable lethargy, gave him an active pursuit,
      and, by strong exercise of the body, and violent emotions of the
      mind, restored him to a more lively sense of his existence. In
      the dull intervals of peace, these barbarians were immoderately
      addicted to deep gaming and excessive drinking; both of which, by
      different means, the one by inflaming their passions, the other
      by extinguishing their reason, alike relieved them from the pain
      of thinking. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at
      table; and the blood of friends and relations often stained their
      numerous and drunken assemblies. 31 Their debts of honor (for in
      that light they have transmitted to us those of play) they
      discharged with the most romantic fidelity. The desperate
      gamester, who had staked his person and liberty on a last throw
      of the dice, patiently submitted to the decision of fortune, and
      suffered himself to be bound, chastised, and sold into remote
      slavery, by his weaker but more lucky antagonist. 32

      30 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 15.]

      31 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 22, 23.]

      32 (return) [ Id. 24. The Germans might borrow the arts of play
      from the Romans, but the passion is wonderfully inherent in the
      human species.]

      Strong beer, a liquor extracted with very little art from wheat
      or barley, and _corrupted_ (as it is strongly expressed by
      Tacitus) into a certain semblance of wine, was sufficient for the
      gross purposes of German debauchery. But those who had tasted the
      rich wines of Italy, and afterwards of Gaul, sighed for that more
      delicious species of intoxication. They attempted not, however,
      (as has since been executed with so much success,) to naturalize
      the vine on the banks of the Rhine and Danube; nor did they
      endeavor to procure by industry the materials of an advantageous
      commerce. To solicit by labor what might be ravished by arms, was
      esteemed unworthy of the German spirit. 33 The intemperate thirst
      of strong liquors often urged the barbarians to invade the
      provinces on which art or nature had bestowed those much envied
      presents. The Tuscan who betrayed his country to the Celtic
      nations, attracted them into Italy by the prospect of the rich
      fruits and delicious wines, the productions of a happier climate.
      34 And in the same manner the German auxiliaries, invited into
      France during the civil wars of the sixteenth century, were
      allured by the promise of plenteous quarters in the provinces of
      Champaigne and Burgundy. 35 Drunkenness, the most illiberal, but
      not the most dangerous of _our_ vices, was sometimes capable, in
      a less civilized state of mankind, of occasioning a battle, a
      war, or a revolution.

      33 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 14.]

      34 (return) [ Plutarch. in Camillo. T. Liv. v. 33.]

      35 (return) [ Dubos. Hist. de la Monarchie Francoise, tom. i. p.
      193.]

      The climate of ancient Germany has been modified, and the soil
      fertilized, by the labor of ten centuries from the time of
      Charlemagne. The same extent of ground which at present
      maintains, in ease and plenty, a million of husbandmen and
      artificers, was unable to supply a hundred thousand lazy warriors
      with the simple necessaries of life. 36 The Germans abandoned
      their immense forests to the exercise of hunting, employed in
      pasturage the most considerable part of their lands, bestowed on
      the small remainder a rude and careless cultivation, and then
      accused the scantiness and sterility of a country that refused to
      maintain the multitude of its inhabitants. When the return of
      famine severely admonished them of the importance of the arts,
      the national distress was sometimes alleviated by the emigration
      of a third, perhaps, or a fourth part of their youth. 37 The
      possession and the enjoyment of property are the pledges which
      bind a civilized people to an improved country. But the Germans,
      who carried with them what they most valued, their arms, their
      cattle, and their women, cheerfully abandoned the vast silence of
      their woods for the unbounded hopes of plunder and conquest. The
      innumerable swarms that issued, or seemed to issue, from the
      great storehouse of nations, were multiplied by the fears of the
      vanquished, and by the credulity of succeeding ages. And from
      facts thus exaggerated, an opinion was gradually established, and
      has been supported by writers of distinguished reputation, that,
      in the age of Cæsar and Tacitus, the inhabitants of the North
      were far more numerous than they are in our days. 38 A more
      serious inquiry into the causes of population seems to have
      convinced modern philosophers of the falsehood, and indeed the
      impossibility, of the supposition. To the names of Mariana and of
      Machiavel, 39 we can oppose the equal names of Robertson and
      Hume. 40

      36 (return) [ The Helvetian nation, which issued from a country
      called Switzerland, contained, of every age and sex, 368,000
      persons, (Cæsar de Bell. Gal. i. 29.) At present, the number of
      people in the Pays de Vaud (a small district on the banks of the
      Leman Lake, much more distinguished for politeness than for
      industry) amounts to 112,591. See an excellent tract of M. Muret,
      in the Memoires de la Societe de Born.]

      37 (return) [ Paul Diaconus, c. 1, 2, 3. Machiavel, Davila, and
      the rest of Paul’s followers, represent these emigrations too
      much as regular and concerted measures.]

      38 (return) [ Sir William Temple and Montesquieu have indulged,
      on this subject, the usual liveliness of their fancy.]

      39 (return) [ Machiavel, Hist. di Firenze, l. i. Mariana, Hist.
      Hispan. l. v. c. 1]

      40 (return) [ Robertson’s Charles V. Hume’s Political Essays.
      Note: It is a wise observation of Malthus, that these nations
      “were not populous in proportion to the land they occupied, but
      to the food they produced.” They were prolific from their pure
      morals and constitutions, but their institutions were not
      calculated to produce food for those whom they brought into
      being.—M—1845.]

      A warlike nation like the Germans, without either cities,
      letters, arts, or money, found some compensation for this savage
      state in the enjoyment of liberty. Their poverty secured their
      freedom, since our desires and our possessions are the strongest
      fetters of despotism. “Among the Suiones (says Tacitus) riches
      are held in honor. They are _therefore_ subject to an absolute
      monarch, who, instead of intrusting his people with the free use
      of arms, as is practised in the rest of Germany, commits them to
      the safe custody, not of a citizen, or even of a freedman, but of
      a slave. The neighbors of the Suiones, the Sitones, are sunk even
      below servitude; they obey a woman.” 41 In the mention of these
      exceptions, the great historian sufficiently acknowledges the
      general theory of government. We are only at a loss to conceive
      by what means riches and despotism could penetrate into a remote
      corner of the North, and extinguish the generous flame that
      blazed with such fierceness on the frontier of the Roman
      provinces, or how the ancestors of those Danes and Norwegians, so
      distinguished in latter ages by their unconquered spirit, could
      thus tamely resign the great character of German liberty. 42 Some
      tribes, however, on the coast of the Baltic, acknowledged the
      authority of kings, though without relinquishing the rights of
      men, 43 but in the far greater part of Germany, the form of
      government was a democracy, tempered, indeed, and controlled, not
      so much by general and positive laws, as by the occasional
      ascendant of birth or valor, of eloquence or superstition. 44

      41 (return) [ Tacit. German. 44, 45. Freinshemius (who dedicated
      his supplement to Livy to Christina of Sweden) thinks proper to
      be very angry with the Roman who expressed so very little
      reverence for Northern queens. Note: The Suiones and the Sitones
      are the ancient inhabitants of Scandinavia, their name may be
      traced in that of Sweden; they did not belong to the race of the
      Suevi, but that of the non-Suevi or Cimbri, whom the Suevi, in
      very remote times, drove back part to the west, part to the
      north; they were afterwards mingled with Suevian tribes, among
      others the Goths, who have traces of their name and power in the
      isle of Gothland.—G]

      42 (return) [May we not suspect that superstition was the parent
      of despotism? The descendants of Odin, (whose race was not
      extinct till the year 1060) are said to have reigned in Sweden
      above a thousand years. The temple of Upsal was the ancient seat
      of religion and empire. In the year 1153 I find a singular law,
      prohibiting the use and profession of arms to any except the
      king’s guards. Is it not probable that it was colored by the
      pretence of reviving an old institution? See Dalin’s History of
      Sweden in the Bibliotheque Raisonneo tom. xl. and xlv.]

      43 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. c. 43.]

      44 (return) [ Id. c. 11, 12, 13, & c.]

      Civil governments, in their first institution, are voluntary
      associations for mutual defence. To obtain the desired end, it is
      absolutely necessary that each individual should conceive himself
      obliged to submit his private opinions and actions to the
      judgment of the greater number of his associates. The German
      tribes were contented with this rude but liberal outline of
      political society. As soon as a youth, born of free parents, had
      attained the age of manhood, he was introduced into the general
      council of his countrymen, solemnly invested with a shield and
      spear, and adopted as an equal and worthy member of the military
      commonwealth. The assembly of the warriors of the tribe was
      convened at stated seasons, or on sudden emergencies. The trial
      of public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great
      business of peace and war, were determined by its independent
      voice. Sometimes indeed, these important questions were
      previously considered and prepared in a more select council of
      the principal chieftains. 45 The magistrates might deliberate and
      persuade, the people only could resolve and execute; and the
      resolutions of the Germans were for the most part hasty and
      violent. Barbarians accustomed to place their freedom in
      gratifying the present passion, and their courage in overlooking
      all future consequences, turned away with indignant contempt from
      the remonstrances of justice and policy, and it was the practice
      to signify by a hollow murmur their dislike of such timid
      counsels. But whenever a more popular orator proposed to
      vindicate the meanest citizen from either foreign or domestic
      injury, whenever he called upon his fellow-countrymen to assert
      the national honor, or to pursue some enterprise full of danger
      and glory, a loud clashing of shields and spears expressed the
      eager applause of the assembly. For the Germans always met in
      arms, and it was constantly to be dreaded, lest an irregular
      multitude, inflamed with faction and strong liquors, should use
      those arms to enforce, as well as to declare, their furious
      resolves. We may recollect how often the diets of Poland have
      been polluted with blood, and the more numerous party has been
      compelled to yield to the more violent and seditious. 46

      45 (return) [ Grotius changes an expression of Tacitus,
      pertractantur into Prætractantur. The correction is equally just
      and ingenious.]

      46 (return) [ Even in our ancient parliament, the barons often
      carried a question, not so much by the number of votes, as by
      that of their armed followers.]

      A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and,
      if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes
      concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior
      was named to lead his countrymen into the field, by his example
      rather than by his commands. But this power, however limited, was
      still invidious. It expired with the war, and in time of peace
      the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. 47
      _Princes_ were, however, appointed, in the general assembly, to
      administer justice, or rather to compose differences, 48 in their
      respective districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as much
      regard was shown to birth as to merit. 49 To each was assigned,
      by the public, a guard, and a council of a hundred persons, and
      the first of the princes appears to have enjoyed a preeminence of
      rank and honor which sometimes tempted the Romans to compliment
      him with the regal title. 50

      47 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gal. vi. 23.]

      48 (return) [ Minuunt controversias, is a very happy expression
      of Cæsar’s.]

      49 (return) [ Reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt. Tacit
      Germ. 7]

      50 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Ant. l. i. c. 38.]

      The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two
      remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole
      system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property
      within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and
      they distributed it every year according to a new division. 51 At
      the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to
      imprison, or even to strike a private citizen. 52 A people thus
      jealous of their persons, and careless of their possessions, must
      have been totally destitute of industry and the arts, but
      animated with a high sense of honor and independence.

      51 (return) [ Cæsar, vi. 22. Tacit Germ. 26.]

      52 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 7.]




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

      The Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on
      themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted with disdain the
      authority of the magistrates. “The noblest youths blushed not to
      be numbered among the faithful companions of some renowned chief,
      to whom they devoted their arms and service. A noble emulation
      prevailed among the companions to obtain the first place in the
      esteem of their chief; amongst the chiefs, to acquire the
      greatest number of valiant companions. To be ever surrounded by a
      band of select youths was the pride and strength of the chiefs,
      their ornament in peace, their defence in war. The glory of such
      distinguished heroes diffused itself beyond the narrow limits of
      their own tribe. Presents and embassies solicited their
      friendship, and the fame of their arms often insured victory to
      the party which they espoused. In the hour of danger it was
      shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his
      companions; shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of
      their chief. To survive his fall in battle was indelible infamy.
      To protect his person, and to adorn his glory with the trophies
      of their own exploits, were the most sacred of their duties. The
      chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief. The
      noblest warriors, whenever their native country was sunk into the
      laziness of peace, maintained their numerous bands in some
      distant scene of action, to exercise their restless spirit, and
      to acquire renown by voluntary dangers. Gifts worthy of
      soldiers—the warlike steed, the bloody and ever victorious
      lance—were the rewards which the companions claimed from the
      liberality of their chief. The rude plenty of his hospitable
      board was the only pay that _he_ could bestow, or _they_ would
      accept. War, rapine, and the free-will offerings of his friends,
      supplied the materials of this munificence.” 53 This institution,
      however it might accidentally weaken the several republics,
      invigorated the general character of the Germans, and even
      ripened amongst them all the virtues of which barbarians are
      susceptible; the faith and valor, the hospitality and the
      courtesy, so conspicuous long afterwards in the ages of chivalry.

      The honorable gifts, bestowed by the chief on his brave
      companions, have been supposed, by an ingenious writer, to
      contain the first rudiments of the fiefs, distributed after the
      conquest of the Roman provinces, by the barbarian lords among
      their vassals, with a similar duty of homage and military
      service. 54 These conditions are, however, very repugnant to the
      maxims of the ancient Germans, who delighted in mutual presents,
      but without either imposing, or accepting, the weight of
      obligations. 55

      53 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. 13, 14.]

      54 (return) [ Esprit des Loix, l. xxx. c. 3. The brilliant
      imagination of Montesquieu is corrected, however, by the dry,
      cold reason of the Abbé de Mably. Observations sur l’Histoire de
      France, tom. i. p. 356.]

      55 (return) [ Gaudent muneribus, sed nec data imputant, nec
      acceptis obligautur. Tacit. Germ. c. 21.]

      “In the days of chivalry, or more properly of romance, all the
      men were brave and all the women were chaste;” and
      notwithstanding the latter of these virtues is acquired and
      preserved with much more difficulty than the former, it is
      ascribed, almost without exception, to the wives of the ancient
      Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes, and
      among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances.
      Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws.
      Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was
      seduction justified by example and fashion. 56 We may easily
      discover that Tacitus indulges an honest pleasure in the contrast
      of barbarian virtue with the dissolute conduct of the Roman
      ladies; yet there are some striking circumstances that give an
      air of truth, or at least probability, to the conjugal faith and
      chastity of the Germans.

      56 (return) [ The adulteress was whipped through the village.
      Neither wealth nor beauty could inspire compassion, or procure
      her a second husband. 18, 19.]

      Although the progress of civilization has undoubtedly contributed
      to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have
      been less favorable to the virtue of chastity, whose most
      dangerous enemy is the softness of the mind. The refinements of
      life corrupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The
      gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is
      elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sentimental passion.
      The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners, gives a lustre
      to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination.
      Luxurious entertainments, midnight dances, and licentious
      spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female
      frailty. 57 From such dangers the unpolished wives of the
      barbarians were secured by poverty, solitude, and the painful
      cares of a domestic life. The German huts, open, on every side,
      to the eye of indiscretion or jealousy, were a better safeguard
      of conjugal fidelity than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs
      of a Persian harem. To this reason another may be added of a more
      honorable nature. The Germans treated their women with esteem and
      confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and
      fondly believed, that in their breasts resided a sanctity and
      wisdom more than human. Some of the interpreters of fate, such as
      Velleda, in the Batavian war, governed, in the name of the deity,
      the fiercest nations of Germany. 58 The rest of the sex, without
      being adored as goddesses, were respected as the free and equal
      companions of soldiers; associated even by the marriage ceremony
      to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. 59 In their great
      invasions, the camps of the barbarians were filled with a
      multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the
      sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the
      honorable wounds of their sons and husbands. 60 Fainting armies
      of Germans have, more than once, been driven back upon the enemy
      by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less
      than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew
      how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own
      hands, from an insulting victor. 61 Heroines of such a cast may
      claim our admiration; but they were most assuredly neither lovely
      nor very susceptible of love. Whilst they affected to emulate the
      stern virtues of _man_, they must have resigned that attractive
      softness in which principally consist the charm and weakness of
      _woman_. Conscious pride taught the German females to suppress
      every tender emotion that stood in competition with honor, and
      the first honor of the sex has ever been that of chastity. The
      sentiments and conduct of these high-spirited matrons may, at
      once, be considered as a cause, as an effect, and as a proof of
      the general character of the nation. Female courage, however it
      may be raised by fanaticism, or confirmed by habit, can be only a
      faint and imperfect imitation of the manly valor that
      distinguishes the age or country in which it may be found.

      57 (return) [ Ovid employs two hundred lines in the research of
      places the most favorable to love. Above all, he considers the
      theatre as the best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and
      to melt them into tenderness and sensuality,]

      58 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. iv. 61, 65.]

      59 (return) [ The marriage present was a yoke of oxen, horses,
      and arms. See Germ. c. 18. Tacitus is somewhat too florid on the
      subject.]

      60 (return) [ The change of exigere into exugere is a most
      excellent correction.]

      61 (return) [ Tacit. Germ. c. 7. Plutarch in Mario. Before the
      wives of the Teutones destroyed themselves and their children,
      they had offered to surrender, on condition that they should be
      received as the slaves of the vestal virgins.]

      The religious system of the Germans (if the wild opinions of
      savages can deserve that name) was dictated by their wants, their
      fears, and their ignorance. 62 They adored the great visible
      objects and agents of nature, the Sun and the Moon, the Fire and
      the Earth; together with those imaginary deities, who were
      supposed to preside over the most important occupations of human
      life. They were persuaded, that, by some ridiculous arts of
      divination, they could discover the will of the superior beings,
      and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable
      offering to their altars. Some applause has been hastily bestowed
      on the sublime notion, entertained by that people, of the Deity,
      whom they neither confined within the walls of the temple, nor
      represented by any human figure; but when we recollect, that the
      Germans were unskilled in architecture, and totally unacquainted
      with the art of sculpture, we shall readily assign the true
      reason of a scruple, which arose not so much from a superiority
      of reason, as from a want of ingenuity. The only temples in
      Germany were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the
      reverence of succeeding generations. Their secret gloom, the
      imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no
      distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a
      still deeper sense of religious horror; 63 and the priests, rude
      and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the
      use of every artifice that could preserve and fortify impressions
      so well suited to their own interest.

      62 (return) [ Tacitus has employed a few lines, and Cluverius one
      hundred and twenty-four pages, on this obscure subject. The
      former discovers in Germany the gods of Greece and Rome. The
      latter is positive, that, under the emblems of the sun, the moon,
      and the fire, his pious ancestors worshipped the Trinity in
      unity]

      63 (return) [ The sacred wood, described with such sublime horror
      by Lucan, was in the neighborhood of Marseilles; but there were
      many of the same kind in Germany. * Note: The ancient Germans had
      shapeless idols, and, when they began to build more settled
      habitations, they raised also temples, such as that to the
      goddess Teufana, who presided over divination. See Adelung, Hist.
      of Ane Germans, p 296—G]

      The same ignorance, which renders barbarians incapable of
      conceiving or embracing the useful restraints of laws, exposes
      them naked and unarmed to the blind terrors of superstition. The
      German priests, improving this favorable temper of their
      countrymen, had assumed a jurisdiction even in temporal concerns,
      which the magistrate could not venture to exercise; and the
      haughty warrior patiently submitted to the lash of correction,
      when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the
      immediate order of the god of war. 64 The defects of civil policy
      were sometimes supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical
      authority. The latter was constantly exerted to maintain silence
      and decency in the popular assemblies; and was sometimes extended
      to a more enlarged concern for the national welfare. A solemn
      procession was occasionally celebrated in the present countries
      of Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The unknown symbol of the _Earth_,
      covered with a thick veil, was placed on a carriage drawn by
      cows; and in this manner the goddess, whose common residence was
      in the Isles of Rugen, visited several adjacent tribes of her
      worshippers. During her progress the sound of war was hushed,
      quarrels were suspended, arms laid aside, and the restless
      Germans had an opportunity of tasting the blessings of peace and
      harmony. 65 The _truce of God_, so often and so ineffectually
      proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh century, was an obvious
      imitation of this ancient custom. 66

      64 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 7.]

      65 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 40.]

      66 (return) [ See Dr. Robertson’s History of Charles V. vol. i.
      note 10.]

      But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame,
      than to moderate, the fierce passions of the Germans. Interest
      and fanaticism often prompted its ministers to sanctify the most
      daring and the most unjust enterprises, by the approbation of
      Heaven, and full assurances of success. The consecrated
      standards, long revered in the groves of superstition, were
      placed in the front of the battle; 67 and the hostile army was
      devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder.
      68 In the faith of soldiers (and such were the Germans) cowardice
      is the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy
      favorite of their martial deities; the wretch who had lost his
      shield was alike banished from the religious and civil assemblies
      of his countrymen. Some tribes of the north seem to have embraced
      the doctrine of transmigration, 69 others imagined a gross
      paradise of immortal drunkenness. 70 All agreed that a life spent
      in arms, and a glorious death in battle, were the best
      preparations for a happy futurity, either in this or in another
      world.

      67 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 7. These standards were only
      the heads of wild beasts.]

      68 (return) [ See an instance of this custom, Tacit. Annal. xiii.
      57.]

      69 (return) [ Cæsar Diodorus, and Lucan, seem to ascribe this
      doctrine to the Gauls, but M. Pelloutier (Histoire des Celtes, l.
      iii. c. 18) labors to reduce their expressions to a more orthodox
      sense.]

      70 (return) [ Concerning this gross but alluring doctrine of the
      Edda, see Fable xx. in the curious version of that book,
      published by M. Mallet, in his Introduction to the History of
      Denmark.]

      The immortality so vainly promised by the priests, was, in some
      degree, conferred by the bards. That singular order of men has
      most deservedly attracted the notice of all who have attempted to
      investigate the antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and
      the Germans. Their genius and character, as well as the reverence
      paid to that important office, have been sufficiently
      illustrated. But we cannot so easily express, or even conceive,
      the enthusiasm of arms and glory which they kindled in the breast
      of their audience. Among a polished people a taste for poetry is
      rather an amusement of the fancy than a passion of the soul. And
      yet, when in calm retirement we peruse the combats described by
      Homer or Tasso, we are insensibly seduced by the fiction, and
      feel a momentary glow of martial ardor. But how faint, how cold
      is the sensation which a peaceful mind can receive from solitary
      study! It was in the hour of battle, or in the feast of victory,
      that the bards celebrated the glory of the heroes of ancient
      days, the ancestors of those warlike chieftains, who listened
      with transport to their artless but animated strains. The view of
      arms and of danger heightened the effect of the military song;
      and the passions which it tended to excite, the desire of fame,
      and the contempt of death, were the habitual sentiments of a
      German mind. 71 711

      71 (return) [ See Tacit. Germ. c. 3. Diod. Sicul. l. v. Strabo,
      l. iv. p. 197. The classical reader may remember the rank of
      Demodocus in the Phæacian court, and the ardor infused by Tyrtæus
      into the fainting Spartans. Yet there is little probability that
      the Greeks and the Germans were the same people. Much learned
      trifling might be spared, if our antiquarians would condescend to
      reflect, that similar manners will naturally be produced by
      similar situations.]

      711 (return) [ Besides these battle songs, the Germans sang at
      their festival banquets, (Tac. Ann. i. 65,) and around the bodies
      of their slain heroes. King Theodoric, of the tribe of the Goths,
      killed in a battle against Attila, was honored by songs while he
      was borne from the field of battle. Jornandes, c. 41. The same
      honor was paid to the remains of Attila. Ibid. c. 49. According
      to some historians, the Germans had songs also at their weddings;
      but this appears to me inconsistent with their customs, in which
      marriage was no more than the purchase of a wife. Besides, there
      is but one instance of this, that of the Gothic king, Ataulph,
      who sang himself the nuptial hymn when he espoused Placidia,
      sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, (Olympiodor. p. 8.)
      But this marriage was celebrated according to the Roman rites, of
      which the nuptial songs formed a part. Adelung, p. 382.—G.
      Charlemagne is said to have collected the national songs of the
      ancient Germans. Eginhard, Vit. Car. Mag.—M.]

      Such was the situation, and such were the manners of the ancient
      Germans. Their climate, their want of learning, of arts, and of
      laws, their notions of honor, of gallantry, and of religion,
      their sense of freedom, impatience of peace, and thirst of
      enterprise, all contributed to form a people of military heroes.
      And yet we find, that during more than two hundred and fifty
      years that elapsed from the defeat of Varus to the reign of
      Decius, these formidable barbarians made few considerable
      attempts, and not any material impression on the luxurious, and
      enslaved provinces of the empire. Their progress was checked by
      their want of arms and discipline, and their fury was diverted by
      the intestine divisions of ancient Germany. I. It has been
      observed, with ingenuity, and not without truth, that the command
      of iron soon gives a nation the command of gold. But the rude
      tribes of Germany, alike destitute of both those valuable metals,
      were reduced slowly to acquire, by their unassisted strength, the
      possession of the one as well as the other. The face of a German
      army displayed their poverty of iron. Swords, and the longer kind
      of lances, they could seldom use. Their _frameæ_ (as they called
      them in their own language) were long spears headed with a sharp
      but narrow iron point, and which, as occasion required, they
      either darted from a distance, or pushed in close onset. With
      this spear, and with a shield, their cavalry was contented. A
      multitude of darts, scattered 72 with incredible force, were an
      additional resource of the infantry. Their military dress, when
      they wore any, was nothing more than a loose mantle. A variety of
      colors was the only ornament of their wooden or osier shields.
      Few of the chiefs were distinguished by cuirasses, scarcely any
      by helmets. Though the horses of Germany were neither beautiful,
      swift, nor practised in the skilful evolutions of the Roman
      manege, several of the nations obtained renown by their cavalry;
      but, in general, the principal strength of the Germans consisted
      in their infantry, 73 which was drawn up in several deep columns,
      according to the distinction of tribes and families. Impatient of
      fatigue and delay, these half-armed warriors rushed to battle
      with dissonant shouts and disordered ranks; and sometimes, by the
      effort of native valor, prevailed over the constrained and more
      artificial bravery of the Roman mercenaries. But as the
      barbarians poured forth their whole souls on the first onset,
      they knew not how to rally or to retire. A repulse was a sure
      defeat; and a defeat was most commonly total destruction. When we
      recollect the complete armor of the Roman soldiers, their
      discipline, exercises, evolutions, fortified camps, and military
      engines, it appears a just matter of surprise, how the naked and
      unassisted valor of the barbarians could dare to encounter, in
      the field, the strength of the legions, and the various troops of
      the auxiliaries, which seconded their operations. The contest was
      too unequal, till the introduction of luxury had enervated the
      vigor, and a spirit of disobedience and sedition had relaxed the
      discipline, of the Roman armies. The introduction of barbarian
      auxiliaries into those armies, was a measure attended with very
      obvious dangers, as it might gradually instruct the Germans in
      the arts of war and of policy. Although they were admitted in
      small numbers and with the strictest precaution, the example of
      Civilis was proper to convince the Romans, that the danger was
      not imaginary, and that their precautions were not always
      sufficient. 74 During the civil wars that followed the death of
      Nero, that artful and intrepid Batavian, whom his enemies
      condescended to compare with Hannibal and Sertorius, 75 formed a
      great design of freedom and ambition. Eight Batavian cohorts
      renowned in the wars of Britain and Italy, repaired to his
      standard. He introduced an army of Germans into Gaul, prevailed
      on the powerful cities of Treves and Langres to embrace his
      cause, defeated the legions, destroyed their fortified camps, and
      employed against the Romans the military knowledge which he had
      acquired in their service. When at length, after an obstinate
      struggle, he yielded to the power of the empire, Civilis secured
      himself and his country by an honorable treaty. The Batavians
      still continued to occupy the islands of the Rhine, 76 the
      allies, not the servants, of the Roman monarchy.

      72 (return) [ Missilia spargunt, Tacit. Germ. c. 6. Either that
      historian used a vague expression, or he meant that they were
      thrown at random.]

      73 (return) [ It was their principal distinction from the
      Sarmatians, who generally fought on horseback.]

      74 (return) [ The relation of this enterprise occupies a great
      part of the fourth and fifth books of the History of Tacitus, and
      is more remarkable for its eloquence than perspicuity. Sir Henry
      Saville has observed several inaccuracies.]

      75 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 13. Like them he had lost an eye.]

      76 (return) [ It was contained between the two branches of the
      old Rhine, as they subsisted before the face of the country was
      changed by art and nature. See Cluver German. Antiq. l. iii. c.
      30, 37.]

      II. The strength of ancient Germany appears formidable, when we
      consider the effects that might have been produced by its united
      effort. The wide extent of country might very possibly contain a
      million of warriors, as all who were of age to bear arms were of
      a temper to use them. But this fierce multitude, incapable of
      concerting or executing any plan of national greatness, was
      agitated by various and often hostile intentions. Germany was
      divided into more than forty independent states; and, even in
      each state, the union of the several tribes was extremely loose
      and precarious. The barbarians were easily provoked; they knew
      not how to forgive an injury, much less an insult; their
      resentments were bloody and implacable. The casual disputes that
      so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or
      drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations;
      the private feuds of any considerable chieftains diffused itself
      among their followers and allies. To chastise the insolent, or to
      plunder the defenceless, were alike causes of war. The most
      formidable states of Germany affected to encompass their
      territories with a wide frontier of solitude and devastation. The
      awful distance preserved by their neighbors attested the terror
      of their arms, and in some measure defended them from the danger
      of unexpected incursions. 77

      77 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gal. l. vi. 23.]

      “The Bructeri 771 (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally
      exterminated by the neighboring tribes, 78 provoked by their
      insolence, allured by the hopes of spoil, and perhaps inspired by
      the tutelar deities of the empire. Above sixty thousand
      barbarians were destroyed; not by the Roman arms, but in our
      sight, and for our entertainment. May the nations, enemies of
      Rome, ever preserve this enmity to each other! We have now
      attained the utmost verge of prosperity, 79 and have nothing left
      to demand of fortune, except the discord of the barbarians.”
      80—These sentiments, less worthy of the humanity than of the
      patriotism of Tacitus, express the invariable maxims of the
      policy of his countrymen. They deemed it a much safer expedient
      to divide than to combat the barbarians, from whose defeat they
      could derive neither honor nor advantage. The money and
      negotiations of Rome insinuated themselves into the heart of
      Germany; and every art of seduction was used with dignity, to
      conciliate those nations whom their proximity to the Rhine or
      Danube might render the most useful friends as well as the most
      troublesome enemies. Chiefs of renown and power were flattered by
      the most trifling presents, which they received either as marks
      of distinction, or as the instruments of luxury. In civil
      dissensions the weaker faction endeavored to strengthen its
      interest by entering into secret connections with the governors
      of the frontier provinces. Every quarrel among the Germans was
      fomented by the intrigues of Rome; and every plan of union and
      public good was defeated by the stronger bias of private jealousy
      and interest. 81

      771 (return) [ The Bructeri were a non-Suevian tribe, who dwelt
      below the duchies of Oldenburgh, and Lauenburgh, on the borders
      of the Lippe, and in the Hartz Mountains. It was among them that
      the priestess Velleda obtained her renown.—G.]

      78 (return) [ They are mentioned, however, in the ivth and vth
      centuries by Nazarius, Ammianus, Claudian, &c., as a tribe of
      Franks. See Cluver. Germ. Antiq. l. iii. c. 13.]

      79 (return) [ Urgentibus is the common reading; but good sense,
      Lipsius, and some Mss. declare for Vergentibus.]

      80 (return) [ Tacit Germania, c. 33. The pious Abbé de la
      Bleterie is very angry with Tacitus, talks of the devil, who was
      a murderer from the beginning, &c., &c.]

      81 (return) [ Many traces of this policy may be discovered in
      Tacitus and Dion: and many more may be inferred from the
      principles of human nature.]

      The general conspiracy which terrified the Romans under the reign
      of Marcus Antoninus, comprehended almost all the nations of
      Germany, and even Sarmatia, from the mouth of the Rhine to that
      of the Danube. 82 It is impossible for us to determine whether
      this hasty confederation was formed by necessity, by reason, or
      by passion; but we may rest assured, that the barbarians were
      neither allured by the indolence, nor provoked by the ambition,
      of the Roman monarch. This dangerous invasion required all the
      firmness and vigilance of Marcus. He fixed generals of ability in
      the several stations of attack, and assumed in person the conduct
      of the most important province on the Upper Danube. After a long
      and doubtful conflict, the spirit of the barbarians was subdued.
      The Quadi and the Marcomanni, 83 who had taken the lead in the
      war, were the most severely punished in its catastrophe. They
      were commanded to retire five miles 84 from their own banks of
      the Danube, and to deliver up the flower of the youth, who were
      immediately sent into Britain, a remote island, where they might
      be secure as hostages, and useful as soldiers. 85 On the frequent
      rebellions of the Quadi and Marcomanni, the irritated emperor
      resolved to reduce their country into the form of a province. His
      designs were disappointed by death. This formidable league,
      however, the only one that appears in the two first centuries of
      the Imperial history, was entirely dissipated, without leaving
      any traces behind in Germany.

      82 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 31. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxxi. c. 5.
      Aurel. Victor. The emperor Marcus was reduced to sell the rich
      furniture of the palace, and to enlist slaves and robbers.]

      83 (return) [ The Marcomanni, a colony, who, from the banks of
      the Rhine occupied Bohemia and Moravia, had once erected a great
      and formidable monarchy under their king Maroboduus. See Strabo,
      l. vii. [p. 290.] Vell. Pat. ii. 108. Tacit. Annal. ii. 63. *
      Note: The Mark-manæn, the March-men or borderers. There seems
      little doubt that this was an appellation, rather than a proper
      name of a part of the great Suevian or Teutonic race.—M.]

      84 (return) [ Mr. Wotton (History of Rome, p. 166) increases the
      prohibition to ten times the distance. His reasoning is specious,
      but not conclusive. Five miles were sufficient for a fortified
      barrier.]

      85 (return) [ Dion, l. lxxi. and lxxii.]

      In the course of this introductory chapter, we have confined
      ourselves to the general outlines of the manners of Germany,
      without attempting to describe or to distinguish the various
      tribes which filled that great country in the time of Cæsar, of
      Tacitus, or of Ptolemy. As the ancient, or as new tribes
      successively present themselves in the series of this history, we
      shall concisely mention their origin, their situation, and their
      particular character. Modern nations are fixed and permanent
      societies, connected among themselves by laws and government,
      bound to their native soil by art and agriculture. The German
      tribes were voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers,
      almost of savages. The same territory often changed its
      inhabitants in the tide of conquest and emigration. The same
      communities, uniting in a plan of defence or invasion, bestowed a
      new title on their new confederacy. The dissolution of an ancient
      confederacy restored to the independent tribes their peculiar but
      long-forgotten appellation. A victorious state often communicated
      its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of
      volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a favorite
      leader; his camp became their country, and some circumstance of
      the enterprise soon gave a common denomination to the mixed
      multitude. The distinctions of the ferocious invaders were
      perpetually varied by themselves, and confounded by the
      astonished subjects of the Roman empire. 86

      86 (return) [ See an excellent dissertation on the origin and
      migrations of nations, in the Memoires de l’Academie des
      Inscriptions, tom. xviii. p. 48—71. It is seldom that the
      antiquarian and the philosopher are so happily blended.]

      Wars, and the administration of public affairs, are the principal
      subjects of history; but the number of persons interested in
      these busy scenes is very different, according to the different
      condition of mankind. In great monarchies, millions of obedient
      subjects pursue their useful occupations in peace and obscurity.
      The attention of the writer, as well as of the reader, is solely
      confined to a court, a capital, a regular army, and the districts
      which happen to be the occasional scene of military operations.
      But a state of freedom and barbarism, the season of civil
      commotions, or the situation of petty republics, 87 raises almost
      every member of the community into action, and consequently into
      notice. The irregular divisions, and the restless motions, of the
      people of Germany, dazzle our imagination, and seem to multiply
      their numbers. The profuse enumeration of kings, of warriors, of
      armies and nations, inclines us to forget that the same objects
      are continually repeated under a variety of appellations, and
      that the most splendid appellations have been frequently lavished
      on the most inconsiderable objects.

      87 (return) [ Should we suspect that Athens contained only 21,000
      citizens, and Sparta no more than 39,000? See Hume and Wallace on
      the number of mankind in ancient and modern times. * Note: This
      number, though too positively stated, is probably not far wrong,
      as an average estimate. On the subject of Athenian population,
      see St. Croix, Acad. des Inscrip. xlviii. Bœckh, Public Economy
      of Athens, i. 47. Eng Trans, Fynes Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol.
      i. p. 381. The latter author estimates the citizens of Sparta at
      33,000—M.]




      Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
      Gallienus—Part I.

     The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And
     Gallienus.—The General Irruption Of The Barbari Ans.—The Thirty
     Tyrants.

      From the great secular games celebrated by Philip, to the death
      of the emperor Gallienus, there elapsed twenty years of shame and
      misfortune. During that calamitous period, every instant of time
      was marked, every province of the Roman world was afflicted, by
      barbarous invaders, and military tyrants, and the ruined empire
      seemed to approach the last and fatal moment of its dissolution.
      The confusion of the times, and the scarcity of authentic
      memorials, oppose equal difficulties to the historian, who
      attempts to preserve a clear and unbroken thread of narration.
      Surrounded with imperfect fragments, always concise, often
      obscure, and sometimes contradictory, he is reduced to collect,
      to compare, and to conjecture: and though he ought never to place
      his conjectures in the rank of facts, yet the knowledge of human
      nature, and of the sure operation of its fierce and unrestrained
      passions, might, on some occasions, supply the want of historical
      materials.

      There is not, for instance, any difficulty in conceiving, that
      the successive murders of so many emperors had loosened all the
      ties of allegiance between the prince and people; that all the
      generals of Philip were disposed to imitate the example of their
      master; and that the caprice of armies, long since habituated to
      frequent and violent revolutions, might every day raise to the
      throne the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can
      only add, that the rebellion against the emperor Philip broke out
      in the summer of the year two hundred and forty-nine, among the
      legions of Mæsia; and that a subaltern officer, 1 named Marinus,
      was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He
      dreaded lest the treason of the Mæsian army should prove the
      first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the
      consciousness of his guilt and of his danger, he communicated the
      intelligence to the senate. A gloomy silence prevailed, the
      effect of fear, and perhaps of disaffection; till at length
      Decius, one of the assembly, assuming a spirit worthy of his
      noble extraction, ventured to discover more intrepidity than the
      emperor seemed to possess. He treated the whole business with
      contempt, as a hasty and inconsiderate tumult, and Philip’s rival
      as a phantom of royalty, who in a very few days would be
      destroyed by the same inconstancy that had created him. The
      speedy completion of the prophecy inspired Philip with a just
      esteem for so able a counsellor; and Decius appeared to him the
      only person capable of restoring peace and discipline to an army
      whose tumultuous spirit did not immediately subside after the
      murder of Marinus. Decius, 2 who long resisted his own
      nomination, seems to have insinuated the danger of presenting a
      leader of merit to the angry and apprehensive minds of the
      soldiers; and his prediction was again confirmed by the event.
      The legions of Mæsia forced their judge to become their
      accomplice. They left him only the alternative of death or the
      purple. His subsequent conduct, after that decisive measure, was
      unavoidable. He conducted, or followed, his army to the confines
      of Italy, whither Philip, collecting all his force to repel the
      formidable competitor whom he had raised up, advanced to meet
      him. The Imperial troops were superior in number; but the rebels
      formed an army of veterans, commanded by an able and experienced
      leader. Philip was either killed in the battle, or put to death a
      few days afterwards at Verona. His son and associate in the
      empire was massacred at Rome by the Prætorian guards; and the
      victorious Decius, with more favorable circumstances than the
      ambition of that age can usually plead, was universally
      acknowledged by the senate and provinces. It is reported, that,
      immediately after his reluctant acceptance of the title of
      Augustus, he had assured Philip, by a private message, of his
      innocence and loyalty, solemnly protesting, that, on his arrival
      on Italy, he would resign the Imperial ornaments, and return to
      the condition of an obedient subject. His professions might be
      sincere; but in the situation where fortune had placed him, it
      was scarcely possible that he could either forgive or be
      forgiven. 3

      1 (return) [ The expression used by Zosimus and Zonaras may
      signify that Marinus commanded a century, a cohort, or a legion.]

      2 (return) [ His birth at Bubalia, a little village in Pannonia,
      (Eutrop. ix. Victor. in Cæsarib. et Epitom.,) seems to
      contradict, unless it was merely accidental, his supposed descent
      from the Decii. Six hundred years had bestowed nobility on the
      Decii: but at the commencement of that period, they were only
      plebeians of merit, and among the first who shared the consulship
      with the haughty patricians. Plebeine Deciorum animæ, &c.
      Juvenal, Sat. viii. 254. See the spirited speech of Decius, in
      Livy. x. 9, 10.]

      3 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 20, c. 22. Zonaras, l. xii. p.
      624, edit. Louvre.]

      The emperor Decius had employed a few months in the works of
      peace and the administration of justice, when he was summoned to
      the banks of the Danube by the invasion of the Goths. This is the
      first considerable occasion in which history mentions that great
      people, who afterwards broke the Roman power, sacked the Capitol,
      and reigned in Gaul, Spain, and Italy. So memorable was the part
      which they acted in the subversion of the Western empire, that
      the name of Goths is frequently but improperly used as a general
      appellation of rude and warlike barbarism.

      In the beginning of the sixth century, and after the conquest of
      Italy, the Goths, in possession of present greatness, very
      naturally indulged themselves in the prospect of past and of
      future glory. They wished to preserve the memory of their
      ancestors, and to transmit to posterity their own achievements.
      The principal minister of the court of Ravenna, the learned
      Cassiodorus, gratified the inclination of the conquerors in a
      Gothic history, which consisted of twelve books, now reduced to
      the imperfect abridgment of Jornandes. 4 These writers passed
      with the most artful conciseness over the misfortunes of the
      nation, celebrated its successful valor, and adorned the triumph
      with many Asiatic trophies, that more properly belonged to the
      people of Scythia. On the faith of ancient songs, the uncertain,
      but the only memorials of barbarians, they deduced the first
      origin of the Goths from the vast island, or peninsula, of
      Scandinavia. 5 501 That extreme country of the North was not
      unknown to the conquerors of Italy: the ties of ancient
      consanguinity had been strengthened by recent offices of
      friendship; and a Scandinavian king had cheerfully abdicated his
      savage greatness, that he might pass the remainder of his days in
      the peaceful and polished court of Ravenna. 6 Many vestiges,
      which cannot be ascribed to the arts of popular vanity, attest
      the ancient residence of the Goths in the countries beyond the
      Rhine. From the time of the geographer Ptolemy, the southern part
      of Sweden seems to have continued in the possession of the less
      enterprising remnant of the nation, and a large territory is even
      at present divided into east and west Gothland. During the middle
      ages, (from the ninth to the twelfth century,) whilst
      Christianity was advancing with a slow progress into the North,
      the Goths and the Swedes composed two distinct and sometimes
      hostile members of the same monarchy. 7 The latter of these two
      names has prevailed without extinguishing the former. The Swedes,
      who might well be satisfied with their own fame in arms, have, in
      every age, claimed the kindred glory of the Goths. In a moment of
      discontent against the court of Rome, Charles the Twelfth
      insinuated, that his victorious troops were not degenerated from
      their brave ancestors, who had already subdued the mistress of
      the world. 8

      4 (return) [ See the prefaces of Cassiodorus and Jornandes; it is
      surprising that the latter should be omitted in the excellent
      edition, published by Grotius, of the Gothic writers.]

      5 (return) [ On the authority of Ablavius, Jornandes quotes some
      old Gothic chronicles in verse. De Reb. Geticis, c. 4.]

      501 (return) [ The Goths have inhabited Scandinavia, but it was
      not their original habitation. This great nation was anciently of
      the Suevian race; it occupied, in the time of Tacitus, and long
      before, Mecklenburgh, Pomerania Southern Prussia and the
      north-west of Poland. A little before the birth of J. C., and in
      the first years of that century, they belonged to the kingdom of
      Marbod, king of the Marcomanni: but Cotwalda, a young Gothic
      prince, delivered them from that tyranny, and established his own
      power over the kingdom of the Marcomanni, already much weakened
      by the victories of Tiberius. The power of the Goths at that time
      must have been great: it was probably from them that the Sinus
      Codanus (the Baltic) took this name, as it was afterwards called
      Mare Suevicum, and Mare Venedicum, during the superiority of the
      proper Suevi and the Venedi. The epoch in which the Goths passed
      into Scandinavia is unknown. See Adelung, Hist. of Anc. Germany,
      p. 200. Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 458.—G. ——M. St. Martin observes,
      that the Scandinavian descent of the Goths rests on the authority
      of Jornandes, who professed to derive it from the traditions of
      the Goths. He is supported by Procopius and Paulus Diaconus. Yet
      the Goths are unquestionably the same with the Getæ of the
      earlier historians. St. Martin, note on Le Beau, Hist. du bas
      Empire, iii. 324. The identity of the Getæ and Goths is by no
      means generally admitted. On the whole, they seem to be one vast
      branch of the Indo-Teutonic race, who spread irregularly towards
      the north of Europe, and at different periods, and in different
      regions, came in contact with the more civilized nations of the
      south. At this period, there seems to have been a reflux of these
      Gothic tribes from the North. Malte Brun considers that there are
      strong grounds for receiving the Islandic traditions commented by
      the Danish Varro, M. Suhm. From these, and the voyage of Pytheas,
      which Malte Brun considers genuine, the Goths were in possession
      of Scandinavia, Ey-Gothland, 250 years before J. C., and of a
      tract on the continent (Reid-Gothland) between the mouths of the
      Vistula and the Oder. In their southern migration, they followed
      the course of the Vistula; afterwards, of the Dnieper. Malte
      Brun, Geogr. i. p. 387, edit. 1832. Geijer, the historian of
      Sweden, ably maintains the Scandinavian origin of the Goths. The
      Gothic language, according to Bopp, is the link between the
      Sanscrit and the modern Teutonic dialects: “I think that I am
      reading Sanscrit when I am reading Olphilas.” Bopp, Conjugations
      System der Sanscrit Sprache, preface, p. x—M.]

      6 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 3.]

      7 (return) [ See in the Prolegomena of Grotius some large
      extracts from Adam of Bremen, and Saxo-Grammaticus. The former
      wrote in the year 1077, the latter flourished about the year
      1200.]

      8 (return) [ Voltaire, Histoire de Charles XII. l. iii. When the
      Austrians desired the aid of the court of Rome against Gustavus
      Adolphus, they always represented that conqueror as the lineal
      successor of Alaric. Harte’s History of Gustavus, vol. ii. p.
      123.]

      Till the end of the eleventh century, a celebrated temple
      subsisted at Upsal, the most considerable town of the Swedes and
      Goths. It was enriched with the gold which the Scandinavians had
      acquired in their piratical adventures, and sanctified by the
      uncouth representations of the three principal deities, the god
      of war, the goddess of generation, and the god of thunder. In the
      general festival, that was solemnized every ninth year, nine
      animals of every species (without excepting the human) were
      sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred
      grove adjacent to the temple. 9 The only traces that now subsist
      of this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, 901 a
      system of mythology, compiled in Iceland about the thirteenth
      century, and studied by the learned of Denmark and Sweden, as the
      most valuable remains of their ancient traditions.

      9 (return) [ See Adam of Bremen in Grotii Prolegomenis, p. 105.
      The temple of Upsal was destroyed by Ingo, king of Sweden, who
      began his reign in the year 1075, and about fourscore years
      afterwards, a Christian cathedral was erected on its ruins. See
      Dalin’s History of Sweden, in the Bibliotheque Raisonee.]

      901 (return) [ The Eddas have at length been made accessible to
      European scholars by the completion of the publication of the
      Sæmundine Edda by the Arna Magnæan Commission, in 3 vols. 4to.,
      with a copious lexicon of northern mythology.—M.]

      Notwithstanding the mysterious obscurity of the Edda, we can
      easily distinguish two persons confounded under the name of Odin;
      the god of war, and the great legislator of Scandinavia. The
      latter, the Mahomet of the North, instituted a religion adapted
      to the climate and to the people. Numerous tribes on either side
      of the Baltic were subdued by the invincible valor of Odin, by
      his persuasive eloquence, and by the fame which he acquired of a
      most skilful magician. The faith that he had propagated, during a
      long and prosperous life, he confirmed by a voluntary death.
      Apprehensive of the ignominious approach of disease and
      infirmity, he resolved to expire as became a warrior. In a solemn
      assembly of the Swedes and Goths, he wounded himself in nine
      mortal places, hastening away (as he asserted with his dying
      voice) to prepare the feast of heroes in the palace of the God of
      war. 10

      10 (return) [ Mallet, Introduction a l’Histoire du Dannemarc.]

      The native and proper habitation of Odin is distinguished by the
      appellation of As-gard. The happy resemblance of that name with
      As-burg, or As-of, 11 words of a similar signification, has given
      rise to an historical system of so pleasing a contexture, that we
      could almost wish to persuade ourselves of its truth. It is
      supposed that Odin was the chief of a tribe of barbarians which
      dwelt on the banks of the Lake Mæotis, till the fall of
      Mithridates and the arms of Pompey menaced the North with
      servitude. That Odin, yielding with indignant fury to a power he
      was unable to resist, conducted his tribe from the frontiers of
      the Asiatic Sarmatia into Sweden, with the great design of
      forming, in that inaccessible retreat of freedom, a religion and
      a people which, in some remote age, might be subservient to his
      immortal revenge; when his invincible Goths, armed with martial
      fanaticism, should issue in numerous swarms from the neighborhood
      of the Polar circle, to chastise the oppressors of mankind. 12

      11 (return) [ Mallet, c. iv. p. 55, has collected from Strabo,
      Pliny, Ptolemy, and Stephanus Byzantinus, the vestiges of such a
      city and people.]

      12 (return) [ This wonderful expedition of Odin, which, by
      deducting the enmity of the Goths and Romans from so memorable a
      cause, might supply the noble groundwork of an epic poem, cannot
      safely be received as authentic history. According to the obvious
      sense of the Edda, and the interpretation of the most skilful
      critics, As-gard, instead of denoting a real city of the Asiatic
      Sarmatia, is the fictitious appellation of the mystic abode of
      the gods, the Olympus of Scandinavia; from whence the prophet was
      supposed to descend, when he announced his new religion to the
      Gothic nations, who were already seated in the southern parts of
      Sweden. * Note: A curious letter may be consulted on this subject
      from the Swede, Ihre counsellor in the Chancery of Upsal, printed
      at Upsal by Edman, in 1772 and translated into German by M.
      Schlozer. Gottingen, printed for Dietericht, 1779.—G. ——Gibbon,
      at a later period of his work, recanted his opinion of the truth
      of this expedition of Odin. The Asiatic origin of the Goths is
      almost certain from the affinity of their language to the
      Sanscrit and Persian; but their northern writers, when all
      mythology was reduced to hero worship.—M.]

      If so many successive generations of Goths were capable of
      preserving a faint tradition of their Scandinavian origin, we
      must not expect, from such unlettered barbarians, any distinct
      account of the time and circumstances of their emigration. To
      cross the Baltic was an easy and natural attempt. The inhabitants
      of Sweden were masters of a sufficient number of large vessels,
      with oars, 13 and the distance is little more than one hundred
      miles from Carlscroon to the nearest ports of Pomerania and
      Prussia. Here, at length, we land on firm and historic ground. At
      least as early as the Christian æra, 14 and as late as the age of
      the Antonines, 15 the Goths were established towards the mouth of
      the Vistula, and in that fertile province where the commercial
      cities of Thorn, Elbing, Köningsberg, and Dantzick, were long
      afterwards founded. 16 Westward of the Goths, the numerous tribes
      of the Vandals were spread along the banks of the Oder, and the
      sea-coast of Pomerania and Mecklenburgh. A striking resemblance
      of manners, complexion, religion, and language, seemed to
      indicate that the Vandals and the Goths were originally one great
      people. 17 The latter appear to have been subdivided into
      Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ. 18 The distinction among the
      Vandals was more strongly marked by the independent names of
      Heruli, Burgundians, Lombards, and a variety of other petty
      states, many of which, in a future age, expanded themselves into
      powerful monarchies. 181

      13 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 44.]

      14 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. ii. 62. If we could yield a firm
      assent to the navigations of Pytheas of Marseilles, we must allow
      that the Goths had passed the Baltic at least three hundred years
      before Christ.]

      15 (return) [ Ptolemy, l. ii.]

      16 (return) [ By the German colonies who followed the arms of the
      Teutonic knights. The conquest and conversion of Prussia were
      completed by those adventurers in the thirteenth century.]

      17 (return) [ Pliny (Hist. Natur. iv. 14) and Procopius (in Bell.
      Vandal. l. i. c. l) agree in this opinion. They lived in distant
      ages, and possessed different means of investigating the truth.]

      18 (return) [ The Ostro and Visi, the eastern and western Goths,
      obtained those denominations from their original seats in
      Scandinavia. In all their future marches and settlements they
      preserved, with their names, the same relative situation. When
      they first departed from Sweden, the infant colony was contained
      in three vessels. The third, being a heavy sailer, lagged behind,
      and the crew, which afterwards swelled into a nation, received
      from that circumstance the appellation of Gepidæ or Loiterers.
      Jornandes, c. 17. * Note: It was not in Scandinavia that the
      Goths were divided into Ostrogoths and Visigoths; that division
      took place after their irruption into Dacia in the third century:
      those who came from Mecklenburgh and Pomerania were called
      Visigoths; those who came from the south of Prussia, and the
      northwest of Poland, called themselves Ostrogoths. Adelung, Hist.
      All. p. 202 Gatterer, Hist. Univ. 431.—G.]

      181 (return) [ This opinion is by no means probable. The Vandals
      and the Goths equally belonged to the great division of the
      Suevi, but the two tribes were very different. Those who have
      treated on this part of history, appear to me to have neglected
      to remark that the ancients almost always gave the name of the
      dominant and conquering people to all the weaker and conquered
      races. So Pliny calls Vindeli, Vandals, all the people of the
      north-east of Europe, because at that epoch the Vandals were
      doubtless the conquering tribe. Cæsar, on the contrary, ranges
      under the name of Suevi, many of the tribes whom Pliny reckons as
      Vandals, because the Suevi, properly so called, were then the
      most powerful tribe in Germany. When the Goths, become in their
      turn conquerors, had subjugated the nations whom they encountered
      on their way, these nations lost their name with their liberty,
      and became of Gothic origin. The Vandals themselves were then
      considered as Goths; the Heruli, the Gepidæ, &c., suffered the
      same fate. A common origin was thus attributed to tribes who had
      only been united by the conquests of some dominant nation, and
      this confusion has given rise to a number of historical
      errors.—G. ——M. St. Martin has a learned note (to Le Beau, v.
      261) on the origin of the Vandals. The difficulty appears to be
      in rejecting the close analogy of the name with the Vend or
      Wendish race, who were of Sclavonian, not of Suevian or German,
      origin. M. St. Martin supposes that the different races spread
      from the head of the Adriatic to the Baltic, and even the Veneti,
      on the shores of the Adriatic, the Vindelici, the tribes which
      gave their name to Vindobena, Vindoduna, Vindonissa, were
      branches of the same stock with the Sclavonian Venedi, who at one
      time gave their name to the Baltic; that they all spoke dialects
      of the Wendish language, which still prevails in Carinthia,
      Carniola, part of Bohemia, and Lusatia, and is hardly extinct in
      Mecklenburgh and Pomerania. The Vandal race, once so fearfully
      celebrated in the annals of mankind, has so utterly perished from
      the face of the earth, that we are not aware that any vestiges of
      their language can be traced, so as to throw light on the
      disputed question of their German, their Sclavonian, or
      independent origin. The weight of ancient authority seems against
      M. St. Martin’s opinion. Compare, on the Vandals, Malte Brun.
      394. Also Gibbon’s note, c. xli. n. 38.—M.]

      In the age of the Antonines, the Goths were still seated in
      Prussia. About the reign of Alexander Severus, the Roman province
      of Dacia had already experienced their proximity by frequent and
      destructive inroads. 19 In this interval, therefore, of about
      seventy years we must place the second migration of the Goths
      from the Baltic to the Euxine; but the cause that produced it
      lies concealed among the various motives which actuate the
      conduct of unsettled barbarians. Either a pestilence or a famine,
      a victory or a defeat, an oracle of the gods or the eloquence of
      a daring leader, were sufficient to impel the Gothic arms on the
      milder climates of the south. Besides the influence of a martial
      religion, the numbers and spirit of the Goths were equal to the
      most dangerous adventures. The use of round bucklers and short
      swords rendered them formidable in a close engagement; the manly
      obedience which they yielded to hereditary kings, gave uncommon
      union and stability to their councils; 20 and the renowned Amala,
      the hero of that age, and the tenth ancestor of Theodoric, king
      of Italy, enforced, by the ascendant of personal merit, the
      prerogative of his birth, which he derived from the _Anses_, or
      demigods of the Gothic nation. 21

      19 (return) [ See a fragment of Peter Patricius in the Excerpta
      Legationum and with regard to its probable date, see Tillemont,
      Hist, des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 346.]

      20 (return) [ Omnium harum gentium insigne, rotunda scuta, breves
      gladii, et erga rages obsequium. Tacit. Germania, c. 43. The
      Goths probably acquired their iron by the commerce of amber.]

      21 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 13, 14.]

      The fame of a great enterprise excited the bravest warriors from
      all the Vandalic states of Germany, many of whom are seen a few
      years afterwards combating under the common standard of the
      Goths. 22 The first motions of the emigrants carried them to the
      banks of the Prypec, a river universally conceived by the
      ancients to be the southern branch of the Borysthenes. 23 The
      windings of that great stream through the plains of Poland and
      Russia gave a direction to their line of march, and a constant
      supply of fresh water and pasturage to their numerous herds of
      cattle. They followed the unknown course of the river, confident
      in their valor, and careless of whatever power might oppose their
      progress. The Bastarnæ and the Venedi were the first who
      presented themselves; and the flower of their youth, either from
      choice or compulsion, increased the Gothic army. The Bastarnæ
      dwelt on the northern side of the Carpathian Mountains: the
      immense tract of land that separated the Bastarnæ from the
      savages of Finland was possessed, or rather wasted, by the
      Venedi; 24 we have some reason to believe that the first of these
      nations, which distinguished itself in the Macedonian war, 25 and
      was afterwards divided into the formidable tribes of the Peucini,
      the Borani, the Carpi, &c., derived its origin from the Germans.
      251 With better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned
      to the Venedi, who rendered themselves so famous in the middle
      ages. 26 But the confusion of blood and manners on that doubtful
      frontier often perplexed the most accurate observers. 27 As the
      Goths advanced near the Euxine Sea, they encountered a purer race
      of Sarmatians, the Jazyges, the Alani, 271 and the Roxolani; and
      they were probably the first Germans who saw the mouths of the
      Borysthenes, and of the Tanais. If we inquire into the
      characteristic marks of the people of Germany and of Sarmatia, we
      shall discover that those two great portions of human kind were
      principally distinguished by fixed huts or movable tents, by a
      close dress or flowing garments, by the marriage of one or of
      several wives, by a military force, consisting, for the most
      part, either of infantry or cavalry; and above all, by the use of
      the Teutonic, or of the Sclavonian language; the last of which
      has been diffused by conquest, from the confines of Italy to the
      neighborhood of Japan.

      22 (return) [ The Heruli, and the Uregundi or Burgundi, are
      particularly mentioned. See Mascou’s History of the Germans, l.
      v. A passage in the Augustan History, p. 28, seems to allude to
      this great emigration. The Marcomannic war was partly occasioned
      by the pressure of barbarous tribes, who fled before the arms of
      more northern barbarians.]

      23 (return) [ D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, and the third part
      of his incomparable map of Europe.]

      24 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 46.]

      25 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 43.]

      251 (return) [ The Bastarnæ cannot be considered original
      inhabitants of Germany Strabo and Tacitus appear to doubt it;
      Pliny alone calls them Germans: Ptolemy and Dion treat them as
      Scythians, a vague appellation at this period of history; Livy,
      Plutarch, and Diodorus Siculus, call them Gauls, and this is the
      most probable opinion. They descended from the Gauls who entered
      Germany under Signoesus. They are always found associated with
      other Gaulish tribes, such as the Boll, the Taurisci, &c., and
      not to the German tribes. The names of their chiefs or princes,
      Chlonix, Chlondicus. Deldon, are not German names. Those who were
      settled in the island of Peuce in the Danube, took the name of
      Peucini. The Carpi appear in 237 as a Suevian tribe who had made
      an irruption into Mæsia. Afterwards they reappear under the
      Ostrogoths, with whom they were probably blended. Adelung, p.
      236, 278.—G.]

      26 (return) [ The Venedi, the Slavi, and the Antes, were the
      three great tribes of the same people. Jornandes, 24. * Note
      Dagger: They formed the great Sclavonian nation.—G.]

      27 (return) [ Tacitus most assuredly deserves that title, and
      even his cautious suspense is a proof of his diligent inquiries.]

      271 (return) [ Jac. Reineggs supposed that he had found, in the
      mountains of Caucasus, some descendants of the Alani. The Tartars
      call them Edeki-Alan: they speak a peculiar dialect of the
      ancient language of the Tartars of Caucasus. See J. Reineggs’
      Descr. of Caucasus, p. 11, 13.—G. According to Klaproth, they are
      the Ossetes of the present day in Mount Caucasus and were the
      same with the Albanians of antiquity. Klaproth, Hist. de l’Asie,
      p. 180.—M.]




      Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
      Gallienus.—Part II.

      The Goths were now in possession of the Ukraine, a country of
      considerable extent and uncommon fertility, intersected with
      navigable rivers, which, from either side, discharge themselves
      into the Borysthenes; and interspersed with large and lofty
      forests of oaks. The plenty of game and fish, the innumerable
      bee-hives deposited in the hollow of old trees, and in the
      cavities of rocks, and forming, even in that rude age, a valuable
      branch of commerce, the size of the cattle, the temperature of
      the air, the aptness of the soil for every species of grain, and
      the luxuriancy of the vegetation, all displayed the liberality of
      Nature, and tempted the industry of man. 28 But the Goths
      withstood all these temptations, and still adhered to a life of
      idleness, of poverty, and of rapine.

      28 (return) [ Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 593. Mr.
      Bell (vol. ii. p 379) traversed the Ukraine, in his journey from
      Petersburgh to Constantinople. The modern face of the country is
      a just representation of the ancient, since, in the hands of the
      Cossacks, it still remains in a state of nature.]

      The Scythian hordes, which, towards the east, bordered on the new
      settlements of the Goths, presented nothing to their arms, except
      the doubtful chance of an unprofitable victory. But the prospect
      of the Roman territories was far more alluring; and the fields of
      Dacia were covered with rich harvests, sown by the hands of an
      industrious, and exposed to be gathered by those of a warlike,
      people. It is probable that the conquests of Trajan, maintained
      by his successors, less for any real advantage than for ideal
      dignity, had contributed to weaken the empire on that side. The
      new and unsettled province of Dacia was neither strong enough to
      resist, nor rich enough to satiate, the rapaciousness of the
      barbarians. As long as the remote banks of the Niester were
      considered as the boundary of the Roman power, the fortifications
      of the Lower Danube were more carelessly guarded, and the
      inhabitants of Mæsia lived in supine security, fondly conceiving
      themselves at an inaccessible distance from any barbarian
      invaders. The irruptions of the Goths, under the reign of Philip,
      fatally convinced them of their mistake. The king, or leader, of
      that fierce nation, traversed with contempt the province of
      Dacia, and passed both the Niester and the Danube without
      encountering any opposition capable of retarding his progress.
      The relaxed discipline of the Roman troops betrayed the most
      important posts, where they were stationed, and the fear of
      deserved punishment induced great numbers of them to enlist under
      the Gothic standard. The various multitude of barbarians
      appeared, at length, under the walls of Marcianopolis, a city
      built by Trajan in honor of his sister, and at that time the
      capital of the second Mæsia. 29 The inhabitants consented to
      ransom their lives and property by the payment of a large sum of
      money, and the invaders retreated back into their deserts,
      animated, rather than satisfied, with the first success of their
      arms against an opulent but feeble country. Intelligence was soon
      transmitted to the emperor Decius, that Cniva, king of the Goths,
      had passed the Danube a second time, with more considerable
      forces; that his numerous detachments scattered devastation over
      the province of Mæsia, whilst the main body of the army,
      consisting of seventy thousand Germans and Sarmatians, a force
      equal to the most daring achievements, required the presence of
      the Roman monarch, and the exertion of his military power.

      29 (return) [ In the sixteenth chapter of Jornandes, instead of
      secundo Mæsiam we may venture to substitute secundam, the second
      Mæsia, of which Marcianopolis was certainly the capital. (See
      Hierocles de Provinciis, and Wesseling ad locum, p. 636.
      Itinerar.) It is surprising how this palpable error of the scribe
      should escape the judicious correction of Grotius. Note: Luden
      has observed that Jornandes mentions two passages over the
      Danube; this relates to the second irruption into Mæsia.
      Geschichte des T V. ii. p. 448.—M.]

      Decius found the Goths engaged before Nicopolis, one of the many
      monuments of Trajan’s victories. 30 On his approach they raised
      the siege, but with a design only of marching away to a conquest
      of greater importance, the siege of Philippopolis, a city of
      Thrace, founded by the father of Alexander, near the foot of
      Mount Hæmus. 31 Decius followed them through a difficult country,
      and by forced marches; but when he imagined himself at a
      considerable distance from the rear of the Goths, Cniva turned
      with rapid fury on his pursuers. The camp of the Romans was
      surprised and pillaged, and, for the first time, their emperor
      fled in disorder before a troop of half-armed barbarians. After a
      long resistance, Philoppopolis, destitute of succor, was taken by
      storm. A hundred thousand persons are reported to have been
      massacred in the sack of that great city. 32 Many prisoners of
      consequence became a valuable accession to the spoil; and
      Priscus, a brother of the late emperor Philip, blushed not to
      assume the purple, under the protection of the barbarous enemies
      of Rome. 33 The time, however, consumed in that tedious siege,
      enabled Decius to revive the courage, restore the discipline, and
      recruit the numbers of his troops. He intercepted several parties
      of Carpi, and other Germans, who were hastening to share the
      victory of their countrymen, 34 intrusted the passes of the
      mountains to officers of approved valor and fidelity, 35 repaired
      and strengthened the fortifications of the Danube, and exerted
      his utmost vigilance to oppose either the progress or the retreat
      of the Goths. Encouraged by the return of fortune, he anxiously
      waited for an opportunity to retrieve, by a great and decisive
      blow, his own glory, and that of the Roman arms. 36

      30 (return) [ The place is still called Nicop. D’Anville,
      Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 307. The little stream, on whose
      banks it stood, falls into the Danube.]

      31 (return) [ Stephan. Byzant. de Urbibus, p. 740. Wesseling,
      Itinerar. p. 136. Zonaras, by an odd mistake, ascribes the
      foundation of Philippopolis to the immediate predecessor of
      Decius. * Note: Now Philippopolis or Philiba; its situation among
      the hills caused it to be also called Trimontium. D’Anville,
      Geog. Anc. i. 295.—G.]

      32 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 5.]

      33 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. c. 29.]

      34 (return) [ Victoriæ Carpicæ, on some medals of Decius,
      insinuate these advantages.]

      35 (return) [ Claudius (who afterwards reigned with so much
      glory) was posted in the pass of Thermopylæ with 200 Dardanians,
      100 heavy and 160 light horse, 60 Cretan archers, and 1000
      well-armed recruits. See an original letter from the emperor to
      his officer, in the Augustan History, p. 200.]

      36 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 16—18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22. In the
      general account of this war, it is easy to discover the opposite
      prejudices of the Gothic and the Grecian writer. In carelessness
      alone they are alike.]

      At the same time when Decius was struggling with the violence of
      the tempest, his mind, calm and deliberate amidst the tumult of
      war, investigated the more general causes that, since the age of
      the Antonines, had so impetuously urged the decline of the Roman
      greatness. He soon discovered that it was impossible to replace
      that greatness on a permanent basis without restoring public
      virtue, ancient principles and manners, and the oppressed majesty
      of the laws. To execute this noble but arduous design, he first
      resolved to revive the obsolete office of censor; an office
      which, as long as it had subsisted in its pristine integrity, had
      so much contributed to the perpetuity of the state, 37 till it
      was usurped and gradually neglected by the Cæsars. 38 Conscious
      that the favor of the sovereign may confer power, but that the
      esteem of the people can alone bestow authority, he submitted the
      choice of the censor to the unbiased voice of the senate. By
      their unanimous votes, or rather acclamations, Valerian, who was
      afterwards emperor, and who then served with distinction in the
      army of Decius, was declared the most worthy of that exalted
      honor. As soon as the decree of the senate was transmitted to the
      emperor, he assembled a great council in his camp, and before the
      investiture of the censor elect, he apprised him of the
      difficulty and importance of his great office. “Happy Valerian,”
      said the prince to his distinguished subject, “happy in the
      general approbation of the senate and of the Roman republic!
      Accept the censorship of mankind; and judge of our manners. You
      will select those who deserve to continue members of the senate;
      you will restore the equestrian order to its ancient splendor;
      you will improve the revenue, yet moderate the public burdens.
      You will distinguish into regular classes the various and
      infinite multitude of citizens, and accurately view the military
      strength, the wealth, the virtue, and the resources of Rome. Your
      decisions shall obtain the force of laws. The army, the palace,
      the ministers of justice, and the great officers of the empire,
      are all subject to your tribunal. None are exempted, excepting
      only the ordinary consuls, 39 the præfect of the city, the king
      of the sacrifices, and (as long as she preserves her chastity
      inviolate) the eldest of the vestal virgins. Even these few, who
      may not dread the severity, will anxiously solicit the esteem, of
      the Roman censor.” 40

      37 (return) [ Montesquieu, Grandeur et Decadence des Romains, c.
      viii. He illustrates the nature and use of the censorship with
      his usual ingenuity, and with uncommon precision.]

      38 (return) [ Vespasian and Titus were the last censors, (Pliny,
      Hist. Natur vii. 49. Censorinus de Die Natali.) The modesty of
      Trajan refused an honor which he deserved, and his example became
      a law to the Antonines. See Pliny’s Panegyric, c. 45 and 60.]

      39 (return) [ Yet in spite of his exemption, Pompey appeared
      before that tribunal during his consulship. The occasion, indeed,
      was equally singular and honorable. Plutarch in Pomp. p. 630.]

      40 (return) [ See the original speech in the Augustan Hist. p.
      173-174.]

      A magistrate, invested with such extensive powers, would have
      appeared not so much the minister, as the colleague of his
      sovereign. 41 Valerian justly dreaded an elevation so full of
      envy and of suspicion. He modestly argued the alarming greatness
      of the trust, his own insufficiency, and the incurable corruption
      of the times. He artfully insinuated, that the office of censor
      was inseparable from the Imperial dignity, and that the feeble
      hands of a subject were unequal to the support of such an immense
      weight of cares and of power. 42 The approaching event of war
      soon put an end to the prosecution of a project so specious, but
      so impracticable; and whilst it preserved Valerian from the
      danger, saved the emperor Decius from the disappointment, which
      would most probably have attended it. A censor may maintain, he
      can never restore, the morals of a state. It is impossible for
      such a magistrate to exert his authority with benefit, or even
      with effect, unless he is supported by a quick sense of honor and
      virtue in the minds of the people, by a decent reverence for the
      public opinion, and by a train of useful prejudices combating on
      the side of national manners. In a period when these principles
      are annihilated, the censorial jurisdiction must either sink into
      empty pageantry, or be converted into a partial instrument of
      vexatious oppression. 43 It was easier to vanquish the Goths than
      to eradicate the public vices; yet even in the first of these
      enterprises, Decius lost his army and his life.

      41 (return) [ This transaction might deceive Zonaras, who
      supposes that Valerian was actually declared the colleague of
      Decius, l. xii. p. 625.]

      42 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 174. The emperor’s reply is
      omitted.]

      43 (return) [ Such as the attempts of Augustus towards a
      reformation of manness. Tacit. Annal. iii. 24.]

      The Goths were now, on every side, surrounded and pursued by the
      Roman arms. The flower of their troops had perished in the long
      siege of Philippopolis, and the exhausted country could no longer
      afford subsistence for the remaining multitude of licentious
      barbarians. Reduced to this extremity, the Goths would gladly
      have purchased, by the surrender of all their booty and
      prisoners, the permission of an undisturbed retreat. But the
      emperor, confident of victory, and resolving, by the chastisement
      of these invaders, to strike a salutary terror into the nations
      of the North, refused to listen to any terms of accommodation.
      The high-spirited barbarians preferred death to slavery. An
      obscure town of Mæsia, called Forum Terebronii, 44 was the scene
      of the battle. The Gothic army was drawn up in three lines, and
      either from choice or accident, the front of the third line was
      covered by a morass. In the beginning of the action, the son of
      Decius, a youth of the fairest hopes, and already associated to
      the honors of the purple, was slain by an arrow, in the sight of
      his afflicted father; who, summoning all his fortitude,
      admonished the dismayed troops, that the loss of a single soldier
      was of little importance to the republic. 45 The conflict was
      terrible; it was the combat of despair against grief and rage.
      The first line of the Goths at length gave way in disorder; the
      second, advancing to sustain it, shared its fate; and the third
      only remained entire, prepared to dispute the passage of the
      morass, which was imprudently attempted by the presumption of the
      enemy. “Here the fortune of the day turned, and all things became
      adverse to the Romans; the place deep with ooze, sinking under
      those who stood, slippery to such as advanced; their armor heavy,
      the waters deep; nor could they wield, in that uneasy situation,
      their weighty javelins. The barbarians, on the contrary, were
      inured to encounter in the bogs, their persons tall, their spears
      long, such as could wound at a distance.” 46 In this morass the
      Roman army, after an ineffectual struggle, was irrecoverably
      lost; nor could the body of the emperor ever be found. 47 Such
      was the fate of Decius, in the fiftieth year of his age; an
      accomplished prince, active in war and affable in peace; 48 who,
      together with his son, has deserved to be compared, both in life
      and death, with the brightest examples of ancient virtue. 49

      44 (return) [ Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.
      598. As Zosimus and some of his followers mistake the Danube for
      the Tanais, they place the field of battle in the plains of
      Scythia.]

      45 (return) [ Aurelius Victor allows two distinct actions for the
      deaths of the two Decii; but I have preferred the account of
      Jornandes.]

      46 (return) [ I have ventured to copy from Tacitus (Annal. i. 64)
      the picture of a similar engagement between a Roman army and a
      German tribe.]

      47 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 22, [c. 23.]
      Zonaras, l. xii. p. 627. Aurelius Victor.]

      48 (return) [ The Decii were killed before the end of the year
      two hundred and fifty-one, since the new princes took possession
      of the consulship on the ensuing calends of January.]

      49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 223, gives them a very honorable
      place among the small number of good emperors who reigned between
      Augustus and Diocletian.]

      This fatal blow humbled, for a very little time, the insolence of
      the legions. They appeared to have patiently expected, and
      submissively obeyed, the decree of the senate which regulated the
      succession to the throne. From a just regard for the memory of
      Decius, the Imperial title was conferred on Hostilianus, his only
      surviving son; but an equal rank, with more effectual power, was
      granted to Gallus, whose experience and ability seemed equal to
      the great trust of guardian to the young prince and the
      distressed empire. 50 The first care of the new emperor was to
      deliver the Illyrian provinces from the intolerable weight of the
      victorious Goths. He consented to leave in their hands the rich
      fruits of their invasion, an immense booty, and what was still
      more disgraceful, a great number of prisoners of the highest
      merit and quality. He plentifully supplied their camp with every
      conveniency that could assuage their angry spirits or facilitate
      their so much wished-for departure; and he even promised to pay
      them annually a large sum of gold, on condition they should never
      afterwards infest the Roman territories by their incursions. 51

      50 (return) [ Hæc ubi Patres comperere.. .. decernunt. Victor in
      Cæsaribus.]

      51 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

      In the age of the Scipios, the most opulent kings of the earth,
      who courted the protection of the victorious commonwealth, were
      gratified with such trifling presents as could only derive a
      value from the hand that bestowed them; an ivory chair, a coarse
      garment of purple, an inconsiderable piece of plate, or a
      quantity of copper coin. 52 After the wealth of nations had
      centred in Rome, the emperors displayed their greatness, and even
      their policy, by the regular exercise of a steady and moderate
      liberality towards the allies of the state. They relieved the
      poverty of the barbarians, honored their merit, and recompensed
      their fidelity. These voluntary marks of bounty were understood
      to flow, not from the fears, but merely from the generosity or
      the gratitude of the Romans; and whilst presents and subsidies
      were liberally distributed among friends and suppliants, they
      were sternly refused to such as claimed them as a debt. 53 But
      this stipulation, of an annual payment to a victorious enemy,
      appeared without disguise in the light of an ignominious tribute;
      the minds of the Romans were not yet accustomed to accept such
      unequal laws from a tribe of barbarians; and the prince, who by a
      necessary concession had probably saved his country, became the
      object of the general contempt and aversion. The death of
      Hostiliamus, though it happened in the midst of a raging
      pestilence, was interpreted as the personal crime of Gallus; 54
      and even the defeat of the later emperor was ascribed by the
      voice of suspicion to the perfidious counsels of his hated
      successor. 55 The tranquillity which the empire enjoyed during
      the first year of his administration, 56 served rather to inflame
      than to appease the public discontent; and as soon as the
      apprehensions of war were removed, the infamy of the peace was
      more deeply and more sensibly felt.

      52 (return) [ A _Sella_, a _Toga_, and a golden _Patera_ of five
      pounds weight, were accepted with joy and gratitude by the
      wealthy king of Egypt. (Livy, xxvii. 4.) _Quina millia Æris_, a
      weight of copper, in value about eighteen pounds sterling, was
      the usual present made to foreign are ambassadors. (Livy, xxxi.
      9.)]

      53 (return) [ See the firmness of a Roman general so late as the
      time of Alexander Severus, in the Excerpta Legationum, p. 25,
      edit. Louvre.]

      54 (return) [ For the plague, see Jornandes, c. 19, and Victor in
      Cæsaribus.]

      55 (return) [ These improbable accusations are alleged by
      Zosimus, l. i. p. 28, 24.]

      56 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 19. The Gothic writer at least
      observed the peace which his victorious countrymen had sworn to
      Gallus.]

      But the Romans were irritated to a still higher degree, when they
      discovered that they had not even secured their repose, though at
      the expense of their honor. The dangerous secret of the wealth
      and weakness of the empire had been revealed to the world. New
      swarms of barbarians, encouraged by the success, and not
      conceiving themselves bound by the obligation of their brethren,
      spread devastation though the Illyrian provinces, and terror as
      far as the gates of Rome. The defence of the monarchy, which
      seemed abandoned by the pusillanimous emperor, was assumed by
      Æmilianus, governor of Pannonia and Mæsia; who rallied the
      scattered forces, and revived the fainting spirits of the troops.
      The barbarians were unexpectedly attacked, routed, chased, and
      pursued beyond the Danube. The victorious leader distributed as a
      donative the money collected for the tribute, and the
      acclamations of the soldiers proclaimed him emperor on the field
      of battle. 57 Gallus, who, careless of the general welfare,
      indulged himself in the pleasures of Italy, was almost in the
      same instant informed of the success, of the revolt, and of the
      rapid approach of his aspiring lieutenant. He advanced to meet
      him as far as the plains of Spoleto. When the armies came in
      sight of each other, the soldiers of Gallus compared the
      ignominious conduct of their sovereign with the glory of his
      rival. They admired the valor of Æmilianus; they were attracted
      by his liberality, for he offered a considerable increase of pay
      to all deserters. 58 The murder of Gallus, and of his son
      Volusianus, put an end to the civil war; and the senate gave a
      legal sanction to the rights of conquest. The letters of
      Æmilianus to that assembly displayed a mixture of moderation and
      vanity. He assured them, that he should resign to their wisdom
      the civil administration; and, contenting himself with the
      quality of their general, would in a short time assert the glory
      of Rome, and deliver the empire from all the barbarians both of
      the North and of the East. 59 His pride was flattered by the
      applause of the senate; and medals are still extant, representing
      him with the name and attributes of Hercules the Victor, and Mars
      the Avenger. 60

      57 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 25, 26.]

      58 (return) [ Victor in Cæsaribus.]

      59 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 628.]

      60 (return) [ Banduri Numismata, p. 94.]

      If the new monarch possessed the abilities, he wanted the time,
      necessary to fulfil these splendid promises. Less than four
      months intervened between his victory and his fall. 61 He had
      vanquished Gallus: he sunk under the weight of a competitor more
      formidable than Gallus. That unfortunate prince had sent
      Valerian, already distinguished by the honorable title of censor,
      to bring the legions of Gaul and Germany 62 to his aid. Valerian
      executed that commission with zeal and fidelity; and as he
      arrived too late to save his sovereign, he resolved to revenge
      him. The troops of Æmilianus, who still lay encamped in the
      plains of Spoleto, were awed by the sanctity of his character,
      but much more by the superior strength of his army; and as they
      were now become as incapable of personal attachment as they had
      always been of constitutional principle, they readily imbrued
      their hands in the blood of a prince who so lately had been the
      object of their partial choice. The guilt was theirs, 621 but the
      advantage of it was Valerian’s; who obtained the possession of
      the throne by the means indeed of a civil war, but with a degree
      of innocence singular in that age of revolutions; since he owed
      neither gratitude nor allegiance to his predecessor, whom he
      dethroned.

      61 (return) [ Eutropius, l. ix. c. 6, says tertio mense. Eusebio
      this emperor.]

      62 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 28. Eutropius and Victor station
      Valerian’s army in Rhætia.]

      621 (return) [ Aurelius Victor says that Æmilianus died of a
      natural disorder. Tropius, in speaking of his death, does not say
      that he was assassinated—G.]

      Valerian was about sixty years of age 63 when he was invested
      with the purple, not by the caprice of the populace, or the
      clamors of the army, but by the unanimous voice of the Roman
      world. In his gradual ascent through the honors of the state, he
      had deserved the favor of virtuous princes, and had declared
      himself the enemy of tyrants. 64 His noble birth, his mild but
      unblemished manners, his learning, prudence, and experience, were
      revered by the senate and people; and if mankind (according to
      the observation of an ancient writer) had been left at liberty to
      choose a master, their choice would most assuredly have fallen on
      Valerian. 65 Perhaps the merit of this emperor was inadequate to
      his reputation; perhaps his abilities, or at least his spirit,
      were affected by the languor and coldness of old age. The
      consciousness of his decline engaged him to share the throne with
      a younger and more active associate; 66 the emergency of the
      times demanded a general no less than a prince; and the
      experience of the Roman censor might have directed him where to
      bestow the Imperial purple, as the reward of military merit. But
      instead of making a judicious choice, which would have confirmed
      his reign and endeared his memory, Valerian, consulting only the
      dictates of affection or vanity, immediately invested with the
      supreme honors his son Gallienus, a youth whose effeminate vices
      had been hitherto concealed by the obscurity of a private
      station. The joint government of the father and the son subsisted
      about seven, and the sole administration of Gallienus continued
      about eight, years. But the whole period was one uninterrupted
      series of confusion and calamity. As the Roman empire was at the
      same time, and on every side, attacked by the blind fury of
      foreign invaders, and the wild ambition of domestic usurpers, we
      shall consult order and perspicuity, by pursuing, not so much the
      doubtful arrangement of dates, as the more natural distribution
      of subjects. The most dangerous enemies of Rome, during the
      reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, were, 1. The Franks; 2. The
      Alemanni; 3. The Goths; and, 4. The Persians. Under these general
      appellations, we may comprehend the adventures of less
      considerable tribes, whose obscure and uncouth names would only
      serve to oppress the memory and perplex the attention of the
      reader.

      63 (return) [ He was about seventy at the time of his accession,
      or, as it is more probable, of his death. Hist. August. p. 173.
      Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p. 893, note 1.]

      64 (return) [ Inimicus tyrannorum. Hist. August. p. 173. In the
      glorious struggle of the senate against Maximin, Valerian acted a
      very spirited part. Hist. August. p. 156.]

      65 (return) [ According to the distinction of Victor, he seems to
      have received the title of Imperator from the army, and that of
      Augustus from the senate.]

      66 (return) [ From Victor and from the medals, Tillemont (tom.
      iii. p. 710) very justly infers, that Gallienus was associated to
      the empire about the month of August of the year 253.]

      I. As the posterity of the Franks compose one of the greatest and
      most enlightened nations of Europe, the powers of learning and
      ingenuity have been exhausted in the discovery of their
      unlettered ancestors. To the tales of credulity have succeeded
      the systems of fancy. Every passage has been sifted, every spot
      has been surveyed, that might possibly reveal some faint traces
      of their origin. It has been supposed that Pannonia, 67 that
      Gaul, that the northern parts of Germany, 68 gave birth to that
      celebrated colony of warriors. At length the most rational
      critics, rejecting the fictitious emigrations of ideal
      conquerors, have acquiesced in a sentiment whose simplicity
      persuades us of its truth. 69 They suppose, that about the year
      two hundred and forty, 70 a new confederacy was formed under the
      name of Franks, by the old inhabitants of the Lower Rhine and the
      Weser. 701 The present circle of Westphalia, the Landgraviate of
      Hesse, and the duchies of Brunswick and Luneburg, were the
      ancient seat of the Chauci who, in their inaccessible morasses,
      defied the Roman arms; 71 of the Cherusci, proud of the fame of
      Arminius; of the Catti, formidable by their firm and intrepid
      infantry; and of several other tribes of inferior power and
      renown. 72 The love of liberty was the ruling passion of these
      Germans; the enjoyment of it their best treasure; the word that
      expressed that enjoyment the most pleasing to their ear. They
      deserved, they assumed, they maintained the honorable epithet of
      Franks, or Freemen; which concealed, though it did not
      extinguish, the peculiar names of the several states of the
      confederacy. 73 Tacit consent, and mutual advantage, dictated the
      first laws of the union; it was gradually cemented by habit and
      experience. The league of the Franks may admit of some comparison
      with the Helvetic body; in which every canton, retaining its
      independent sovereignty, consults with its brethren in the common
      cause, without acknowledging the authority of any supreme head or
      representative assembly. 74 But the principle of the two
      confederacies was extremely different. A peace of two hundred
      years has rewarded the wise and honest policy of the Swiss. An
      inconstant spirit, the thirst of rapine, and a disregard to the
      most solemn treaties, disgraced the character of the Franks.

      67 (return) [ Various systems have been formed to explain a
      difficult passage in Gregory of Tours, l. ii. c. 9.]

      68 (return) [ The Geographer of Ravenna, i. 11, by mentioning
      Mauringania, on the confines of Denmark, as the ancient seat of
      the Franks, gave birth to an ingenious system of Leibritz.]

      69 (return) [ See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. c. 20. M.
      Freret, in the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom.
      xviii.]

      70 (return) [ Most probably under the reign of Gordian, from an
      accidental circumstance fully canvassed by Tillemont, tom. iii.
      p. 710, 1181.]

      701 (return) [ The confederation of the Franks appears to have
      been formed, 1. Of the Chauci. 2. Of the Sicambri, the
      inhabitants of the duchy of Berg. 3. Of the Attuarii, to the
      north of the Sicambri, in the principality of Waldeck, between
      the Dimel and the Eder. 4. Of the Bructeri, on the banks of the
      Lippe, and in the Hartz. 5. Of the Chamavii, the Gambrivii of
      Tacitua, who were established, at the time of the Frankish
      confederation, in the country of the Bructeri. 6. Of the Catti,
      in Hessia.—G. The Salii and Cherasci are added. Greenwood’s Hist.
      of Germans, i 193.—M.]

      71 (return) [Plin. Hist. Natur. xvi. l. The Panegyrists
      frequently allude to the morasses of the Franks.]

      72 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, c. 30, 37.]

      73 (return) [ In a subsequent period, most of those old names are
      occasionally mentioned. See some vestiges of them in Cluver.
      Germ. Antiq. l. iii.]

      74 (return) [ Simler de Republica Helvet. cum notis Fuselin.]




      Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
      Gallienus.—Part III.

      The Romans had long experienced the daring valor of the people of
      Lower Germany. The union of their strength threatened Gaul with a
      more formidable invasion, and required the presence of Gallienus,
      the heir and colleague of Imperial power. 75 Whilst that prince,
      and his infant son Salonius, displayed, in the court of Treves,
      the majesty of the empire, its armies were ably conducted by
      their general, Posthumus, who, though he afterwards betrayed the
      family of Valerian, was ever faithful to the great interests of
      the monarchy. The treacherous language of panegyrics and medals
      darkly announces a long series of victories. Trophies and titles
      attest (if such evidence can attest) the fame of Posthumus, who
      is repeatedly styled the Conqueror of the Germans, and the Savior
      of Gaul. 76

      75 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 27.]

      76 (return) [ M. de Brequigny (in the Memoires de l’Academie,
      tom. xxx.) has given us a very curious life of Posthumus. A
      series of the Augustan History from Medals and Inscriptions has
      been more than once planned, and is still much wanted. * Note: M.
      Eckhel, Keeper of the Cabinet of Medals, and Professor of
      Antiquities at Vienna, lately deceased, has supplied this want by
      his excellent work, Doctrina veterum Nummorum, conscripta a Jos.
      Eckhel, 8 vol. in 4to Vindobona, 1797.—G. Captain Smyth has
      likewise printed (privately) a valuable Descriptive Catologue of
      a series of Large Brass Medals of this period Bedford, 1834.—M.
      1845.]

      But a single fact, the only one indeed of which we have any
      distinct knowledge, erases, in a great measure, these monuments
      of vanity and adulation. The Rhine, though dignified with the
      title of Safeguard of the provinces, was an imperfect barrier
      against the daring spirit of enterprise with which the Franks
      were actuated. Their rapid devastations stretched from the river
      to the foot of the Pyrenees; nor were they stopped by those
      mountains. Spain, which had never dreaded, was unable to resist,
      the inroads of the Germans. During twelve years, the greatest
      part of the reign of Gallienus, that opulent country was the
      theatre of unequal and destructive hostilities. Tarragona, the
      flourishing capital of a peaceful province, was sacked and almost
      destroyed; 77 and so late as the days of Orosius, who wrote in
      the fifth century, wretched cottages, scattered amidst the ruins
      of magnificent cities, still recorded the rage of the barbarians.
      78 When the exhausted country no longer supplied a variety of
      plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain,
      79 and transported themselves into Mauritania. The distant
      province was astonished with the fury of these barbarians, who
      seemed to fall from a new world, as their name, manners, and
      complexion, were equally unknown on the coast of Africa. 80

      77 (return) [ Aurel. Victor, c. 33. Instead of Pœne direpto,
      both the sense and the expression require deleto; though indeed,
      for different reasons, it is alike difficult to correct the text
      of the best, and of the worst, writers.]

      78 (return) [ In the time of Ausonius (the end of the fourth
      century) Ilerda or Lerida was in a very ruinous state, (Auson.
      Epist. xxv. 58,) which probably was the consequence of this
      invasion.]

      79 (return) [ Valesius is therefore mistaken in supposing that
      the Franks had invaded Spain by sea.]

      80 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. Eutrop. ix. 6.]

      II. In that part of Upper Saxony, beyond the Elbe, which is at
      present called the Marquisate of Lusace, there existed, in
      ancient times, a sacred wood, the awful seat of the superstition
      of the Suevi. None were permitted to enter the holy precincts,
      without confessing, by their servile bonds and suppliant posture,
      the immediate presence of the sovereign Deity. 81 Patriotism
      contributed, as well as devotion, to consecrate the Sonnenwald,
      or wood of the Semnones. 82 It was universally believed, that the
      nation had received its first existence on that sacred spot. At
      stated periods, the numerous tribes who gloried in the Suevic
      blood, resorted thither by their ambassadors; and the memory of
      their common extraction was perpetrated by barbaric rites and
      human sacrifices. The wide-extended name of Suevi filled the
      interior countries of Germany, from the banks of the Oder to
      those of the Danube. They were distinguished from the other
      Germans by their peculiar mode of dressing their long hair, which
      they gathered into a rude knot on the crown of the head; and they
      delighted in an ornament that showed their ranks more lofty and
      terrible in the eyes of the enemy. 83 Jealous as the Germans were
      of military renown, they all confessed the superior valor of the
      Suevi; and the tribes of the Usipetes and Tencteri, who, with a
      vast army, encountered the dictator Cæsar, declared that they
      esteemed it not a disgrace to have fled before a people to whose
      arms the immortal gods themselves were unequal. 84

      81 (return) [ Tacit.Germania, 38.]

      82 (return) [ Cluver. Germ. Antiq. iii. 25.]

      83 (return) [ Sic Suevi a ceteris Germanis, sic Suerorum ingenui
      a servis separantur. A proud separation!]

      84 (return) [ Cæsar in Bello Gallico, iv. 7.]

      In the reign of the emperor Caracalla, an innumerable swarm of
      Suevi appeared on the banks of the Main, and in the neighborhood
      of the Roman provinces, in quest either of food, of plunder, or
      of glory. 85 The hasty army of volunteers gradually coalesced
      into a great and permanent nation, and, as it was composed from
      so many different tribes, assumed the name of Alemanni, 851 or
      _Allmen_, to denote at once their various lineage and their
      common bravery. 86 The latter was soon felt by the Romans in many
      a hostile inroad. The Alemanni fought chiefly on horseback; but
      their cavalry was rendered still more formidable by a mixture of
      light infantry, selected from the bravest and most active of the
      youth, whom frequent exercise had inured to accompany the
      horsemen in the longest march, the most rapid charge, or the most
      precipitate retreat. 87

      85 (return) [ Victor in Caracal. Dion Cassius, lxvii. p. 1350.]

      851 (return) [ The nation of the Alemanni was not originally
      formed by the Suavi properly so called; these have always
      preserved their own name. Shortly afterwards they made (A. D.
      357) an irruption into Rhætia, and it was not long after that
      they were reunited with the Alemanni. Still they have always been
      a distinct people; at the present day, the people who inhabit the
      north-west of the Black Forest call themselves Schwaben,
      Suabians, Sueves, while those who inhabit near the Rhine, in
      Ortenau, the Brisgaw, the Margraviate of Baden, do not consider
      themselves Suabians, and are by origin Alemanni. The Teucteri and
      the Usipetæ, inhabitants of the interior and of the north of
      Westphalia, formed, says Gatterer, the nucleus of the Alemannic
      nation; they occupied the country where the name of the Alemanni
      first appears, as conquered in 213, by Caracalla. They were well
      trained to fight on horseback, (according to Tacitus, Germ. c.
      32;) and Aurelius Victor gives the same praise to the Alemanni:
      finally, they never made part of the Frankish league. The
      Alemanni became subsequently a centre round which gathered a
      multitude of German tribes, See Eumen. Panegyr. c. 2. Amm. Marc.
      xviii. 2, xxix. 4.—G. ——The question whether the Suevi was a
      generic name comprehending the clans which peopled central
      Germany, is rather hastily decided by M. Guizot Mr. Greenwood,
      who has studied the modern German writers on their own origin,
      supposes the Suevi, Alemanni, and Marcomanni, one people, under
      different appellations. History of Germany, vol i.—M.]

      86 (return) [ This etymology (far different from those which
      amuse the fancy of the learned) is preserved by Asinius
      Quadratus, an original historian, quoted by Agathias, i. c. 5.]

      87 (return) [ The Suevi engaged Cæsar in this manner, and the
      manœuvre deserved the approbation of the conqueror, (in Bello
      Gallico, i. 48.)]

      This warlike people of Germans had been astonished by the immense
      preparations of Alexander Severus; they were dismayed by the arms
      of his successor, a barbarian equal in valor and fierceness to
      themselves. But still hovering on the frontiers of the empire,
      they increased the general disorder that ensued after the death
      of Decius. They inflicted severe wounds on the rich provinces of
      Gaul; they were the first who removed the veil that covered the
      feeble majesty of Italy. A numerous body of the Alemanni
      penetrated across the Danube and through the Rhætian Alps into
      the plains of Lombardy, advanced as far as Ravenna, and displayed
      the victorious banners of barbarians almost in sight of Rome. 88

      88 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 215, 216. Dexippus in the
      Excerpts. Legationam, p. 8. Hieronym. Chron. Orosius, vii. 22.]

      The insult and the danger rekindled in the senate some sparks of
      their ancient virtue. Both the emperors were engaged in far
      distant wars, Valerian in the East, and Gallienus on the Rhine.
      All the hopes and resources of the Romans were in themselves. In
      this emergency, the senators resumed the defence of the republic,
      drew out the Prætorian guards, who had been left to garrison the
      capital, and filled up their numbers, by enlisting into the
      public service the stoutest and most willing of the Plebeians.
      The Alemanni, astonished with the sudden appearance of an army
      more numerous than their own, retired into Germany, laden with
      spoil; and their retreat was esteemed as a victory by the
      unwarlike Romans. 89

      89 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 34.]

      When Gallienus received the intelligence that his capital was
      delivered from the barbarians, he was much less delighted than
      alarmed with the courage of the senate, since it might one day
      prompt them to rescue the public from domestic tyranny as well as
      from foreign invasion. His timid ingratitude was published to his
      subjects, in an edict which prohibited the senators from
      exercising any military employment, and even from approaching the
      camps of the legions. But his fears were groundless. The rich and
      luxurious nobles, sinking into their natural character, accepted,
      as a favor, this disgraceful exemption from military service; and
      as long as they were indulged in the enjoyment of their baths,
      their theatres, and their villas, they cheerfully resigned the
      more dangerous cares of empire to the rough hands of peasants and
      soldiers. 90

      90 (return) [ Aurel. Victor, in Gallieno et Probo. His complaints
      breathe as uncommon spirit of freedom.]

      Another invasion of the Alemanni, of a more formidable aspect,
      but more glorious event, is mentioned by a writer of the lower
      empire. Three hundred thousand are said to have been vanquished,
      in a battle near Milan, by Gallienus in person, at the head of
      only ten thousand Romans. 91 We may, however, with great
      probability, ascribe this incredible victory either to the
      credulity of the historian, or to some exaggerated exploits of
      one of the emperor’s lieutenants. It was by arms of a very
      different nature, that Gallienus endeavored to protect Italy from
      the fury of the Germans. He espoused Pipa, the daughter of a king
      of the Marcomanni, a Suevic tribe, which was often confounded
      with the Alemanni in their wars and conquests. 92 To the father,
      as the price of his alliance, he granted an ample settlement in
      Pannonia. The native charms of unpolished beauty seem to have
      fixed the daughter in the affections of the inconstant emperor,
      and the bands of policy were more firmly connected by those of
      love. But the haughty prejudice of Rome still refused the name of
      marriage to the profane mixture of a citizen and a barbarian; and
      has stigmatized the German princess with the opprobrious title of
      concubine of Gallienus. 93

      91 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 631.]

      92 (return) [ One of the Victors calls him king of the
      Marcomanni; the other of the Germans.]

      93 (return) [ See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iii. p.
      398, &c.]

      III. We have already traced the emigration of the Goths from
      Scandinavia, or at least from Prussia, to the mouth of the
      Borysthenes, and have followed their victorious arms from the
      Borysthenes to the Danube. Under the reigns of Valerian and
      Gallienus, the frontier of the last-mentioned river was
      perpetually infested by the inroads of Germans and Sarmatians;
      but it was defended by the Romans with more than usual firmness
      and success. The provinces that were the seat of war, recruited
      the armies of Rome with an inexhaustible supply of hardy
      soldiers; and more than one of these Illyrian peasants attained
      the station, and displayed the abilities, of a general. Though
      flying parties of the barbarians, who incessantly hovered on the
      banks of the Danube, penetrated sometimes to the confines of
      Italy and Macedonia, their progress was commonly checked, or
      their return intercepted, by the Imperial lieutenants. 94 But the
      great stream of the Gothic hostilities was diverted into a very
      different channel. The Goths, in their new settlement of the
      Ukraine, soon became masters of the northern coast of the Euxine:
      to the south of that inland sea were situated the soft and
      wealthy provinces of Asia Minor, which possessed all that could
      attract, and nothing that could resist, a barbarian conqueror.

      94 (return) [ See the lives of Claudius, Aurelian, and Probus, in
      the Augustan History.]

      The banks of the Borysthenes are only sixty miles distant from
      the narrow entrance 95 of the peninsula of Crim Tartary, known to
      the ancients under the name of Chersonesus Taurica. 96 On that
      inhospitable shore, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art
      the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most
      affecting tragedies. 97 The bloody sacrifices of Diana, the
      arrival of Orestes and Pylades, and the triumph of virtue and
      religion over savage fierceness, serve to represent an historical
      truth, that the Tauri, the original inhabitants of the peninsula,
      were, in some degree, reclaimed from their brutal manners by a
      gradual intercourse with the Grecian colonies, which settled
      along the maritime coast. The little kingdom of Bosphorus, whose
      capital was situated on the Straits, through which the Mæotis
      communicates itself to the Euxine, was composed of degenerate
      Greeks and half-civilized barbarians. It subsisted, as an
      independent state, from the time of the Peloponnesian war, 98 was
      at last swallowed up by the ambition of Mithridates, 99 and, with
      the rest of his dominions, sunk under the weight of the Roman
      arms. From the reign of Augustus, 100 the kings of Bosphorus were
      the humble, but not useless, allies of the empire. By presents,
      by arms, and by a slight fortification drawn across the Isthmus,
      they effectually guarded, against the roving plunderers of
      Sarmatia, the access of a country which, from its peculiar
      situation and convenient harbors, commanded the Euxine Sea and
      Asia Minor. 101 As long as the sceptre was possessed by a lineal
      succession of kings, they acquitted themselves of their important
      charge with vigilance and success. Domestic factions, and the
      fears, or private interest, of obscure usurpers, who seized on
      the vacant throne, admitted the Goths into the heart of
      Bosphorus. With the acquisition of a superfluous waste of fertile
      soil, the conquerors obtained the command of a naval force,
      sufficient to transport their armies to the coast of Asia. 102
      These ships used in the navigation of the Euxine were of a very
      singular construction. They were slight flat-bottomed barks
      framed of timber only, without the least mixture of iron, and
      occasionally covered with a shelving roof, on the appearance of a
      tempest. 103 In these floating houses, the Goths carelessly
      trusted themselves to the mercy of an unknown sea, under the
      conduct of sailors pressed into the service, and whose skill and
      fidelity were equally suspicious. But the hopes of plunder had
      banished every idea of danger, and a natural fearlessness of
      temper supplied in their minds the more rational confidence,
      which is the just result of knowledge and experience. Warriors of
      such a daring spirit must have often murmured against the
      cowardice of their guides, who required the strongest assurances
      of a settled calm before they would venture to embark; and would
      scarcely ever be tempted to lose sight of the land. Such, at
      least, is the practice of the modern Turks; 104 and they are
      probably not inferior, in the art of navigation, to the ancient
      inhabitants of Bosphorus.

      95 (return) [ It is about half a league in breadth. Genealogical
      History of the Tartars, p 598.]

      96 (return) [ M. de Peyssonel, who had been French Consul at
      Caffa, in his Observations sur les Peuples Barbares, que ont
      habite les bords du Danube]

      97 (return) [ Eeripides in Iphigenia in Taurid.]

      98 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. p. 309. The first kings of
      Bosphorus were the allies of Athens.]

      99 (return) [ Appian in Mithridat.]

      100 (return) [ It was reduced by the arms of Agrippa. Orosius,
      vi. 21. Eu tropius, vii. 9. The Romans once advanced within three
      days’ march of the Tanais. Tacit. Annal. xii. 17.]

      101 (return) [ See the Toxaris of Lucian, if we credit the
      sincerity and the virtues of the Scythian, who relates a great
      war of his nation against the kings of Bosphorus.]

      102 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 28.]

      103 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. Tacit. Hist. iii. 47. They were
      called Camarœ.]

      104 (return) [ See a very natural picture of the Euxine
      navigation, in the xvith letter of Tournefort.]

      The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia on the
      left hand, first appeared before Pityus, 105 the utmost limits of
      the Roman provinces; a city provided with a convenient port, and
      fortified with a strong wall. Here they met with a resistance
      more obstinate than they had reason to expect from the feeble
      garrison of a distant fortress. They were repulsed; and their
      disappointment seemed to diminish the terror of the Gothic name.
      As long as Successianus, an officer of superior rank and merit,
      defended that frontier, all their efforts were ineffectual; but
      as soon as he was removed by Valerian to a more honorable but
      less important station, they resumed the attack of Pityus; and by
      the destruction of that city, obliterated the memory of their
      former disgrace. 106

      105 (return) [ Arrian places the frontier garrison at Dioscurias,
      or Sebastopolis, forty-four miles to the east of Pityus. The
      garrison of Phasis consisted in his time of only four hundred
      foot. See the Periplus of the Euxine. * Note: Pityus is
      Pitchinda, according to D’Anville, ii. 115.—G. Rather Boukoun.—M.
      Dioscurias is Iskuriah.—G.]

      106 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 30.]

      Circling round the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea, the
      navigation from Pityus to Trebizond is about three hundred miles.
      107 The course of the Goths carried them in sight of the country
      of Colchis, so famous by the expedition of the Argonauts; and
      they even attempted, though without success, to pillage a rich
      temple at the mouth of the River Phasis. Trebizond, celebrated in
      the retreat of the ten thousand as an ancient colony of Greeks,
      108 derived its wealth and splendor from the magnificence of the
      emperor Hadrian, who had constructed an artificial port on a
      coast left destitute by nature of secure harbors. 109 The city
      was large and populous; a double enclosure of walls seemed to
      defy the fury of the Goths, and the usual garrison had been
      strengthened by a reënforcement of ten thousand men. But there
      are not any advantages capable of supplying the absence of
      discipline and vigilance. The numerous garrison of Trebizond,
      dissolved in riot and luxury, disdained to guard their
      impregnable fortifications. The Goths soon discovered the supine
      negligence of the besieged, erected a lofty pile of fascines,
      ascended the walls in the silence of the night, and entered the
      defenceless city sword in hand. A general massacre of the people
      ensued, whilst the affrighted soldiers escaped through the
      opposite gates of the town. The most holy temples, and the most
      splendid edifices, were involved in a common destruction. The
      booty that fell into the hands of the Goths was immense: the
      wealth of the adjacent countries had been deposited in Trebizond,
      as in a secure place of refuge. The number of captives was
      incredible, as the victorious barbarians ranged without
      opposition through the extensive province of Pontus. 110 The rich
      spoils of Trebizond filled a great fleet of ships that had been
      found in the port. The robust youth of the sea-coast were chained
      to the oar; and the Goths, satisfied with the success of their
      first naval expedition, returned in triumph to their new
      establishment in the kingdom of Bosphorus. 111

      107 (return) [ Arrian (in Periplo Maris Euxine, p. 130) calls the
      distance 2610 stadia.]

      108 (return) [ Xenophon, Anabasis, l. iv. p. 348, edit.
      Hutchinson. Note: Fallmerayer (Geschichte des Kaiserthums von
      Trapezunt, p. 6, &c) assigns a very ancient date to the first
      (Pelasgic) foundation of Trapezun (Trebizond)—M.]

      109 (return) [ Arrian, p. 129. The general observation is
      Tournefort’s.]

      110 (return) [ See an epistle of Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of
      Neo-Cæoarea, quoted by Mascou, v. 37.]

      111 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 32, 33.]

      The second expedition of the Goths was undertaken with greater
      powers of men and ships; but they steered a different course,
      and, disdaining the exhausted provinces of Pontus, followed the
      western coast of the Euxine, passed before the wide mouths of the
      Borysthenes, the Niester, and the Danube, and increasing their
      fleet by the capture of a great number of fishing barks, they
      approached the narrow outlet through which the Euxine Sea pours
      its waters into the Mediterranean, and divides the continents of
      Europe and Asia. The garrison of Chalcedon was encamped near the
      temple of Jupiter Urius, on a promontory that commanded the
      entrance of the Strait; and so inconsiderable were the dreaded
      invasions of the barbarians that this body of troops surpassed in
      number the Gothic army. But it was in numbers alone that they
      surpassed it. They deserted with precipitation their advantageous
      post, and abandoned the town of Chalcedon, most plentifully
      stored with arms and money, to the discretion of the conquerors.
      Whilst they hesitated whether they should prefer the sea or land,
      Europe or Asia, for the scene of their hostilities, a perfidious
      fugitive pointed out Nicomedia, 1111 once the capital of the
      kings of Bithynia, as a rich and easy conquest. He guided the
      march, which was only sixty miles from the camp of Chalcedon, 112
      directed the resistless attack, and partook of the booty; for the
      Goths had learned sufficient policy to reward the traitor whom
      they detested. Nice, Prusa, Apamæa, Cius, 1121 cities that had
      sometimes rivalled, or imitated, the splendor of Nicomedia, were
      involved in the same calamity, which, in a few weeks, raged
      without control through the whole province of Bithynia. Three
      hundred years of peace, enjoyed by the soft inhabitants of Asia,
      had abolished the exercise of arms, and removed the apprehension
      of danger. The ancient walls were suffered to moulder away, and
      all the revenue of the most opulent cities was reserved for the
      construction of baths, temples, and theatres. 113

      1111 (return) [ It has preserved its name, joined to the
      preposition of place in that of Nikmid. D’Anv. Geog. Anc. ii.
      28.—G.]

      112 (return) [ Itiner. Hierosolym. p. 572. Wesseling.]

      1121 (return) [ Now Isnik, Bursa, Mondania Ghio or Kemlik D’Anv.
      ii. 23.—G.]

      113 (return) [ Zosimus, l.. p. 32, 33.]

      When the city of Cyzicus withstood the utmost effort of
      Mithridates, 114 it was distinguished by wise laws, a naval power
      of two hundred galleys, and three arsenals, of arms, of military
      engines, and of corn. 115 It was still the seat of wealth and
      luxury; but of its ancient strength, nothing remained except the
      situation, in a little island of the Propontis, connected with
      the continent of Asia only by two bridges. From the recent sack
      of Prusa, the Goths advanced within eighteen miles 116 of the
      city, which they had devoted to destruction; but the ruin of
      Cyzicus was delayed by a fortunate accident. The season was
      rainy, and the Lake Apolloniates, the reservoir of all the
      springs of Mount Olympus, rose to an uncommon height. The little
      river of Rhyndacus, which issues from the lake, swelled into a
      broad and rapid stream, and stopped the progress of the Goths.
      Their retreat to the maritime city of Heraclea, where the fleet
      had probably been stationed, was attended by a long train of
      wagons, laden with the spoils of Bithynia, and was marked by the
      flames of Nico and Nicomedia, which they wantonly burnt. 117 Some
      obscure hints are mentioned of a doubtful combat that secured
      their retreat. 118 But even a complete victory would have been of
      little moment, as the approach of the autumnal equinox summoned
      them to hasten their return. To navigate the Euxine before the
      month of May, or after that of September, is esteemed by the
      modern Turks the most unquestionable instance of rashness and
      folly. 119

      114 (return) [ He besieged the place with 400 galleys, 150,000
      foot, and a numerous cavalry. See Plutarch in Lucul. Appian in
      Mithridat Cicero pro Lege Manilia, c. 8.]

      115 (return) [ Strabo, l. xii. p. 573.]

      116 (return) [ Pocock’s Description of the East, l. ii. c. 23,
      24.]

      117 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

      118 (return) [ Syncellus tells an unintelligible story of Prince
      Odenathus, who defeated the Goths, and who was killed by Prince
      Odenathus.]

      119 (return) [Footnote 119: Voyages de Chardin, tom. i. p. 45. He
      sailed with the Turks from Constantinople to Caffa.]

      When we are informed that the third fleet, equipped by the Goths
      in the ports of Bosphorus, consisted of five hundred sails of
      ships, 120 our ready imagination instantly computes and
      multiplies the formidable armament; but, as we are assured by the
      judicious Strabo, 121 that the piratical vessels used by the
      barbarians of Pontus and the Lesser Scythia, were not capable of
      containing more than twenty-five or thirty men we may safely
      affirm, that fifteen thousand warriors, at the most, embarked in
      this great expedition. Impatient of the limits of the Euxine,
      they steered their destructive course from the Cimmerian to the
      Thracian Bosphorus. When they had almost gained the middle of the
      Straits, they were suddenly driven back to the entrance of them;
      till a favorable wind, springing up the next day, carried them in
      a few hours into the placid sea, or rather lake, of the
      Propontis. Their landing on the little island of Cyzicus was
      attended with the ruin of that ancient and noble city. From
      thence issuing again through the narrow passage of the
      Hellespont, they pursued their winding navigation amidst the
      numerous islands scattered over the Archipelago, or the Ægean
      Sea. The assistance of captives and deserters must have been very
      necessary to pilot their vessels, and to direct their various
      incursions, as well on the coast of Greece as on that of Asia. At
      length the Gothic fleet anchored in the port of Piræus, five
      miles distant from Athens, 122 which had attempted to make some
      preparations for a vigorous defence. Cleodamus, one of the
      engineers employed by the emperor’s orders to fortify the
      maritime cities against the Goths, had already begun to repair
      the ancient walls, fallen to decay since the time of Scylla. The
      efforts of his skill were ineffectual, and the barbarians became
      masters of the native seat of the muses and the arts. But while
      the conquerors abandoned themselves to the license of plunder and
      intemperance, their fleet, that lay with a slender guard in the
      harbor of Piræus, was unexpectedly attacked by the brave
      Dexippus, who, flying with the engineer Cleodamus from the sack
      of Athens, collected a hasty band of volunteers, peasants as well
      as soldiers, and in some measure avenged the calamities of his
      country. 123

      120 (return) [ Syncellus (p. 382) speaks of this expedition, as
      undertaken by the Heruli.]

      121 (return) [ Strabo, l. xi. p. 495.]

      122 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 7.]

      123 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 181. Victor, c. 33. Orosius, vii.
      42. Zosimus, l. i. p. 35. Zonaras, l. xii. 635. Syncellus, p.
      382. It is not without some attention, that we can explain and
      conciliate their imperfect hints. We can still discover some
      traces of the partiality of Dexippus, in the relation of his own
      and his countrymen’s exploits. * Note: According to a new
      fragment of Dexippus, published by Mai, the 2000 men took up a
      strong position in a mountainous and woods district, and kept up
      a harassing warfare. He expresses a hope of being speedily joined
      by the Imperial fleet. Dexippus in rov. Byzantinorum Collect a
      Niebuhr, p. 26, 8—M.]

      But this exploit, whatever lustre it might shed on the declining
      age of Athens, served rather to irritate than to subdue the
      undaunted spirit of the northern invaders. A general
      conflagration blazed out at the same time in every district of
      Greece. Thebes and Argos, Corinth and Sparta, which had formerly
      waged such memorable wars against each other, were now unable to
      bring an army into the field, or even to defend their ruined
      fortifications. The rage of war, both by land and by sea, spread
      from the eastern point of Sunium to the western coast of Epirus.
      The Goths had already advanced within sight of Italy, when the
      approach of such imminent danger awakened the indolent Gallienus
      from his dream of pleasure. The emperor appeared in arms; and his
      presence seems to have checked the ardor, and to have divided the
      strength, of the enemy. Naulobatus, a chief of the Heruli,
      accepted an honorable capitulation, entered with a large body of
      his countrymen into the service of Rome, and was invested with
      the ornaments of the consular dignity, which had never before
      been profaned by the hands of a barbarian. 124 Great numbers of
      the Goths, disgusted with the perils and hardships of a tedious
      voyage, broke into Mæsia, with a design of forcing their way over
      the Danube to their settlements in the Ukraine. The wild attempt
      would have proved inevitable destruction, if the discord of the
      Roman generals had not opened to the barbarians the means of an
      escape. 125 The small remainder of this destroying host returned
      on board their vessels; and measuring back their way through the
      Hellespont and the Bosphorus, ravaged in their passage the shores
      of Troy, whose fame, immortalized by Homer, will probably survive
      the memory of the Gothic conquests. As soon as they found
      themselves in safety within the basin of the Euxine, they landed
      at Anchialus in Thrace, near the foot of Mount Hæmus; and, after
      all their toils, indulged themselves in the use of those pleasant
      and salutary hot baths. What remained of the voyage was a short
      and easy navigation. 126 Such was the various fate of this third
      and greatest of their naval enterprises. It may seem difficult to
      conceive how the original body of fifteen thousand warriors could
      sustain the losses and divisions of so bold an adventure. But as
      their numbers were gradually wasted by the sword, by shipwrecks,
      and by the influence of a warm climate, they were perpetually
      renewed by troops of banditti and deserters, who flocked to the
      standard of plunder, and by a crowd of fugitive slaves, often of
      German or Sarmatian extraction, who eagerly seized the glorious
      opportunity of freedom and revenge. In these expeditions, the
      Gothic nation claimed a superior share of honor and danger; but
      the tribes that fought under the Gothic banners are sometimes
      distinguished and sometimes confounded in the imperfect histories
      of that age; and as the barbarian fleets seemed to issue from the
      mouth of the Tanais, the vague but familiar appellation of
      Scythians was frequently bestowed on the mixed multitude. 127

      124 (return) [Syncellus, p. 382. This body of Heruli was for a
      long time faithful and famous.]

      125 (return) [ Claudius, who commanded on the Danube, thought
      with propriety and acted with spirit. His colleague was jealous
      of his fame Hist. August. p. 181.]

      126 (return) [ Jornandes, c. 20.]

      127 (return) [ Zosimus and the Greeks (as the author of the
      Philopatris) give the name of Scythians to those whom Jornandes,
      and the Latin writers, constantly represent as Goths.]




      Chapter X: Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian And
      Gallienus.—Part IV.

      In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an individual,
      however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are
      passed over with careless inattention. Yet we cannot forget that
      the temple of Diana at Ephesus, after having risen with
      increasing splendor from seven repeated misfortunes, 128 was
      finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion. The
      arts of Greece, and the wealth of Asia, had conspired to erect
      that sacred and magnificent structure. It was supported by a
      hundred and twenty-seven marble columns of the Ionic order. They
      were the gifts of devout monarchs, and each was sixty feet high.
      The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of Praxiteles,
      who had, perhaps, selected from the favorite legends of the place
      the birth of the divine children of Latona, the concealment of
      Apollo after the slaughter of the Cyclops, and the clemency of
      Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons. 129 Yet the length of the
      temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and twenty-five feet,
      about two thirds of the measure of the church of St. Peter’s at
      Rome. 130 In the other dimensions, it was still more inferior to
      that sublime production of modern architecture. The spreading
      arms of a Christian cross require a much greater breadth than the
      oblong temples of the Pagans; and the boldest artists of
      antiquity would have been startled at the proposal of raising in
      the air a dome of the size and proportions of the Pantheon. The
      temple of Diana was, however, admired as one of the wonders of
      the world. Successive empires, the Persian, the Macedonian, and
      the Roman, had revered its sanctity and enriched its splendor.
      131 But the rude savages of the Baltic were destitute of a taste
      for the elegant arts, and they despised the ideal terrors of a
      foreign superstition. 132

      128 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 178. Jornandes, c. 20.]

      129 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiv. p. 640. Vitruvius, l. i. c. i.
      præfat l vii. Tacit Annal. iii. 61. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxvi. 14.]

      130 (return) [ The length of St. Peter’s is 840 Roman palms; each
      palm is very little short of nine English inches. See Greaves’s
      Miscellanies vol. i. p. 233; on the Roman Foot. * Note: St.
      Paul’s Cathedral is 500 feet. Dallaway on Architecture—M.]

      131 (return) [ The policy, however, of the Romans induced them to
      abridge the extent of the sanctuary or asylum, which by
      successive privileges had spread itself two stadia round the
      temple. Strabo, l. xiv. p. 641. Tacit. Annal. iii. 60, &c.]

      132 (return) [ They offered no sacrifices to the Grecian gods.
      See Epistol Gregor. Thaumat.]

      Another circumstance is related of these invasions, which might
      deserve our notice, were it not justly to be suspected as the
      fanciful conceit of a recent sophist. We are told that in the
      sack of Athens the Goths had collected all the libraries, and
      were on the point of setting fire to this funeral pile of Grecian
      learning, had not one of their chiefs, of more refined policy
      than his brethren, dissuaded them from the design; by the
      profound observation, that as long as the Greeks were addicted to
      the study of books, they would never apply themselves to the
      exercise of arms. 133 The sagacious counsellor (should the truth
      of the fact be admitted) reasoned like an ignorant barbarian. In
      the most polite and powerful nations, genius of every kind has
      displayed itself about the same period; and the age of science
      has generally been the age of military virtue and success.

      133 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 635. Such an anecdote was
      perfectly suited to the taste of Montaigne. He makes use of it in
      his agreeable Essay on Pedantry, l. i. c. 24.]

      IV. The new sovereign of Persia, Artaxerxes and his son Sapor,
      had triumphed (as we have already seen) over the house of
      Arsaces. Of the many princes of that ancient race. Chosroes, king
      of Armenia, had alone preserved both his life and his
      independence. He defended himself by the natural strength of his
      country; by the perpetual resort of fugitives and malecontents;
      by the alliance of the Romans, and above all, by his own courage.

      Invincible in arms, during a thirty years’ war, he was at length
      assassinated by the emissaries of Sapor, king of Persia. The
      patriotic satraps of Armenia, who asserted the freedom and
      dignity of the crown, implored the protection of Rome in favor of
      Tiridates, the lawful heir. But the son of Chosroes was an
      infant, the allies were at a distance, and the Persian monarch
      advanced towards the frontier at the head of an irresistible
      force. Young Tiridates, the future hope of his country, was saved
      by the fidelity of a servant, and Armenia continued above
      twenty-seven years a reluctant province of the great monarchy of
      Persia. 134 Elated with this easy conquest, and presuming on the
      distresses or the degeneracy of the Romans, Sapor obliged the
      strong garrisons of Carrhæ and Nisibis 1341 to surrender, and
      spread devastation and terror on either side of the Euphrates.

      134 (return) [ Moses Chorenensis, l. ii. c. 71, 73, 74. Zonaras,
      l. xii. p. 628. The anthentic relation of the Armenian historian
      serves to rectify the confused account of the Greek. The latter
      talks of the children of Tiridates, who at that time was himself
      an infant. (Compare St Martin Memoires sur l’Armenie, i. p.
      301.—M.)]

      1341 (return) [ Nisibis, according to Persian authors, was taken
      by a miracle, the wall fell, in compliance with the prayers of
      the army. Malcolm’s Persia, l. 76.—M]

      The loss of an important frontier, the ruin of a faithful and
      natural ally, and the rapid success of Sapor’s ambition, affected
      Rome with a deep sense of the insult as well as of the danger.
      Valerian flattered himself, that the vigilance of his lieutenants
      would sufficiently provide for the safety of the Rhine and of the
      Danube; but he resolved, notwithstanding his advanced age, to
      march in person to the defence of the Euphrates.

      During his progress through Asia Minor, the naval enterprises of
      the Goths were suspended, and the afflicted province enjoyed a
      transient and fallacious calm. He passed the Euphrates,
      encountered the Persian monarch near the walls of Edessa, was
      vanquished, and taken prisoner by Sapor. The particulars of this
      great event are darkly and imperfectly represented; yet, by the
      glimmering light which is afforded us, we may discover a long
      series of imprudence, of error, and of deserved misfortunes on
      the side of the Roman emperor. He reposed an implicit confidence
      in Macrianus, his Prætorian præfect. 135 That worthless minister
      rendered his master formidable only to the oppressed subjects,
      and contemptible to the enemies of Rome. 136 By his weak or
      wicked counsels, the Imperial army was betrayed into a situation
      where valor and military skill were equally unavailing. 137 The
      vigorous attempt of the Romans to cut their way through the
      Persian host was repulsed with great slaughter; 138 and Sapor,
      who encompassed the camp with superior numbers, patiently waited
      till the increasing rage of famine and pestilence had insured his
      victory. The licentious murmurs of the legions soon accused
      Valerian as the cause of their calamities; their seditious
      clamors demanded an instant capitulation. An immense sum of gold
      was offered to purchase the permission of a disgraceful retreat.
      But the Persian, conscious of his superiority, refused the money
      with disdain; and detaining the deputies, advanced in order of
      battle to the foot of the Roman rampart, and insisted on a
      personal conference with the emperor. Valerian was reduced to the
      necessity of intrusting his life and dignity to the faith of an
      enemy. The interview ended as it was natural to expect. The
      emperor was made a prisoner, and his astonished troops laid down
      their arms. 139 In such a moment of triumph, the pride and policy
      of Sapor prompted him to fill the vacant throne with a successor
      entirely dependent on his pleasure. Cyriades, an obscure fugitive
      of Antioch, stained with every vice, was chosen to dishonor the
      Roman purple; and the will of the Persian victor could not fail
      of being ratified by the acclamations, however reluctant, of the
      captive army. 140

      135 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 191. As Macrianus was an enemy to
      the Christians, they charged him with being a magician.]

      136 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33.]

      137 (return) [ Hist. Aug. p. 174.]

      138 (return) [ Victor in Cæsar. Eutropius, ix. 7.]

      139 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 33. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630.
      Peter Patricius, in the Excerpta Legat. p. 29.]

      140 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 185. The reign of Cyriades
      appears in that collection prior to the death of Valerian; but I
      have preferred a probable series of events to the doubtful
      chronology of a most inaccurate writer]

      The Imperial slave was eager to secure the favor of his master by
      an act of treason to his native country. He conducted Sapor over
      the Euphrates, and, by the way of Chalcis, to the metropolis of
      the East. So rapid were the motions of the Persian cavalry, that,
      if we may credit a very judicious historian, 141 the city of
      Antioch was surprised when the idle multitude was fondly gazing
      on the amusements of the theatre. The splendid buildings of
      Antioch, private as well as public, were either pillaged or
      destroyed; and the numerous inhabitants were put to the sword, or
      led away into captivity. 142 The tide of devastation was stopped
      for a moment by the resolution of the high priest of Emesa.
      Arrayed in his sacerdotal robes, he appeared at the head of a
      great body of fanatic peasants, armed only with slings, and
      defended his god and his property from the sacrilegious hands of
      the followers of Zoroaster. 143 But the ruin of Tarsus, and of
      many other cities, furnishes a melancholy proof that, except in
      this singular instance, the conquest of Syria and Cilicia
      scarcely interrupted the progress of the Persian arms. The
      advantages of the narrow passes of Mount Taurus were abandoned,
      in which an invader, whose principal force consisted in his
      cavalry, would have been engaged in a very unequal combat: and
      Sapor was permitted to form the siege of Cæsarea, the capital of
      Cappadocia; a city, though of the second rank, which was supposed
      to contain four hundred thousand inhabitants. Demosthenes
      commanded in the place, not so much by the commission of the
      emperor, as in the voluntary defence of his country. For a long
      time he deferred its fate; and when at last Cæsarea was betrayed
      by the perfidy of a physician, he cut his way through the
      Persians, who had been ordered to exert their utmost diligence to
      take him alive. This heroic chief escaped the power of a foe who
      might either have honored or punished his obstinate valor; but
      many thousands of his fellow-citizens were involved in a general
      massacre, and Sapor is accused of treating his prisoners with
      wanton and unrelenting cruelty. 144 Much should undoubtedly be
      allowed for national animosity, much for humbled pride and
      impotent revenge; yet, upon the whole, it is certain, that the
      same prince, who, in Armenia, had displayed the mild aspect of a
      legislator, showed himself to the Romans under the stern features
      of a conqueror. He despaired of making any permanent
      establishment in the empire, and sought only to leave behind him
      a wasted desert, whilst he transported into Persia the people and
      the treasures of the provinces. 145

      141 (return) [ The sack of Antioch, anticipated by some
      historians, is assigned, by the decisive testimony of Ammianus
      Marcellinus, to the reign of Gallienus, xxiii. 5. * Note: Heyne,
      in his note on Zosimus, contests this opinion of Gibbon and
      observes, that the testimony of Ammianus is in fact by no means
      clear, decisive. Gallienus and Valerian reigned together.
      Zosimus, in a passage, l. iiii. 32, 8, distinctly places this
      event before the capture of Valerian.—M.]

      142 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 35.]

      143 (return) [ John Malala, tom. i. p. 391. He corrupts this
      probable event by some fabulous circumstances.]

      144 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 630. Deep valleys were filled
      up with the slain. Crowds of prisoners were driven to water like
      beasts, and many perished for want of food.]

      145 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 25 asserts, that Sapor, had he
      not preferred spoil to conquest, might have remained master of
      Asia.]

      At the time when the East trembled at the name of Sapor, he
      received a present not unworthy of the greatest kings; a long
      train of camels, laden with the most rare and valuable
      merchandises. The rich offering was accompanied with an epistle,
      respectful, but not servile, from Odenathus, one of the noblest
      and most opulent senators of Palmyra. “Who is this Odenathus,”
      (said the haughty victor, and he commanded that the present
      should be cast into the Euphrates,) “that he thus insolently
      presumes to write to his lord? If he entertains a hope of
      mitigating his punishment, let him fall prostrate before the foot
      of our throne, with his hands bound behind his back. Should he
      hesitate, swift destruction shall be poured on his head, on his
      whole race, and on his country.” 146 The desperate extremity to
      which the Palmyrenian was reduced, called into action all the
      latent powers of his soul. He met Sapor; but he met him in arms.

      Infusing his own spirit into a little army collected from the
      villages of Syria 147 and the tents of the desert, 148 he hovered
      round the Persian host, harassed their retreat, carried off part
      of the treasure, and, what was dearer than any treasure, several
      of the women of the great king; who was at last obliged to repass
      the Euphrates with some marks of haste and confusion. 149 By this
      exploit, Odenathus laid the foundations of his future fame and
      fortunes. The majesty of Rome, oppressed by a Persian, was
      protected by a Syrian or Arab of Palmyra.

      146 (return) [ Peter Patricius in Excerpt. Leg. p. 29.]

      147 (return) [ Syrorum agrestium manu. Sextus Rufus, c. 23. Rufus
      Victor the Augustan History, (p. 192,) and several inscriptions,
      agree in making Odenathus a citizen of Palmyra.]

      148 (return) [ He possessed so powerful an interest among the
      wandering tribes, that Procopius (Bell. Persic. l. ii. c. 5) and
      John Malala, (tom. i. p. 391) style him Prince of the Saracens.]

      149 (return) [ Peter Patricius, p. 25.]

      The voice of history, which is often little more than the organ
      of hatred or flattery, reproaches Sapor with a proud abuse of the
      rights of conquest. We are told that Valerian, in chains, but
      invested with the Imperial purple, was exposed to the multitude,
      a constant spectacle of fallen greatness; and that whenever the
      Persian monarch mounted on horseback, he placed his foot on the
      neck of a Roman emperor. Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of
      his allies, who repeatedly advised him to remember the
      vicissitudes of fortune, to dread the returning power of Rome,
      and to make his illustrious captive the pledge of peace, not the
      object of insult, Sapor still remained inflexible. When Valerian
      sunk under the weight of shame and grief, his skin, stuffed with
      straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was
      preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia; a
      more real monument of triumph, than the fancied trophies of brass
      and marble so often erected by Roman vanity. 150 The tale is
      moral and pathetic, but the truth 1501 of it may very fairly be
      called in question. The letters still extant from the princes of
      the East to Sapor are manifest forgeries; 151 nor is it natural
      to suppose that a jealous monarch should, even in the person of a
      rival, thus publicly degrade the majesty of kings. Whatever
      treatment the unfortunate Valerian might experience in Persia, it
      is at least certain that the only emperor of Rome who had ever
      fallen into the hands of the enemy, languished away his life in
      hopeless captivity.

      150 (return) [ The Pagan writers lament, the Christian insult,
      the misfortunes of Valerian. Their various testimonies are
      accurately collected by Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 739, &c. So
      little has been preserved of eastern history before Mahomet, that
      the modern Persians are totally ignorant of the victory Sapor, an
      event so glorious to their nation. See Bibliotheque Orientale. *
      Note: Malcolm appears to write from Persian authorities, i.
      76.—M.]

      1501 (return) [ Yet Gibbon himself records a speech of the
      emperor Galerius, which alludes to the cruelties exercised
      against the living, and the indignities to which they exposed the
      dead Valerian, vol. ii. ch. 13. Respect for the kingly character
      would by no means prevent an eastern monarch from ratifying his
      pride and his vengeance on a fallen foe.—M.]

      151 (return) [ One of these epistles is from Artavasdes, king of
      Armenia; since Armenia was then a province of Persia, the king,
      the kingdom, and the epistle must be fictitious.]

      The emperor Gallienus, who had long supported with impatience the
      censorial severity of his father and colleague, received the
      intelligence of his misfortunes with secret pleasure and avowed
      indifference. “I knew that my father was a mortal,” said he; “and
      since he has acted as it becomes a brave man, I am satisfied.”
      Whilst Rome lamented the fate of her sovereign, the savage
      coldness of his son was extolled by the servile courtiers as the
      perfect firmness of a hero and a stoic. 152 It is difficult to
      paint the light, the various, the inconstant character of
      Gallienus, which he displayed without constraint, as soon as he
      became sole possessor of the empire. In every art that he
      attempted, his lively genius enabled him to succeed; and as his
      genius was destitute of judgment, he attempted every art, except
      the important ones of war and government. He was a master of
      several curious, but useless sciences, a ready orator, an elegant
      poet, 153 a skilful gardener, an excellent cook, and most
      contemptible prince. When the great emergencies of the state
      required his presence and attention, he was engaged in
      conversation with the philosopher Plotinus, 154 wasting his time
      in trifling or licentious pleasures, preparing his initiation to
      the Grecian mysteries, or soliciting a place in the Areopagus of
      Athens. His profuse magnificence insulted the general poverty;
      the solemn ridicule of his triumphs impressed a deeper sense of
      the public disgrace. 155 The repeated intelligence of invasions,
      defeats, and rebellions, he received with a careless smile; and
      singling out, with affected contempt, some particular production
      of the lost province, he carelessly asked, whether Rome must be
      ruined, unless it was supplied with linen from Egypt, and arras
      cloth from Gaul. There were, however, a few short moments in the
      life of Gallienus, when, exasperated by some recent injury, he
      suddenly appeared the intrepid soldier and the cruel tyrant;
      till, satiated with blood, or fatigued by resistance, he
      insensibly sunk into the natural mildness and indolence of his
      character. 156

      152 (return) [ See his life in the Augustan History.]

      153 (return) [ There is still extant a very pretty Epithalamium,
      composed by Gallienus for the nuptials of his nephews:—“Ite ait,
      O juvenes, pariter sudate medullis Omnibus, inter vos: non
      murmura vestra columbæ, Brachia non hederæ, non vincant oscula
      conchæ.”]

      154 (return) [ He was on the point of giving Plotinus a ruined
      city of Campania to try the experiment of realizing Plato’s
      Republic. See the Life of Plotinus, by Porphyry, in Fabricius’s
      Biblioth. Græc. l. iv.]

      155 (return) [A medal which bears the head of Gallienus has
      perplexed the antiquarians by its legend and reverse; the former
      Gallienæ Augustæ, the latter Ubique Pax. M. Spanheim supposes
      that the coin was struck by some of the enemies of Gallienus, and
      was designed as a severe satire on that effeminate prince. But as
      the use of irony may seem unworthy of the gravity of the Roman
      mint, M. de Vallemont has deduced from a passage of Trebellius
      Pollio (Hist. Aug. p. 198) an ingenious and natural solution.
      Galliena was first cousin to the emperor. By delivering Africa
      from the usurper Celsus, she deserved the title of Augusta. On a
      medal in the French king’s collection, we read a similar
      inscription of Faustina Augusta round the head of Marcus
      Aurelius. With regard to the Ubique Pax, it is easily explained
      by the vanity of Gallienus, who seized, perhaps, the occasion of
      some momentary calm. See Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres,
      Janvier, 1700, p. 21—34.]

      156 (return) [ This singular character has, I believe, been
      fairly transmitted to us. The reign of his immediate successor
      was short and busy; and the historians who wrote before the
      elevation of the family of Constantine could not have the most
      remote interest to misrepresent the character of Gallienus.]

      At the time when the reins of government were held with so loose
      a hand, it is not surprising that a crowd of usurpers should
      start up in every province of the empire against the son of
      Valerian. It was probably some ingenious fancy, of comparing the
      thirty tyrants of Rome with the thirty tyrants of Athens, that
      induced the writers of the Augustan History to select that
      celebrated number, which has been gradually received into a
      popular appellation. 157 But in every light the parallel is idle
      and defective. What resemblance can we discover between a council
      of thirty persons, the united oppressors of a single city, and an
      uncertain list of independent rivals, who rose and fell in
      irregular succession through the extent of a vast empire? Nor can
      the number of thirty be completed, unless we include in the
      account the women and children who were honored with the Imperial
      title. The reign of Gallienus, distracted as it was, produced
      only nineteen pretenders to the throne: Cyriades, Macrianus,
      Balista, Odenathus, and Zenobia, in the East; in Gaul, and the
      western provinces, Posthumus, Lollianus, Victorinus, and his
      mother Victoria, Marius, and Tetricus; in Illyricum and the
      confines of the Danube, Ingenuus, Regillianus, and Aureolus; in
      Pontus, 158 Saturninus; in Isauria, Trebellianus; Piso in
      Thessaly; Valens in Achaia; Æmilianus in Egypt; and Celsus in
      Africa. 1581 To illustrate the obscure monuments of the life and
      death of each individual, would prove a laborious task, alike
      barren of instruction and of amusement. We may content ourselves
      with investigating some general characters, that most strongly
      mark the condition of the times, and the manners of the men,
      their pretensions, their motives, their fate, and the destructive
      consequences of their usurpation. 159

      157 (return) [ Pollio expresses the most minute anxiety to
      complete the number. * Note: Compare a dissertation of Manso on
      the thirty tyrants at the end of his Leben Constantius des
      Grossen. Breslau, 1817.—M.]

      158 (return) [ The place of his reign is somewhat doubtful; but
      there was a tyrant in Pontus, and we are acquainted with the seat
      of all the others.]

      1581 (return) [ Captain Smyth, in his “Catalogue of Medals,” p.
      307, substitutes two new names to make up the number of nineteen,
      for those of Odenathus and Zenobia. He subjoins this list:—1. 2.
      3. Of those whose coins Those whose coins Those of whom no are
      undoubtedly true. are suspected. coins are known. Posthumus.
      Cyriades. Valens. Lælianus, (Lollianus, G.) Ingenuus. Balista
      Victorinus Celsus. Saturninus. Marius. Piso Frugi. Trebellianus.
      Tetricus. —M. 1815 Macrianus. Quietus. Regalianus (Regillianus,
      G.) Alex. Æmilianus. Aureolus. Sulpicius Antoninus]

      159 (return) [ Tillemont, tom. iii. p. 1163, reckons them
      somewhat differently.]

      It is sufficiently known, that the odious appellation of _Tyrant_
      was often employed by the ancients to express the illegal seizure
      of supreme power, without any reference to the abuse of it.
      Several of the pretenders, who raised the standard of rebellion
      against the emperor Gallienus, were shining models of virtue, and
      almost all possessed a considerable share of vigor and ability.
      Their merit had recommended them to the favor of Valerian, and
      gradually promoted them to the most important commands of the
      empire. The generals, who assumed the title of Augustus, were
      either respected by their troops for their able conduct and
      severe discipline, or admired for valor and success in war, or
      beloved for frankness and generosity. The field of victory was
      often the scene of their election; and even the armorer Marius,
      the most contemptible of all the candidates for the purple, was
      distinguished, however, by intrepid courage, matchless strength,
      and blunt honesty. 160 His mean and recent trade cast, indeed, an
      air of ridicule on his elevation; 1601 but his birth could not be
      more obscure than was that of the greater part of his rivals, who
      were born of peasants, and enlisted in the army as private
      soldiers. In times of confusion every active genius finds the
      place assigned him by nature: in a general state of war military
      merit is the road to glory and to greatness. Of the nineteen
      tyrants Tetricus only was a senator; Piso alone was a noble. The
      blood of Numa, through twenty-eight successive generations, ran
      in the veins of Calphurnius Piso, 161 who, by female alliances,
      claimed a right of exhibiting, in his house, the images of
      Crassus and of the great Pompey. 162 His ancestors had been
      repeatedly dignified with all the honors which the commonwealth
      could bestow; and of all the ancient families of Rome, the
      Calphurnian alone had survived the tyranny of the Cæsars. The
      personal qualities of Piso added new lustre to his race. The
      usurper Valens, by whose order he was killed, confessed, with
      deep remorse, that even an enemy ought to have respected the
      sanctity of Piso; and although he died in arms against Gallienus,
      the senate, with the emperor’s generous permission, decreed the
      triumphal ornaments to the memory of so virtuous a rebel. 163

      160 (return) [ See the speech of Marius in the Augustan History,
      p. 197. The accidental identity of names was the only
      circumstance that could tempt Pollio to imitate Sallust.]

      1601 (return) [ Marius was killed by a soldier, who had formerly
      served as a workman in his shop, and who exclaimed, as he struck,
      “Behold the sword which thyself hast forged.” Trob vita.—G.]

      161 (return) [ “Vos, O Pompilius sanguis!” is Horace’s address to
      the Pisos See Art. Poet. v. 292, with Dacier’s and Sanadon’s
      notes.]

      162 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xv. 48. Hist. i. 15. In the former
      of these passages we may venture to change paterna into materna.
      In every generation from Augustus to Alexander Severus, one or
      more Pisos appear as consuls. A Piso was deemed worthy of the
      throne by Augustus, (Tacit. Annal. i. 13;) a second headed a
      formidable conspiracy against Nero; and a third was adopted, and
      declared Cæsar, by Galba.]

      163 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 195. The senate, in a moment of
      enthusiasm, seems to have presumed on the approbation of
      Gallienus.]

      The lieutenants of Valerian were grateful to the father, whom
      they esteemed. They disdained to serve the luxurious indolence of
      his unworthy son. The throne of the Roman world was unsupported
      by any principle of loyalty; and treason against such a prince
      might easily be considered as patriotism to the state. Yet if we
      examine with candor the conduct of these usurpers, it will
      appear, that they were much oftener driven into rebellion by
      their fears, than urged to it by their ambition. They dreaded the
      cruel suspicions of Gallienus; they equally dreaded the
      capricious violence of their troops. If the dangerous favor of
      the army had imprudently declared them deserving of the purple,
      they were marked for sure destruction; and even prudence would
      counsel them to secure a short enjoyment of empire, and rather to
      try the fortune of war than to expect the hand of an executioner.

      When the clamor of the soldiers invested the reluctant victims
      with the ensigns of sovereign authority, they sometimes mourned
      in secret their approaching fate. “You have lost,” said
      Saturninus, on the day of his elevation, “you have lost a useful
      commander, and you have made a very wretched emperor.” 164

      164 (return) [ Hist. August p. 196.]

      The apprehensions of Saturninus were justified by the repeated
      experience of revolutions. Of the nineteen tyrants who started up
      under the reign of Gallienus, there was not one who enjoyed a
      life of peace, or a natural death. As soon as they were invested
      with the bloody purple, they inspired their adherents with the
      same fears and ambition which had occasioned their own revolt.
      Encompassed with domestic conspiracy, military sedition, and
      civil war, they trembled on the edge of precipices, in which,
      after a longer or shorter term of anxiety, they were inevitably
      lost. These precarious monarchs received, however, such honors as
      the flattery of their respective armies and provinces could
      bestow; but their claim, founded on rebellion, could never obtain
      the sanction of law or history. Italy, Rome, and the senate,
      constantly adhered to the cause of Gallienus, and he alone was
      considered as the sovereign of the empire. That prince
      condescended, indeed, to acknowledge the victorious arms of
      Odenathus, who deserved the honorable distinction, by the
      respectful conduct which he always maintained towards the son of
      Valerian. With the general applause of the Romans, and the
      consent of Gallienus, the senate conferred the title of Augustus
      on the brave Palmyrenian; and seemed to intrust him with the
      government of the East, which he already possessed, in so
      independent a manner, that, like a private succession, he
      bequeathed it to his illustrious widow, Zenobia. 165

      165 (return) [ The association of the brave Palmyrenian was the
      most popular act of the whole reign of Gallienus. Hist. August.
      p. 180.]

      The rapid and perpetual transitions from the cottage to the
      throne, and from the throne to the grave, might have amused an
      indifferent philosopher; were it possible for a philosopher to
      remain indifferent amidst the general calamities of human kind.
      The election of these precarious emperors, their power and their
      death, were equally destructive to their subjects and adherents.
      The price of their fatal elevation was instantly discharged to
      the troops by an immense donative, drawn from the bowels of the
      exhausted people. However virtuous was their character, however
      pure their intentions, they found themselves reduced to the hard
      necessity of supporting their usurpation by frequent acts of
      rapine and cruelty. When they fell, they involved armies and
      provinces in their fall. There is still extant a most savage
      mandate from Gallienus to one of his ministers, after the
      suppression of Ingenuus, who had assumed the purple in Illyricum.

      “It is not enough,” says that soft but inhuman prince, “that you
      exterminate such as have appeared in arms; the chance of battle
      might have served me as effectually. The male sex of every age
      must be extirpated; provided that, in the execution of the
      children and old men, you can contrive means to save our
      reputation. Let every one die who has dropped an expression, who
      has entertained a thought against me, against _me_, the son of
      Valerian, the father and brother of so many princes. 166 Remember
      that Ingenuus was made emperor: tear, kill, hew in pieces. I
      write to you with my own hand, and would inspire you with my own
      feelings.” 167 Whilst the public forces of the state were
      dissipated in private quarrels, the defenceless provinces lay
      exposed to every invader. The bravest usurpers were compelled, by
      the perplexity of their situation, to conclude ignominious
      treaties with the common enemy, to purchase with oppressive
      tributes the neutrality or services of the Barbarians, and to
      introduce hostile and independent nations into the heart of the
      Roman monarchy. 168

      166 (return) [ Gallienus had given the titles of Cæsar and
      Augustus to his son Saloninus, slain at Cologne by the usurper
      Posthumus. A second son of Gallienus succeeded to the name and
      rank of his elder brother Valerian, the brother of Gallienus, was
      also associated to the empire: several other brothers, sisters,
      nephews, and nieces of the emperor formed a very numerous royal
      family. See Tillemont, tom iii, and M. de Brequigny in the
      Memoires de l’Academie, tom xxxii p. 262.]

      167 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 188.]

      168 (return) [ Regillianus had some bands of Roxolani in his
      service; Posthumus a body of Franks. It was, perhaps, in the
      character of auxiliaries that the latter introduced themselves
      into Spain.]

      Such were the barbarians, and such the tyrants, who, under the
      reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, dismembered the provinces, and
      reduced the empire to the lowest pitch of disgrace and ruin, from
      whence it seemed impossible that it should ever emerge. As far as
      the barrenness of materials would permit, we have attempted to
      trace, with order and perspicuity, the general events of that
      calamitous period. There still remain some particular facts; I.
      The disorders of Sicily; II. The tumults of Alexandria; and, III.
      The rebellion of the Isaurians, which may serve to reflect a
      strong light on the horrid picture.

      I. Whenever numerous troops of banditti, multiplied by success
      and impunity, publicly defy, instead of eluding, the justice of
      their country, we may safely infer that the excessive weakness of
      the country is felt and abused by the lowest ranks of the
      community. The situation of Sicily preserved it from the
      Barbarians; nor could the disarmed province have supported a
      usurper. The sufferings of that once flourishing and still
      fertile island were inflicted by baser hands. A licentious crowd
      of slaves and peasants reigned for a while over the plundered
      country, and renewed the memory of the servile wars of more
      ancient times. 169 Devastations, of which the husbandman was
      either the victim or the accomplice, must have ruined the
      agriculture of Sicily; and as the principal estates were the
      property of the opulent senators of Rome, who often enclosed
      within a farm the territory of an old republic, it is not
      improbable, that this private injury might affect the capital
      more deeply, than all the conquests of the Goths or the Persians.

      169 (return) [ The Augustan History, p. 177. See Diodor. Sicul.
      l. xxxiv.]

      II. The foundation of Alexandria was a noble design, at once
      conceived and executed by the son of Philip. The beautiful and
      regular form of that great city, second only to Rome itself,
      comprehended a circumference of fifteen miles; 170 it was peopled
      by three hundred thousand free inhabitants, besides at least an
      equal number of slaves. 171 The lucrative trade of Arabia and
      India flowed through the port of Alexandria, to the capital and
      provinces of the empire. 1711 Idleness was unknown. Some were
      employed in blowing of glass, others in weaving of linen, others
      again manufacturing the papyrus. Either sex, and every age, was
      engaged in the pursuits of industry, nor did even the blind or
      the lame want occupations suited to their condition. 172 But the
      people of Alexandria, a various mixture of nations, united the
      vanity and inconstancy of the Greeks with the superstition and
      obstinacy of the Egyptians. The most trifling occasion, a
      transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of an
      accustomed salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public
      baths, or even a religious dispute, 173 were at any time
      sufficient to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude, whose
      resentments were furious and implacable. 174 After the captivity
      of Valerian and the insolence of his son had relaxed the
      authority of the laws, the Alexandrians abandoned themselves to
      the ungoverned rage of their passions, and their unhappy country
      was the theatre of a civil war, which continued (with a few short
      and suspicious truces) above twelve years. 175 All intercourse
      was cut off between the several quarters of the afflicted city,
      every street was polluted with blood, every building of strength
      converted into a citadel; nor did the tumults subside till a
      considerable part of Alexandria was irretrievably ruined. The
      spacious and magnificent district of Bruchion, 1751 with its
      palaces and musæum, the residence of the kings and philosophers
      of Egypt, is described above a century afterwards, as already
      reduced to its present state of dreary solitude. 176

      170 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 10.]

      171 (return) [ Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 590, edit. Wesseling.]

      1711 (return) [ Berenice, or Myos-Hormos, on the Red Sea,
      received the eastern commodities. From thence they were
      transported to the Nile, and down the Nile to Alexandria.—M.]

      172 (return) [ See a very curious letter of Hadrian, in the
      Augustan History, p. 245.]

      173 (return) [ Such as the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat.
      See Diodor. Sicul. l. i. * Note: The hostility between the Jewish
      and Grecian part of the population afterwards between the two
      former and the Christian, were unfailing causes of tumult,
      sedition, and massacre. In no place were the religious disputes,
      after the establishment of Christianity, more frequent or more
      sanguinary. See Philo. de Legat. Hist. of Jews, ii. 171, iii.
      111, 198. Gibbon, iii c. xxi. viii. c. xlvii.—M.]

      174 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 195. This long and terrible
      sedition was first occasioned by a dispute between a soldier and
      a townsman about a pair of shoes.]

      175 (return) [ Dionysius apud. Euses. Hist. Eccles. vii. p. 21.
      Ammian xxii. 16.]

      1751 (return) [ The Bruchion was a quarter of Alexandria which
      extended along the largest of the two ports, and contained many
      palaces, inhabited by the Ptolemies. D’Anv. Geogr. Anc. iii.
      10.—G.]

      176 (return) [ Scaliger. Animadver. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 258.
      Three dissertations of M. Bonamy, in the Mem. de l’Academie, tom.
      ix.]

III. The obscure rebellion of Trebellianus, who assumed the purple in
Isauria, a petty province of Asia Minor, was attended with strange and
memorable consequences. The pageant of royalty was soon destroyed by an
officer of Gallienus; but his followers, despairing of mercy, resolved
to shake off their allegiance, not only to the emperor, but to the
empire, and suddenly returned to the savage manners from which they had
never perfectly been reclaimed. Their craggy rocks, a branch of the
wide-extended Taurus, protected their inaccessible retreat. The tillage
of some fertile valleys 177 supplied them with necessaries, and a habit
of rapine with the luxuries of life. In the heart of the Roman
monarchy, the Isaurians long continued a nation of wild barbarians.
Succeeding princes, unable to reduce them to obedience, either by arms
or policy, were compelled to acknowledge their weakness, by surrounding
the hostile and independent spot with a strong chain of fortifications,
178 which often proved insufficient to restrain the incursions of these
domestic foes. The Isaurians, gradually extending their territory to
the sea-coast, subdued the western and mountainous part of Cilicia,
formerly the nest of those daring pirates, against whom the republic
had once been obliged to exert its utmost force, under the conduct of
the great Pompey. 179

      177 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiii. p. 569.]

      178 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 197.]

      179 (return) [ See Cellarius, Geogr Antiq. tom. ii. p. 137, upon
      the limits of Isauria.]

      Our habits of thinking so fondly connect the order of the
      universe with the fate of man, that this gloomy period of history
      has been decorated with inundations, earthquakes, uncommon
      meteors, preternatural darkness, and a crowd of prodigies
      fictitious or exaggerated. 180 But a long and general famine was
      a calamity of a more serious kind. It was the inevitable
      consequence of rapine and oppression, which extirpated the
      produce of the present and the hope of future harvests. Famine is
      almost always followed by epidemical diseases, the effect of
      scanty and unwholesome food. Other causes must, however, have
      contributed to the furious plague, which, from the year two
      hundred and fifty to the year two hundred and sixty-five, raged
      without interruption in every province, every city, and almost
      every family, of the Roman empire. During some time five thousand
      persons died daily in Rome; and many towns, that had escaped the
      hands of the Barbarians, were entirely depopulated. 181b

      180 (return) [ Hist August p 177.]

      181b (return) [ Hist. August. p. 177. Zosimus, l. i. p. 24.
      Zonaras, l. xii. p. 623. Euseb. Chronicon. Victor in Epitom.
      Victor in Cæsar. Eutropius, ix. 5. Orosius, vii. 21.]

      We have the knowledge of a very curious circumstance, of some use
      perhaps in the melancholy calculation of human calamities. An
      exact register was kept at Alexandria of all the citizens
      entitled to receive the distribution of corn. It was found, that
      the ancient number of those comprised between the ages of forty
      and seventy, had been equal to the whole sum of claimants, from
      fourteen to fourscore years of age, who remained alive after the
      reign of Gallienus. 182 Applying this authentic fact to the most
      correct tables of mortality, it evidently proves, that above half
      the people of Alexandria had perished; and could we venture to
      extend the analogy to the other provinces, we might suspect, that
      war, pestilence, and famine, had consumed, in a few years, the
      moiety of the human species. 183

      182 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. vii. 21. The fact is taken
      from the Letters of Dionysius, who, in the time of those
      troubles, was bishop of Alexandria.]

      183 (return) [ In a great number of parishes, 11,000 persons were
      found between fourteen and eighty; 5365 between forty and
      seventy. See Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, tom. ii. p. 590.]




      Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part I.

     Reign Of Claudius.—Defeat Of The Goths.—Victories, Triumph, And
     Death Of Aurelian.

      Under the deplorable reigns of Valerian and Gallienus, the empire
      was oppressed and almost destroyed by the soldiers, the tyrants,
      and the barbarians. It was saved by a series of great princes,
      who derived their obscure origin from the martial provinces of
      Illyricum. Within a period of about thirty years, Claudius,
      Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian and his colleagues, triumphed over
      the foreign and domestic enemies of the state, reëstablished,
      with the military discipline, the strength of the frontiers, and
      deserved the glorious title of Restorers of the Roman world.

      The removal of an effeminate tyrant made way for a succession of
      heroes. The indignation of the people imputed all their
      calamities to Gallienus, and the far greater part were, indeed,
      the consequence of his dissolute manners and careless
      administration. He was even destitute of a sense of honor, which
      so frequently supplies the absence of public virtue; and as long
      as he was permitted to enjoy the possession of Italy, a victory
      of the barbarians, the loss of a province, or the rebellion of a
      general, seldom disturbed the tranquil course of his pleasures.
      At length, a considerable army, stationed on the Upper Danube,
      invested with the Imperial purple their leader Aureolus; who,
      disdaining a confined and barren reign over the mountains of
      Rhætia, passed the Alps, occupied Milan, threatened Rome, and
      challenged Gallienus to dispute in the field the sovereignty of
      Italy. The emperor, provoked by the insult, and alarmed by the
      instant danger, suddenly exerted that latent vigor which
      sometimes broke through the indolence of his temper. Forcing
      himself from the luxury of the palace, he appeared in arms at the
      head of his legions, and advanced beyond the Po to encounter his
      competitor. The corrupted name of Pontirolo 1 still preserves the
      memory of a bridge over the Adda, which, during the action, must
      have proved an object of the utmost importance to both armies.
      The Rhætian usurper, after receiving a total defeat and a
      dangerous wound, retired into Milan. The siege of that great city
      was immediately formed; the walls were battered with every engine
      in use among the ancients; and Aureolus, doubtful of his internal
      strength, and hopeless of foreign succors already anticipated the
      fatal consequences of unsuccessful rebellion.

      1 (return) [ Pons Aureoli, thirteen miles from Bergamo, and
      thirty-two from Milan. See Cluver. Italia, Antiq. tom. i. p. 245.
      Near this place, in the year 1703, the obstinate battle of
      Cassano was fought between the French and Austrians. The
      excellent relation of the Chevalier de Folard, who was present,
      gives a very distinct idea of the ground. See Polybe de Folard,
      tom. iii. p. 233-248.]

      His last resource was an attempt to seduce the loyalty of the
      besiegers. He scattered libels through the camp, inviting the
      troops to desert an unworthy master, who sacrificed the public
      happiness to his luxury, and the lives of his most valuable
      subjects to the slightest suspicions. The arts of Aureolus
      diffused fears and discontent among the principal officers of his
      rival. A conspiracy was formed by Heraclianus, the Prætorian
      præfect, by Marcian, a general of rank and reputation, and by
      Cecrops, who commanded a numerous body of Dalmatian guards. The
      death of Gallienus was resolved; and notwithstanding their desire
      of first terminating the siege of Milan, the extreme danger which
      accompanied every moment’s delay obliged them to hasten the
      execution of their daring purpose. At a late hour of the night,
      but while the emperor still protracted the pleasures of the
      table, an alarm was suddenly given, that Aureolus, at the head of
      all his forces, had made a desperate sally from the town;
      Gallienus, who was never deficient in personal bravery, started
      from his silken couch, and without allowing himself time either
      to put on his armor, or to assemble his guards, he mounted on
      horseback, and rode full speed towards the supposed place of the
      attack. Encompassed by his declared or concealed enemies, he
      soon, amidst the nocturnal tumult, received a mortal dart from an
      uncertain hand. Before he expired, a patriotic sentiment rising
      in the mind of Gallienus, induced him to name a deserving
      successor; and it was his last request, that the Imperial
      ornaments should be delivered to Claudius, who then commanded a
      detached army in the neighborhood of Pavia. The report at least
      was diligently propagated, and the order cheerfully obeyed by the
      conspirators, who had already agreed to place Claudius on the
      throne. On the first news of the emperor’s death, the troops
      expressed some suspicion and resentment, till the one was
      removed, and the other assuaged, by a donative of twenty pieces
      of gold to each soldier. They then ratified the election, and
      acknowledged the merit of their new sovereign. 2

      2 (return) [ On the death of Gallienus, see Trebellius Pollio in
      Hist. August. p. 181. Zosimus, l. i. p. 37. Zonaras, l. xii. p.
      634. Eutrop. ix. ll. Aurelius Victor in Epitom. Victor in Cæsar.
      I have compared and blended them all, but have chiefly followed
      Aurelius Victor, who seems to have had the best memoirs.]

      The obscurity which covered the origin of Claudius, though it was
      afterwards embellished by some flattering fictions, 3
      sufficiently betrays the meanness of his birth. We can only
      discover that he was a native of one of the provinces bordering
      on the Danube; that his youth was spent in arms, and that his
      modest valor attracted the favor and confidence of Decius. The
      senate and people already considered him as an excellent officer,
      equal to the most important trusts; and censured the inattention
      of Valerian, who suffered him to remain in the subordinate
      station of a tribune. But it was not long before that emperor
      distinguished the merit of Claudius, by declaring him general and
      chief of the Illyrian frontier, with the command of all the
      troops in Thrace, Mæsia, Dacia, Pannonia, and Dalmatia, the
      appointments of the præfect of Egypt, the establishment of the
      proconsul of Africa, and the sure prospect of the consulship. By
      his victories over the Goths, he deserved from the senate the
      honor of a statue, and excited the jealous apprehensions of
      Gallienus. It was impossible that a soldier could esteem so
      dissolute a sovereign, nor is it easy to conceal a just contempt.
      Some unguarded expressions which dropped from Claudius were
      officiously transmitted to the royal ear. The emperor’s answer to
      an officer of confidence describes in very lively colors his own
      character, and that of the times. “There is not any thing capable
      of giving me more serious concern, than the intelligence
      contained in your last despatch; 4 that some malicious
      suggestions have indisposed towards us the mind of our friend and
      _parent_ Claudius. As you regard your allegiance, use every means
      to appease his resentment, but conduct your negotiation with
      secrecy; let it not reach the knowledge of the Dacian troops;
      they are already provoked, and it might inflame their fury. I
      myself have sent him some presents: be it your care that he
      accept them with pleasure. Above all, let him not suspect that I
      am made acquainted with his imprudence. The fear of my anger
      might urge him to desperate counsels.” 5 The presents which
      accompanied this humble epistle, in which the monarch solicited a
      reconciliation with his discontented subject, consisted of a
      considerable sum of money, a splendid wardrobe, and a valuable
      service of silver and gold plate. By such arts Gallienus softened
      the indignation and dispelled the fears of his Illyrian general;
      and during the remainder of that reign, the formidable sword of
      Claudius was always drawn in the cause of a master whom he
      despised. At last, indeed, he received from the conspirators the
      bloody purple of Gallienus: but he had been absent from their
      camp and counsels; and however he might applaud the deed, we may
      candidly presume that he was innocent of the knowledge of it. 6
      When Claudius ascended the throne, he was about fifty-four years
      of age.

      3 (return) [ Some supposed him, oddly enough, to be a bastard of
      the younger Gordian. Others took advantage of the province of
      Dardania, to deduce his origin from Dardanus, and the ancient
      kings of Troy.]

      4 (return) [ Notoria, a periodical and official despatch which
      the emperor received from the frumentarii, or agents dispersed
      through the provinces. Of these we may speak hereafter.]

      5 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 208. Gallienus describes the plate,
      vestments, etc., like a man who loved and understood those
      splendid trifles.]

      6 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 6) affirms that Claudius
      acquired the empire in a just and even holy manner. But we may
      distrust the partiality of a kinsman.]

      The siege of Milan was still continued, and Aureolus soon
      discovered that the success of his artifices had only raised up a
      more determined adversary. He attempted to negotiate with
      Claudius a treaty of alliance and partition. “Tell him,” replied
      the intrepid emperor, “that such proposals should have been made
      to Gallienus; _he_, perhaps, might have listened to them with
      patience, and accepted a colleague as despicable as himself.” 7
      This stern refusal, and a last unsuccessful effort, obliged
      Aureolus to yield the city and himself to the discretion of the
      conqueror. The judgment of the army pronounced him worthy of
      death; and Claudius, after a feeble resistance, consented to the
      execution of the sentence. Nor was the zeal of the senate less
      ardent in the cause of their new sovereign. They ratified,
      perhaps with a sincere transport of zeal, the election of
      Claudius; and, as his predecessor had shown himself the personal
      enemy of their order, they exercised, under the name of justice,
      a severe revenge against his friends and family. The senate was
      permitted to discharge the ungrateful office of punishment, and
      the emperor reserved for himself the pleasure and merit of
      obtaining by his intercession a general act of indemnity. 8

      7 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 203. There are some trifling
      differences concerning the circumstances of the last defeat and
      death of Aureolus]

      8 (return) [ Aurelius Victor in Gallien. The people loudly prayed
      for the damnation of Gallienus. The senate decreed that his
      relations and servants should be thrown down headlong from the
      Gemonian stairs. An obnoxious officer of the revenue had his eyes
      torn out whilst under examination. Note: The expression is
      curious, “terram matrem deosque inferos impias uti Gallieno
      darent.”—M.]

      Such ostentatious clemency discovers less of the real character
      of Claudius, than a trifling circumstance in which he seems to
      have consulted only the dictates of his heart. The frequent
      rebellions of the provinces had involved almost every person in
      the guilt of treason, almost every estate in the case of
      confiscation; and Gallienus often displayed his liberality by
      distributing among his officers the property of his subjects. On
      the accession of Claudius, an old woman threw herself at his
      feet, and complained that a general of the late emperor had
      obtained an arbitrary grant of her patrimony. This general was
      Claudius himself, who had not entirely escaped the contagion of
      the times. The emperor blushed at the reproach, but deserved the
      confidence which she had reposed in his equity. The confession of
      his fault was accompanied with immediate and ample restitution. 9

      9 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 137.]

      In the arduous task which Claudius had undertaken, of restoring
      the empire to its ancient splendor, it was first necessary to
      revive among his troops a sense of order and obedience. With the
      authority of a veteran commander, he represented to them that the
      relaxation of discipline had introduced a long train of
      disorders, the effects of which were at length experienced by the
      soldiers themselves; that a people ruined by oppression, and
      indolent from despair, could no longer supply a numerous army
      with the means of luxury, or even of subsistence; that the danger
      of each individual had increased with the despotism of the
      military order, since princes who tremble on the throne will
      guard their safety by the instant sacrifice of every obnoxious
      subject. The emperor expiated on the mischiefs of a lawless
      caprice, which the soldiers could only gratify at the expense of
      their own blood; as their seditious elections had so frequently
      been followed by civil wars, which consumed the flower of the
      legions either in the field of battle, or in the cruel abuse of
      victory. He painted in the most lively colors the exhausted state
      of the treasury, the desolation of the provinces, the disgrace of
      the Roman name, and the insolent triumph of rapacious barbarians.
      It was against those barbarians, he declared, that he intended to
      point the first effort of their arms. Tetricus might reign for a
      while over the West, and even Zenobia might preserve the dominion
      of the East. 10 These usurpers were his personal adversaries; nor
      could he think of indulging any private resentment till he had
      saved an empire, whose impending ruin would, unless it was timely
      prevented, crush both the army and the people.

      10 (return) [ Zonaras on this occasion mentions Posthumus but the
      registers of the senate (Hist. August. p. 203) prove that
      Tetricus was already emperor of the western provinces.]

      The various nations of Germany and Sarmatia, who fought under the
      Gothic standard, had already collected an armament more
      formidable than any which had yet issued from the Euxine. On the
      banks of the Niester, one of the great rivers that discharge
      themselves into that sea, they constructed a fleet of two
      thousand, or even of six thousand vessels; 11 numbers which,
      however incredible they may seem, would have been insufficient to
      transport their pretended army of three hundred and twenty
      thousand barbarians. Whatever might be the real strength of the
      Goths, the vigor and success of the expedition were not adequate
      to the greatness of the preparations. In their passage through
      the Bosphorus, the unskilful pilots were overpowered by the
      violence of the current; and while the multitude of their ships
      were crowded in a narrow channel, many were dashed against each
      other, or against the shore. The barbarians made several descents
      on the coasts both of Europe and Asia; but the open country was
      already plundered, and they were repulsed with shame and loss
      from the fortified cities which they assaulted. A spirit of
      discouragement and division arose in the fleet, and some of their
      chiefs sailed away towards the islands of Crete and Cyprus; but
      the main body, pursuing a more steady course, anchored at length
      near the foot of Mount Athos, and assaulted the city of
      Thessalonica, the wealthy capital of all the Macedonian
      provinces. Their attacks, in which they displayed a fierce but
      artless bravery, were soon interrupted by the rapid approach of
      Claudius, hastening to a scene of action that deserved the
      presence of a warlike prince at the head of the remaining powers
      of the empire. Impatient for battle, the Goths immediately broke
      up their camp, relinquished the siege of Thessalonica, left their
      navy at the foot of Mount Athos, traversed the hills of
      Macedonia, and pressed forwards to engage the last defence of
      Italy.

      11 (return) [ The Augustan History mentions the smaller, Zonaras
      the larger number; the lively fancy of Montesquieu induced him to
      prefer the latter.]

      We still posses an original letter addressed by Claudius to the
      senate and people on this memorable occasion. “Conscript
      fathers,” says the emperor, “know that three hundred and twenty
      thousand Goths have invaded the Roman territory. If I vanquish
      them, your gratitude will reward my services. Should I fall,
      remember that I am the successor of Gallienus. The whole republic
      is fatigued and exhausted. We shall fight after Valerian, after
      Ingenuus, Regillianus, Lollianus, Posthumus, Celsus, and a
      thousand others, whom a just contempt for Gallienus provoked into
      rebellion. We are in want of darts, of spears, and of shields.
      The strength of the empire, Gaul, and Spain, are usurped by
      Tetricus, and we blush to acknowledge that the archers of the
      East serve under the banners of Zenobia. Whatever we shall
      perform will be sufficiently great.” 12 The melancholy firmness
      of this epistle announces a hero careless of his fate, conscious
      of his danger, but still deriving a well-grounded hope from the
      resources of his own mind.

      12 (return) [ Trebell. Pollio in Hist. August. p. 204.]

      The event surpassed his own expectations and those of the world.
      By the most signal victories he delivered the empire from this
      host of barbarians, and was distinguished by posterity under the
      glorious appellation of the Gothic Claudius. The imperfect
      historians of an irregular war 13 do not enable us to describe
      the order and circumstances of his exploits; but, if we could be
      indulged in the allusion, we might distribute into three acts
      this memorable tragedy. I. The decisive battle was fought near
      Naissus, a city of Dardania. The legions at first gave way,
      oppressed by numbers, and dismayed by misfortunes. Their ruin was
      inevitable, had not the abilities of their emperor prepared a
      seasonable relief. A large detachment, rising out of the secret
      and difficult passes of the mountains, which, by his order, they
      had occupied, suddenly assailed the rear of the victorious Goths.

      The favorable instant was improved by the activity of Claudius.
      He revived the courage of his troops, restored their ranks, and
      pressed the barbarians on every side. Fifty thousand men are
      reported to have been slain in the battle of Naissus. Several
      large bodies of barbarians, covering their retreat with a movable
      fortification of wagons, retired, or rather escaped, from the
      field of slaughter.

      II. We may presume that some insurmountable difficulty, the
      fatigue, perhaps, or the disobedience, of the conquerors,
      prevented Claudius from completing in one day the destruction of
      the Goths. The war was diffused over the province of Mæsia,
      Thrace, and Macedonia, and its operations drawn out into a
      variety of marches, surprises, and tumultuary engagements, as
      well by sea as by land. When the Romans suffered any loss, it was
      commonly occasioned by their own cowardice or rashness; but the
      superior talents of the emperor, his perfect knowledge of the
      country, and his judicious choice of measures as well as
      officers, assured on most occasions the success of his arms. The
      immense booty, the fruit of so many victories, consisted for the
      greater part of cattle and slaves. A select body of the Gothic
      youth was received among the Imperial troops; the remainder was
      sold into servitude; and so considerable was the number of female
      captives that every soldier obtained to his share two or three
      women. A circumstance from which we may conclude, that the
      invaders entertained some designs of settlement as well as of
      plunder; since even in a naval expedition, they were accompanied
      by their families.

      III. The loss of their fleet, which was either taken or sunk, had
      intercepted the retreat of the Goths. A vast circle of Roman
      posts, distributed with skill, supported with firmness, and
      gradually closing towards a common centre, forced the barbarians
      into the most inaccessible parts of Mount Hæmus, where they found
      a safe refuge, but a very scanty subsistence. During the course
      of a rigorous winter in which they were besieged by the emperor’s
      troops, famine and pestilence, desertion and the sword,
      continually diminished the imprisoned multitude. On the return of
      spring, nothing appeared in arms except a hardy and desperate
      band, the remnant of that mighty host which had embarked at the
      mouth of the Niester.

      13 (return) [ Hist. August. in Claud. Aurelian. et Prob. Zosimus,
      l. i. p. 38-42. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 638. Aurel. Victor in Epitom.
      Victor Junior in Cæsar. Eutrop. ix ll. Euseb. in Chron.]

      The pestilence which swept away such numbers of the barbarians,
      at length proved fatal to their conqueror. After a short but
      glorious reign of two years, Claudius expired at Sirmium, amidst
      the tears and acclamations of his subjects. In his last illness,
      he convened the principal officers of the state and army, and in
      their presence recommended Aurelian, 14 one of his generals, as
      the most deserving of the throne, and the best qualified to
      execute the great design which he himself had been permitted only
      to undertake. The virtues of Claudius, his valor, affability,
      justice, and temperance, his love of fame and of his country,
      place him in that short list of emperors who added lustre to the
      Roman purple. Those virtues, however, were celebrated with
      peculiar zeal and complacency by the courtly writers of the age
      of Constantine, who was the great-grandson of Crispus, the elder
      brother of Claudius. The voice of flattery was soon taught to
      repeat, that gods, who so hastily had snatched Claudius from the
      earth, rewarded his merit and piety by the perpetual
      establishment of the empire in his family. 15

      14 (return) [ According to Zonaras, (l. xii. p. 638,) Claudius,
      before his death, invested him with the purple; but this singular
      fact is rather contradicted than confirmed by other writers.]

      15 (return) [ See the Life of Claudius by Pollio, and the
      Orations of Mamertinus, Eumenius, and Julian. See likewise the
      Cæsars of Julian p. 318. In Julian it was not adulation, but
      superstition and vanity.]

      Notwithstanding these oracles, the greatness of the Flavian
      family (a name which it had pleased them to assume) was deferred
      above twenty years, and the elevation of Claudius occasioned the
      immediate ruin of his brother Quintilius, who possessed not
      sufficient moderation or courage to descend into the private
      station to which the patriotism of the late emperor had condemned
      him. Without delay or reflection, he assumed the purple at
      Aquileia, where he commanded a considerable force; and though his
      reign lasted only seventeen days, 151 he had time to obtain the
      sanction of the senate, and to experience a mutiny of the troops.

      As soon as he was informed that the great army of the Danube had
      invested the well-known valor of Aurelian with Imperial power, he
      sunk under the fame and merit of his rival; and ordering his
      veins to be opened, prudently withdrew himself from the unequal
      contest. 16

      151 (return) [ Such is the narrative of the greater part of the
      older historians; but the number and the variety of his medals
      seem to require more time, and give probability to the report of
      Zosimus, who makes him reign some months.—G.]

      16 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 42. Pollio (Hist. August. p. 107)
      allows him virtues, and says, that, like Pertinax, he was killed
      by the licentious soldiers. According to Dexippus, he died of a
      disease.]

      The general design of this work will not permit us minutely to
      relate the actions of every emperor after he ascended the throne,
      much less to deduce the various fortunes of his private life. We
      shall only observe, that the father of Aurelian was a peasant of
      the territory of Sirmium, who occupied a small farm, the property
      of Aurelius, a rich senator. His warlike son enlisted in the
      troops as a common soldier, successively rose to the rank of a
      centurion, a tribune, the præfect of a legion, the inspector of
      the camp, the general, or, as it was then called, the duke, of a
      frontier; and at length, during the Gothic war, exercised the
      important office of commander-in-chief of the cavalry. In every
      station he distinguished himself by matchless valor, 17 rigid
      discipline, and successful conduct. He was invested with the
      consulship by the emperor Valerian, who styles him, in the
      pompous language of that age, the deliverer of Illyricum, the
      restorer of Gaul, and the rival of the Scipios. At the
      recommendation of Valerian, a senator of the highest rank and
      merit, Ulpius Crinitus, whose blood was derived from the same
      source as that of Trajan, adopted the Pannonian peasant, gave him
      his daughter in marriage, and relieved with his ample fortune the
      honorable poverty which Aurelian had preserved inviolate. 18

      17 (return) [ Theoclius (as quoted in the Augustan History, p.
      211) affirms that in one day he killed with his own hand
      forty-eight Sarmatians, and in several subsequent engagements
      nine hundred and fifty. This heroic valor was admired by the
      soldiers, and celebrated in their rude songs, the burden of which
      was, mille, mile, mille, occidit.]

      18 (return) [ Acholius (ap. Hist. August. p. 213) describes the
      ceremony of the adoption, as it was performed at Byzantium, in
      the presence of the emperor and his great officers.]

      The reign of Aurelian lasted only four years and about nine
      months; but every instant of that short period was filled by some
      memorable achievement. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised
      the Germans who invaded Italy, recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain
      out of the hands of Tetricus, and destroyed the proud monarchy
      which Zenobia had erected in the East on the ruins of the
      afflicted empire.

      It was the rigid attention of Aurelian, even to the minutest
      articles of discipline, which bestowed such uninterrupted success
      on his arms. His military regulations are contained in a very
      concise epistle to one of his inferior officers, who is commanded
      to enforce them, as he wishes to become a tribune, or as he is
      desirous to live. Gaming, drinking, and the arts of divination,
      were severely prohibited. Aurelian expected that his soldiers
      should be modest, frugal, and laborious; that their armor should
      be constantly kept bright, their weapons sharp, their clothing
      and horses ready for immediate service; that they should live in
      their quarters with chastity and sobriety, without damaging the
      cornfields, without stealing even a sheep, a fowl, or a bunch of
      grapes, without exacting from their landlords either salt, or
      oil, or wood. “The public allowance,” continues the emperor, “is
      sufficient for their support; their wealth should be collected
      from the spoils of the enemy, not from the tears of the
      provincials.” 19 A single instance will serve to display the
      rigor, and even cruelty, of Aurelian. One of the soldiers had
      seduced the wife of his host. The guilty wretch was fastened to
      two trees forcibly drawn towards each other, and his limbs were
      torn asunder by their sudden separation. A few such examples
      impressed a salutary consternation. The punishments of Aurelian
      were terrible; but he had seldom occasion to punish more than
      once the same offence. His own conduct gave a sanction to his
      laws, and the seditious legions dreaded a chief who had learned
      to obey, and who was worthy to command.

      19 (return) [ Hist. August, p. 211 This laconic epistle is truly
      the work of a soldier; it abounds with military phrases and
      words, some of which cannot be understood without difficulty.
      Ferramenta samiata is well explained by Salmasius. The former of
      the words means all weapons of offence, and is contrasted with
      Arma, defensive armor The latter signifies keen and well
      sharpened.]




      Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part II.

      The death of Claudius had revived the fainting spirit of the
      Goths. The troops which guarded the passes of Mount Hæmus, and
      the banks of the Danube, had been drawn away by the apprehension
      of a civil war; and it seems probable that the remaining body of
      the Gothic and Vandalic tribes embraced the favorable
      opportunity, abandoned their settlements of the Ukraine,
      traversed the rivers, and swelled with new multitudes the
      destroying host of their countrymen. Their united numbers were at
      length encountered by Aurelian, and the bloody and doubtful
      conflict ended only with the approach of night. 20 Exhausted by
      so many calamities, which they had mutually endured and inflicted
      during a twenty years’ war, the Goths and the Romans consented to
      a lasting and beneficial treaty. It was earnestly solicited by
      the barbarians, and cheerfully ratified by the legions, to whose
      suffrage the prudence of Aurelian referred the decision of that
      important question. The Gothic nation engaged to supply the
      armies of Rome with a body of two thousand auxiliaries,
      consisting entirely of cavalry, and stipulated in return an
      undisturbed retreat, with a regular market as far as the Danube,
      provided by the emperor’s care, but at their own expense. The
      treaty was observed with such religious fidelity, that when a
      party of five hundred men straggled from the camp in quest of
      plunder, the king or general of the barbarians commanded that the
      guilty leader should be apprehended and shot to death with darts,
      as a victim devoted to the sanctity of their engagements. 201 It
      is, however, not unlikely, that the precaution of Aurelian, who
      had exacted as hostages the sons and daughters of the Gothic
      chiefs, contributed something to this pacific temper. The youths
      he trained in the exercise of arms, and near his own person: to
      the damsels he gave a liberal and Roman education, and by
      bestowing them in marriage on some of his principal officers,
      gradually introduced between the two nations the closest and most
      endearing connections. 21

      20 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 45.]

      201 (return) [ The five hundred stragglers were all slain.—M.]

      21 (return) [ Dexipphus (ap. Excerpta Legat. p. 12) relates the
      whole transaction under the name of Vandals. Aurelian married one
      of the Gothic ladies to his general Bonosus, who was able to
      drink with the Goths and discover their secrets. Hist. August. p.
      247.]

      But the most important condition of peace was understood rather
      than expressed in the treaty. Aurelian withdrew the Roman forces
      from Dacia, and tacitly relinquished that great province to the
      Goths and Vandals. 22 His manly judgment convinced him of the
      solid advantages, and taught him to despise the seeming disgrace,
      of thus contracting the frontiers of the monarchy. The Dacian
      subjects, removed from those distant possessions which they were
      unable to cultivate or defend, added strength and populousness to
      the southern side of the Danube. A fertile territory, which the
      repetition of barbarous inroads had changed into a desert, was
      yielded to their industry, and a new province of Dacia still
      preserved the memory of Trajan’s conquests. The old country of
      that name detained, however, a considerable number of its
      inhabitants, who dreaded exile more than a Gothic master. 23
      These degenerate Romans continued to serve the empire, whose
      allegiance they had renounced, by introducing among their
      conquerors the first notions of agriculture, the useful arts, and
      the conveniences of civilized life. An intercourse of commerce
      and language was gradually established between the opposite banks
      of the Danube; and after Dacia became an independent state, it
      often proved the firmest barrier of the empire against the
      invasions of the savages of the North. A sense of interest
      attached these more settled barbarians to the alliance of Rome,
      and a permanent interest very frequently ripens into sincere and
      useful friendship. This various colony, which filled the ancient
      province, and was insensibly blended into one great people, still
      acknowledged the superior renown and authority of the Gothic
      tribe, and claimed the fancied honor of a Scandinavian origin. At
      the same time, the lucky though accidental resemblance of the
      name of Getæ, 231 infused among the credulous Goths a vain
      persuasion, that in a remote age, their own ancestors, already
      seated in the Dacian provinces, had received the instructions of
      Zamolxis, and checked the victorious arms of Sesostris and
      Darius. 24

      22 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Eutrop. ix. 15. Sextus Rufus,
      c. 9. de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 9.]

      23 (return) [ The Walachians still preserve many traces of the
      Latin language and have boasted, in every age, of their Roman
      descent. They are surrounded by, but not mixed with, the
      barbarians. See a Memoir of M. d’Anville on ancient Dacia, in the
      Academy of Inscriptions, tom. xxx.]

      231 (return) [ The connection between the Getæ and the Goths is
      still in my opinion incorrectly maintained by some learned
      writers—M.]

      24 (return) [See the first chapter of Jornandes. The Vandals,
      however, (c. 22,) maintained a short independence between the
      Rivers Marisia and Crissia, (Maros and Keres,) which fell into
      the Teiss.]

      While the vigorous and moderate conduct of Aurelian restored the
      Illyrian frontier, the nation of the Alemanni 25 violated the
      conditions of peace, which either Gallienus had purchased, or
      Claudius had imposed, and, inflamed by their impatient youth,
      suddenly flew to arms. Forty thousand horse appeared in the
      field, 26 and the numbers of the infantry doubled those of the
      cavalry. 27 The first objects of their avarice were a few cities
      of the Rhætian frontier; but their hopes soon rising with
      success, the rapid march of the Alemanni traced a line of
      devastation from the Danube to the Po. 28

      25 (return) [ Dexippus, p. 7—12. Zosimus, l. i. p. 43. Vopiscus
      in Aurelian in Hist. August. However these historians differ in
      names, (Alemanni Juthungi, and Marcomanni,) it is evident that
      they mean the same people, and the same war; but it requires some
      care to conciliate and explain them.]

      26 (return) [ Cantoclarus, with his usual accuracy, chooses to
      translate three hundred thousand: his version is equally
      repugnant to sense and to grammar.]

      27 (return) [ We may remark, as an instance of bad taste, that
      Dexippus applies to the light infantry of the Alemanni the
      technical terms proper only to the Grecian phalanx.]

      28 (return) [ In Dexippus, we at present read Rhodanus: M. de
      Valois very judiciously alters the word to Eridanus.]

      The emperor was almost at the same time informed of the
      irruption, and of the retreat, of the barbarians. Collecting an
      active body of troops, he marched with silence and celerity along
      the skirts of the Hercynian forest; and the Alemanni, laden with
      the spoils of Italy, arrived at the Danube, without suspecting,
      that on the opposite bank, and in an advantageous post, a Roman
      army lay concealed and prepared to intercept their return.
      Aurelian indulged the fatal security of the barbarians, and
      permitted about half their forces to pass the river without
      disturbance and without precaution. Their situation and
      astonishment gave him an easy victory; his skilful conduct
      improved the advantage. Disposing the legions in a semicircular
      form, he advanced the two horns of the crescent across the
      Danube, and wheeling them on a sudden towards the centre,
      enclosed the rear of the German host. The dismayed barbarians, on
      whatsoever side they cast their eyes, beheld, with despair, a
      wasted country, a deep and rapid stream, a victorious and
      implacable enemy.

      Reduced to this distressed condition, the Alemanni no longer
      disdained to sue for peace. Aurelian received their ambassadors
      at the head of his camp, and with every circumstance of martial
      pomp that could display the greatness and discipline of Rome. The
      legions stood to their arms in well-ordered ranks and awful
      silence. The principal commanders, distinguished by the ensigns
      of their rank, appeared on horseback on either side of the
      Imperial throne. Behind the throne the consecrated images of the
      emperor, and his predecessors, 29 the golden eagles, and the
      various titles of the legions, engraved in letters of gold, were
      exalted in the air on lofty pikes covered with silver. When
      Aurelian assumed his seat, his manly grace and majestic figure 30
      taught the barbarians to revere the person as well as the purple
      of their conqueror. The ambassadors fell prostrate on the ground
      in silence. They were commanded to rise, and permitted to speak.
      By the assistance of interpreters they extenuated their perfidy,
      magnified their exploits, expatiated on the vicissitudes of
      fortune and the advantages of peace, and, with an ill-timed
      confidence, demanded a large subsidy, as the price of the
      alliance which they offered to the Romans. The answer of the
      emperor was stern and imperious. He treated their offer with
      contempt, and their demand with indignation, reproached the
      barbarians, that they were as ignorant of the arts of war as of
      the laws of peace, and finally dismissed them with the choice
      only of submitting to this unconditional mercy, or awaiting the
      utmost severity of his resentment. 31 Aurelian had resigned a
      distant province to the Goths; but it was dangerous to trust or
      to pardon these perfidious barbarians, whose formidable power
      kept Italy itself in perpetual alarms.

      29 (return) [ The emperor Claudius was certainly of the number;
      but we are ignorant how far this mark of respect was extended; if
      to Cæsar and Augustus, it must have produced a very awful
      spectacle; a long line of the masters of the world.]

      30 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 210.]

      31 (return) [ Dexippus gives them a subtle and prolix oration,
      worthy of a Grecian sophist.]

      Immediately after this conference, it should seem that some
      unexpected emergency required the emperor’s presence in Pannonia.

      He devolved on his lieutenants the care of finishing the
      destruction of the Alemanni, either by the sword, or by the surer
      operation of famine. But an active despair has often triumphed
      over the indolent assurance of success. The barbarians, finding
      it impossible to traverse the Danube and the Roman camp, broke
      through the posts in their rear, which were more feebly or less
      carefully guarded; and with incredible diligence, but by a
      different road, returned towards the mountains of Italy. 32
      Aurelian, who considered the war as totally extinguished,
      received the mortifying intelligence of the escape of the
      Alemanni, and of the ravage which they already committed in the
      territory of Milan. The legions were commanded to follow, with as
      much expedition as those heavy bodies were capable of exerting,
      the rapid flight of an enemy whose infantry and cavalry moved
      with almost equal swiftness. A few days afterwards, the emperor
      himself marched to the relief of Italy, at the head of a chosen
      body of auxiliaries, (among whom were the hostages and cavalry of
      the Vandals,) and of all the Prætorian guards who had served in
      the wars on the Danube. 33

      32 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 215.]

      33 (return) [ Dexippus, p. 12.]

      As the light troops of the Alemanni had spread themselves from
      the Alps to the Apennine, the incessant vigilance of Aurelian and
      his officers was exercised in the discovery, the attack, and the
      pursuit of the numerous detachments. Notwithstanding this
      desultory war, three considerable battles are mentioned, in which
      the principal force of both armies was obstinately engaged. 34
      The success was various. In the first, fought near Placentia, the
      Romans received so severe a blow, that, according to the
      expression of a writer extremely partial to Aurelian, the
      immediate dissolution of the empire was apprehended. 35 The
      crafty barbarians, who had lined the woods, suddenly attacked the
      legions in the dusk of the evening, and, it is most probable,
      after the fatigue and disorder of a long march.

      The fury of their charge was irresistible; but, at length, after
      a dreadful slaughter, the patient firmness of the emperor rallied
      his troops, and restored, in some degree, the honor of his arms.
      The second battle was fought near Fano in Umbria; on the spot
      which, five hundred years before, had been fatal to the brother
      of Hannibal. 36 Thus far the successful Germans had advanced
      along the Æmilian and Flaminian way, with a design of sacking the
      defenceless mistress of the world. But Aurelian, who, watchful
      for the safety of Rome, still hung on their rear, found in this
      place the decisive moment of giving them a total and
      irretrievable defeat. 37 The flying remnant of their host was
      exterminated in a third and last battle near Pavia; and Italy was
      delivered from the inroads of the Alemanni.

      34 (return) [ Victor Junior in Aurelian.]

      35 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216.]

      36 (return) [ The little river, or rather torrent, of, Metaurus,
      near Fano, has been immortalized, by finding such an historian as
      Livy, and such a poet as Horace.]

      37 (return) [ It is recorded by an inscription found at Pesaro.
      See Gruter cclxxvi. 3.]

      Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new
      calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their
      invisible enemies. Though the best hope of the republic was in
      the valor and conduct of Aurelian, yet such was the public
      consternation, when the barbarians were hourly expected at the
      gates of Rome, that, by a decree of the senate the Sibylline
      books were consulted. Even the emperor himself, from a motive
      either of religion or of policy, recommended this salutary
      measure, chided the tardiness of the senate, 38 and offered to
      supply whatever expense, whatever animals, whatever captives of
      any nation, the gods should require. Notwithstanding this liberal
      offer, it does not appear, that any human victims expiated with
      their blood the sins of the Roman people. The Sibylline books
      enjoined ceremonies of a more harmless nature, processions of
      priests in white robes, attended by a chorus of youths and
      virgins; lustrations of the city and adjacent country; and
      sacrifices, whose powerful influence disabled the barbarians from
      passing the mystic ground on which they had been celebrated.
      However puerile in themselves, these superstitious arts were
      subservient to the success of the war; and if, in the decisive
      battle of Fano, the Alemanni fancied they saw an army of spectres
      combating on the side of Aurelian, he received a real and
      effectual aid from this imaginary reënforcement. 39

      38 (return) [ One should imagine, he said, that you were
      assembled in a Christian church, not in the temple of all the
      gods.]

      39 (return) [ Vopiscus, in Hist. August. p. 215, 216, gives a
      long account of these ceremonies from the Registers of the
      senate.]

      But whatever confidence might be placed in ideal ramparts, the
      experience of the past, and the dread of the future, induced the
      Romans to construct fortifications of a grosser and more
      substantial kind. The seven hills of Rome had been surrounded by
      the successors of Romulus with an ancient wall of more than
      thirteen miles. 40 The vast enclosure may seem disproportioned to
      the strength and numbers of the infant-state. But it was
      necessary to secure an ample extent of pasture and arable land
      against the frequent and sudden incursions of the tribes of
      Latium, the perpetual enemies of the republic. With the progress
      of Roman greatness, the city and its inhabitants gradually
      increased, filled up the vacant space, pierced through the
      useless walls, covered the field of Mars, and, on every side,
      followed the public highways in long and beautiful suburbs. 41
      The extent of the new walls, erected by Aurelian, and finished in
      the reign of Probus, was magnified by popular estimation to near
      fifty, 42 but is reduced by accurate measurement to about
      twenty-one miles. 43 It was a great but a melancholy labor, since
      the defence of the capital betrayed the decline of monarchy. The
      Romans of a more prosperous age, who trusted to the arms of the
      legions the safety of the frontier camps, 44 were very far from
      entertaining a suspicion that it would ever become necessary to
      fortify the seat of empire against the inroads of the barbarians.
      45

      40 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 5. To confirm our idea, we
      may observe, that for a long time Mount Cælius was a grove of
      oaks, and Mount Viminal was overrun with osiers; that, in the
      fourth century, the Aventine was a vacant and solitary
      retirement; that, till the time of Augustus, the Esquiline was an
      unwholesome burying-ground; and that the numerous inequalities,
      remarked by the ancients in the Quirinal, sufficiently prove that
      it was not covered with buildings. Of the seven hills, the
      Capitoline and Palatine only, with the adjacent valleys, were the
      primitive habitations of the Roman people. But this subject would
      require a dissertation.]

      41 (return) [ Exspatiantia tecta multas addidere urbes, is the
      expression of Pliny.]

      42 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Both Lipsius and Isaac
      Vossius have eagerly embraced this measure.]

      43 (return) [ See Nardini, Roman Antica, l. i. c. 8. * Note: But
      compare Gibbon, ch. xli. note 77.—M.]

      44 (return) [ Tacit. Hist. iv. 23.]

      45 (return) [ For Aurelian’s walls, see Vopiscus in Hist. August.
      p. 216, 222. Zosimus, l. i. p. 43. Eutropius, ix. 15. Aurel.
      Victor in Aurelian Victor Junior in Aurelian. Euseb. Hieronym. et
      Idatius in Chronic]

      The victory of Claudius over the Goths, and the success of
      Aurelian against the Alemanni, had already restored to the arms
      of Rome their ancient superiority over the barbarous nations of
      the North. To chastise domestic tyrants, and to reunite the
      dismembered parts of the empire, was a task reserved for the
      second of those warlike emperors. Though he was acknowledged by
      the senate and people, the frontiers of Italy, Africa, Illyricum,
      and Thrace, confined the limits of his reign. Gaul, Spain, and
      Britain, Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor, were still possessed by
      two rebels, who alone, out of so numerous a list, had hitherto
      escaped the dangers of their situation; and to complete the
      ignominy of Rome, these rival thrones had been usurped by women.

      A rapid succession of monarchs had arisen and fallen in the
      provinces of Gaul. The rigid virtues of Posthumus served only to
      hasten his destruction. After suppressing a competitor, who had
      assumed the purple at Mentz, he refused to gratify his troops
      with the plunder of the rebellious city; and in the seventh year
      of his reign, became the victim of their disappointed avarice. 46
      The death of Victorinus, his friend and associate, was occasioned
      by a less worthy cause. The shining accomplishments 47 of that
      prince were stained by a licentious passion, which he indulged in
      acts of violence, with too little regard to the laws of society,
      or even to those of love. 48 He was slain at Cologne, by a
      conspiracy of jealous husbands, whose revenge would have appeared
      more justifiable, had they spared the innocence of his son. After
      the murder of so many valiant princes, it is somewhat remarkable,
      that a female for a long time controlled the fierce legions of
      Gaul, and still more singular, that she was the mother of the
      unfortunate Victorinus. The arts and treasures of Victoria
      enabled her successively to place Marius and Tetricus on the
      throne, and to reign with a manly vigor under the name of those
      dependent emperors. Money of copper, of silver, and of gold, was
      coined in her name; she assumed the titles of Augusta and Mother
      of the Camps: her power ended only with her life; but her life
      was perhaps shortened by the ingratitude of Tetricus. 49

      46 (return) [ His competitor was Lollianus, or Ælianus, if,
      indeed, these names mean the same person. See Tillemont, tom.
      iii. p. 1177. Note: The medals which bear the name of Lollianus
      are considered forgeries except one in the museum of the Prince
      of Waldeck there are many extent bearing the name of Lælianus,
      which appears to have been that of the competitor of Posthumus.
      Eckhel. Doct. Num. t. vi. 149—G.]

      47 (return) [ The character of this prince by Julius Aterianus
      (ap. Hist. August. p. 187) is worth transcribing, as it seems
      fair and impartial Victorino qui Post Junium Posthumium Gallias
      rexit neminem existemo præferendum; non in virtute Trajanum; non
      Antoninum in clementia; non in gravitate Nervam; non in
      gubernando ærario Vespasianum; non in Censura totius vitæ ac
      severitate militari Pertinacem vel Severum. Sed omnia hæc libido
      et cupiditas voluptatis mulierriæ sic perdidit, ut nemo audeat
      virtutes ejus in literas mittere quem constat omnium judicio
      meruisse puniri.]

      48 (return) [ He ravished the wife of Attitianus, an actuary, or
      army agent, Hist. August. p. 186. Aurel. Victor in Aurelian.]

      49 (return) [ Pollio assigns her an article among the thirty
      tyrants. Hist. August. p. 200.]

      When, at the instigation of his ambitious patroness, Tetricus
      assumed the ensigns of royalty, he was governor of the peaceful
      province of Aquitaine, an employment suited to his character and
      education. He reigned four or five years over Gaul, Spain, and
      Britain, the slave and sovereign of a licentious army, whom he
      dreaded, and by whom he was despised. The valor and fortune of
      Aurelian at length opened the prospect of a deliverance. He
      ventured to disclose his melancholy situation, and conjured the
      emperor to hasten to the relief of his unhappy rival. Had this
      secret correspondence reached the ears of the soldiers, it would
      most probably have cost Tetricus his life; nor could he resign
      the sceptre of the West without committing an act of treason
      against himself. He affected the appearances of a civil war, led
      his forces into the field, against Aurelian, posted them in the
      most disadvantageous manner, betrayed his own counsels to his
      enemy, and with a few chosen friends deserted in the beginning of
      the action. The rebel legions, though disordered and dismayed by
      the unexpected treachery of their chief, defended themselves with
      desperate valor, till they were cut in pieces almost to a man, in
      this bloody and memorable battle, which was fought near Chalons
      in Champagne. 50 The retreat of the irregular auxiliaries, Franks
      and Batavians, 51 whom the conqueror soon compelled or persuaded
      to repass the Rhine, restored the general tranquillity, and the
      power of Aurelian was acknowledged from the wall of Antoninus to
      the columns of Hercules.

      50 (return) [ Pollio in Hist. August. p. 196. Vopiscus in Hist.
      August. p. 220. The two Victors, in the lives of Gallienus and
      Aurelian. Eutrop. ix. 13. Euseb. in Chron. Of all these writers,
      only the two last (but with strong probability) place the fall of
      Tetricus before that of Zenobia. M. de Boze (in the Academy of
      Inscriptions, tom. xxx.) does not wish, and Tillemont (tom. iii.
      p. 1189) does not dare to follow them. I have been fairer than
      the one, and bolder than the other.]

      51 (return) [ Victor Junior in Aurelian. Eumenius mentions
      Batavicœ; some critics, without any reason, would fain alter the
      word to Bagandicœ.] As early as the reign of Claudius, the city
      of Autun, alone and unassisted, had ventured to declare against
      the legions of Gaul. After a siege of seven months, they stormed
      and plundered that unfortunate city, already wasted by famine. 52
      Lyons, on the contrary, had resisted with obstinate disaffection
      the arms of Aurelian. We read of the punishment of Lyons, 53 but
      there is not any mention of the rewards of Autun. Such, indeed,
      is the policy of civil war: severely to remember injuries, and to
      forget the most important services. Revenge is profitable,
      gratitude is expensive.

      52 (return) [ Eumen. in Vet. Panegyr. iv. 8.]

      53 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246. Autun was not
      restored till the reign of Diocletian. See Eumenius de
      restaurandis scholis.]

      Aurelian had no sooner secured the person and provinces of
      Tetricus, than he turned his arms against Zenobia, the celebrated
      queen of Palmyra and the East. Modern Europe has produced several
      illustrious women who have sustained with glory the weight of
      empire; nor is our own age destitute of such distinguished
      characters. But if we except the doubtful achievements of
      Semiramis, Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior
      genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by
      the climate and manners of Asia. 54 She claimed her descent from
      the Macedonian kings of Egypt, 541 equalled in beauty her
      ancestor Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity
      55 and valor. Zenobia was esteemed the most lovely as well as the
      most heroic of her sex. She was of a dark complexion (for in
      speaking of a lady these trifles become important). Her teeth
      were of a pearly whiteness, and her large black eyes sparkled
      with uncommon fire, tempered by the most attractive sweetness.
      Her voice was strong and harmonious. Her manly understanding was
      strengthened and adorned by study. She was not ignorant of the
      Latin tongue, but possessed in equal perfection the Greek, the
      Syriac, and the Egyptian languages. She had drawn up for her own
      use an epitome of oriental history, and familiarly compared the
      beauties of Homer and Plato under the tuition of the sublime
      Longinus.

      54 (return) [ Almost everything that is said of the manners of
      Odenathus and Zenobia is taken from their lives in the Augustan
      History, by Trebeljus Pollio; see p. 192, 198.]

      541 (return) [ According to some Christian writers, Zenobia was a
      Jewess. (Jost Geschichte der Israel. iv. 16. Hist. of Jews, iii.
      175.)—M.]

      55 (return) [ She never admitted her husband’s embraces but for
      the sake of posterity. If her hopes were baffled, in the ensuing
      month she reiterated the experiment.]

      This accomplished woman gave her hand to Odenathus, 551 who, from
      a private station, raised himself to the dominion of the East.
      She soon became the friend and companion of a hero. In the
      intervals of war, Odenathus passionately delighted in the
      exercise of hunting; he pursued with ardor the wild beasts of the
      desert, lions, panthers, and bears; and the ardor of Zenobia in
      that dangerous amusement was not inferior to his own. She had
      inured her constitution to fatigue, disdained the use of a
      covered carriage, generally appeared on horseback in a military
      habit, and sometimes marched several miles on foot at the head of
      the troops. The success of Odenathus was in a great measure
      ascribed to her incomparable prudence and fortitude. Their
      splendid victories over the Great King, whom they twice pursued
      as far as the gates of Ctesiphon, laid the foundations of their
      united fame and power. The armies which they commanded, and the
      provinces which they had saved, acknowledged not any other
      sovereigns than their invincible chiefs. The senate and people of
      Rome revered a stranger who had avenged their captive emperor,
      and even the insensible son of Valerian accepted Odenathus for
      his legitimate colleague.

      551 (return) [ According to Zosimus, Odenathus was of a noble
      family in Palmyra and according to Procopius, he was prince of
      the Saracens, who inhabit the ranks of the Euphrates. Echhel.
      Doct. Num. vii. 489.—G.]




      Chapter XI: Reign Of Claudius, Defeat Of The Goths.—Part III.

      After a successful expedition against the Gothic plunderers of
      Asia, the Palmyrenian prince returned to the city of Emesa in
      Syria. Invincible in war, he was there cut off by domestic
      treason, and his favorite amusement of hunting was the cause, or
      at least the occasion, of his death. 56 His nephew Mæonius
      presumed to dart his javelin before that of his uncle; and though
      admonished of his error, repeated the same insolence. As a
      monarch, and as a sportsman, Odenathus was provoked, took away
      his horse, a mark of ignominy among the barbarians, and chastised
      the rash youth by a short confinement. The offence was soon
      forgot, but the punishment was remembered; and Mæonius, with a
      few daring associates, assassinated his uncle in the midst of a
      great entertainment. Herod, the son of Odenathus, though not of
      Zenobia, a young man of a soft and effeminate temper, 57 was
      killed with his father. But Mæonius obtained only the pleasure of
      revenge by this bloody deed. He had scarcely time to assume the
      title of Augustus, before he was sacrificed by Zenobia to the
      memory of her husband. 58

      56 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 192, 193. Zosimus, l. i. p. 36.
      Zonaras, l. xii p. 633. The last is clear and probable, the
      others confused and inconsistent. The text of Syncellus, if not
      corrupt, is absolute nonsense.]

      57 (return) [ Odenathus and Zenobia often sent him, from the
      spoils of the enemy, presents of gems and toys, which he received
      with infinite delight.]

      58 (return) [ Some very unjust suspicions have been cast on
      Zenobia, as if she was accessory to her husband’s death.]

      With the assistance of his most faithful friends, she immediately
      filled the vacant throne, and governed with manly counsels
      Palmyra, Syria, and the East, above five years. By the death of
      Odenathus, that authority was at an end which the senate had
      granted him only as a personal distinction; but his martial
      widow, disdaining both the senate and Gallienus, obliged one of
      the Roman generals, who was sent against her, to retreat into
      Europe, with the loss of his army and his reputation. 59 Instead
      of the little passions which so frequently perplex a female
      reign, the steady administration of Zenobia was guided by the
      most judicious maxims of policy. If it was expedient to pardon,
      she could calm her resentment; if it was necessary to punish, she
      could impose silence on the voice of pity. Her strict economy was
      accused of avarice; yet on every proper occasion she appeared
      magnificent and liberal. The neighboring states of Arabia,
      Armenia, and Persia, dreaded her enmity, and solicited her
      alliance. To the dominions of Odenathus, which extended from the
      Euphrates to the frontiers of Bithynia, his widow added the
      inheritance of her ancestors, the populous and fertile kingdom of
      Egypt. 60 The emperor Claudius acknowledged her merit, and was
      content, that, while _he_ pursued the Gothic war, _she_ should
      assert the dignity of the empire in the East. The conduct,
      however, of Zenobia was attended with some ambiguity; not is it
      unlikely that she had conceived the design of erecting an
      independent and hostile monarchy. She blended with the popular
      manners of Roman princes the stately pomp of the courts of Asia,
      and exacted from her subjects the same adoration that was paid to
      the successor of Cyrus. She bestowed on her three sons 61 a Latin
      education, and often showed them to the troops adorned with the
      Imperial purple. For herself she reserved the diadem, with the
      splendid but doubtful title of Queen of the East.

      59 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 180, 181.]

      60 (return) [ See, in Hist. August. p. 198, Aurelian’s testimony
      to her merit; and for the conquest of Egypt, Zosimus, l. i. p.
      39, 40.] This seems very doubtful. Claudius, during all his
      reign, is represented as emperor on the medals of Alexandria,
      which are very numerous. If Zenobia possessed any power in Egypt,
      it could only have been at the beginning of the reign of
      Aurelian. The same circumstance throws great improbability on her
      conquests in Galatia. Perhaps Zenobia administered Egypt in the
      name of Claudius, and emboldened by the death of that prince,
      subjected it to her own power.—G.]

      61 (return) [ Timolaus, Herennianus, and Vaballathus. It is
      supposed that the two former were already dead before the war. On
      the last, Aurelian bestowed a small province of Armenia, with the
      title of King; several of his medals are still extant. See
      Tillemont, tom. 3, p. 1190.]

      When Aurelian passed over into Asia, against an adversary whose
      sex alone could render her an object of contempt, his presence
      restored obedience to the province of Bithynia, already shaken by
      the arms and intrigues of Zenobia. 62 Advancing at the head of
      his legions, he accepted the submission of Ancyra, and was
      admitted into Tyana, after an obstinate siege, by the help of a
      perfidious citizen. The generous though fierce temper of Aurelian
      abandoned the traitor to the rage of the soldiers; a
      superstitious reverence induced him to treat with lenity the
      countrymen of Apollonius the philosopher. 63 Antioch was deserted
      on his approach, till the emperor, by his salutary edicts,
      recalled the fugitives, and granted a general pardon to all who,
      from necessity rather than choice, had been engaged in the
      service of the Palmyrenian Queen. The unexpected mildness of such
      a conduct reconciled the minds of the Syrians, and as far as the
      gates of Emesa, the wishes of the people seconded the terror of
      his arms. 64

      62 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 44.]

      63 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 217) gives us an
      authentic letter and a doubtful vision, of Aurelian. Apollonius
      of Tyana was born about the same time as Jesus Christ. His life
      (that of the former) is related in so fabulous a manner by his
      disciples, that we are at a loss to discover whether he was a
      sage, an impostor, or a fanatic.]

      64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 46.]

      Zenobia would have ill deserved her reputation, had she
      indolently permitted the emperor of the West to approach within a
      hundred miles of her capital. The fate of the East was decided in
      two great battles; so similar in almost every circumstance, that
      we can scarcely distinguish them from each other, except by
      observing that the first was fought near Antioch, 65 and the
      second near Emesa. 66 In both the queen of Palmyra animated the
      armies by her presence, and devolved the execution of her orders
      on Zabdas, who had already signalized his military talents by the
      conquest of Egypt. The numerous forces of Zenobia consisted for
      the most part of light archers, and of heavy cavalry clothed in
      complete steel. The Moorish and Illyrian horse of Aurelian were
      unable to sustain the ponderous charge of their antagonists. They
      fled in real or affected disorder, engaged the Palmyrenians in a
      laborious pursuit, harassed them by a desultory combat, and at
      length discomfited this impenetrable but unwieldy body of
      cavalry. The light infantry, in the mean time, when they had
      exhausted their quivers, remaining without protection against a
      closer onset, exposed their naked sides to the swords of the
      legions. Aurelian had chosen these veteran troops, who were
      usually stationed on the Upper Danube, and whose valor had been
      severely tried in the Alemannic war. 67 After the defeat of
      Emesa, Zenobia found it impossible to collect a third army. As
      far as the frontier of Egypt, the nations subject to her empire
      had joined the standard of the conqueror, who detached Probus,
      the bravest of his generals, to possess himself of the Egyptian
      provinces. Palmyra was the last resource of the widow of
      Odenathus. She retired within the walls of her capital, made
      every preparation for a vigorous resistance, and declared, with
      the intrepidity of a heroine, that the last moment of her reign
      and of her life should be the same.

      65 (return) [ At a place called Immæ. Eutropius, Sextus Rufus,
      and Jerome, mention only this first battle.]

      66 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August. p. 217) mentions only
      the second.]

      67 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 44—48. His account of the two
      battles is clear and circumstantial.]

      Amid the barren deserts of Arabia, a few cultivated spots rise
      like islands out of the sandy ocean. Even the name of Tadmor, or
      Palmyra, by its signification in the Syriac as well as in the
      Latin language, denoted the multitude of palm-trees which
      afforded shade and verdure to that temperate region. The air was
      pure, and the soil, watered by some invaluable springs, was
      capable of producing fruits as well as corn. A place possessed of
      such singular advantages, and situated at a convenient distance
      68 between the Gulf of Persia and the Mediterranean, was soon
      frequented by the caravans which conveyed to the nations of
      Europe a considerable part of the rich commodities of India.
      Palmyra insensibly increased into an opulent and independent
      city, and connecting the Roman and the Parthian monarchies by the
      mutual benefits of commerce, was suffered to observe an humble
      neutrality, till at length, after the victories of Trajan, the
      little republic sunk into the bosom of Rome, and flourished more
      than one hundred and fifty years in the subordinate though
      honorable rank of a colony. It was during that peaceful period,
      if we may judge from a few remaining inscriptions, that the
      wealthy Palmyrenians constructed those temples, palaces, and
      porticos of Grecian architecture, whose ruins, scattered over an
      extent of several miles, have deserved the curiosity of our
      travellers. The elevation of Odenathus and Zenobia appeared to
      reflect new splendor on their country, and Palmyra, for a while,
      stood forth the rival of Rome: but the competition was fatal, and
      ages of prosperity were sacrificed to a moment of glory. 69

      68 (return) [ It was five hundred and thirty-seven miles from
      Seleucia, and two hundred and three from the nearest coast of
      Syria, according to the reckoning of Pliny, who, in a few words,
      (Hist. Natur. v. 21,) gives an excellent description of Palmyra.
      * Note: Talmor, or Palmyra, was probably at a very early period
      the connecting link between the commerce of Tyre and Babylon.
      Heeren, Ideen, v. i. p. ii. p. 125. Tadmor was probably built by
      Solomon as a commercial station. Hist. of Jews, v. p. 271—M.]

      69 (return) [ Some English travellers from Aleppo discovered the
      ruins of Palmyra about the end of the last century. Our curiosity
      has since been gratified in a more splendid manner by Messieurs
      Wood and Dawkins. For the history of Palmyra, we may consult the
      masterly dissertation of Dr. Halley in the Philosophical
      Transactions: Lowthorp’s Abridgment, vol. iii. p. 518.]

      In his march over the sandy desert between Emesa and Palmyra, the
      emperor Aurelian was perpetually harassed by the Arabs; nor could
      he always defend his army, and especially his baggage, from those
      flying troops of active and daring robbers, who watched the
      moment of surprise, and eluded the slow pursuit of the legions.
      The siege of Palmyra was an object far more difficult and
      important, and the emperor, who, with incessant vigor, pressed
      the attacks in person, was himself wounded with a dart. “The
      Roman people,” says Aurelian, in an original letter, “speak with
      contempt of the war which I am waging against a woman. They are
      ignorant both of the character and of the power of Zenobia. It is
      impossible to enumerate her warlike preparations, of stones, of
      arrows, and of every species of missile weapons. Every part of
      the walls is provided with two or three _balistæ_ and artificial
      fires are thrown from her military engines. The fear of
      punishment has armed her with a desperate courage. Yet still I
      trust in the protecting deities of Rome, who have hitherto been
      favorable to all my undertakings.” 70 Doubtful, however, of the
      protection of the gods, and of the event of the siege, Aurelian
      judged it more prudent to offer terms of an advantageous
      capitulation; to the queen, a splendid retreat; to the citizens,
      their ancient privileges. His proposals were obstinately
      rejected, and the refusal was accompanied with insult.

      70 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 218.]

      The firmness of Zenobia was supported by the hope, that in a very
      short time famine would compel the Roman army to repass the
      desert; and by the reasonable expectation that the kings of the
      East, and particularly the Persian monarch, would arm in the
      defence of their most natural ally. But fortune, and the
      perseverance of Aurelian, overcame every obstacle. The death of
      Sapor, which happened about this time, 71 distracted the councils
      of Persia, and the inconsiderable succors that attempted to
      relieve Palmyra were easily intercepted either by the arms or the
      liberality of the emperor. From every part of Syria, a regular
      succession of convoys safely arrived in the camp, which was
      increased by the return of Probus with his victorious troops from
      the conquest of Egypt. It was then that Zenobia resolved to fly.
      She mounted the fleetest of her dromedaries, 72 and had already
      reached the banks of the Euphrates, about sixty miles from
      Palmyra, when she was overtaken by the pursuit of Aurelian’s
      light horse, seized, and brought back a captive to the feet of
      the emperor. Her capital soon afterwards surrendered, and was
      treated with unexpected lenity. The arms, horses, and camels,
      with an immense treasure of gold, silver, silk, and precious
      stones, were all delivered to the conqueror, who, leaving only a
      garrison of six hundred archers, returned to Emesa, and employed
      some time in the distribution of rewards and punishments at the
      end of so memorable a war, which restored to the obedience of
      Rome those provinces that had renounced their allegiance since
      the captivity of Valerian.

      71 (return) [ From a very doubtful chronology I have endeavored
      to extract the most probable date.]

      72 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 218. Zosimus, l. i. p. 50. Though
      the camel is a heavy beast of burden, the dromedary, which is
      either of the same or of a kindred species, is used by the
      natives of Asia and Africa on all occasions which require
      celerity. The Arabs affirm, that he will run over as much ground
      in one day as their fleetest horses can perform in eight or ten.
      See Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. xi. p. 222, and Shaw’s Travels
      p. 167]

      When the Syrian queen was brought into the presence of Aurelian,
      he sternly asked her, How she had presumed to rise in arms
      against the emperors of Rome! The answer of Zenobia was a prudent
      mixture of respect and firmness. “Because I disdained to consider
      as Roman emperors an Aureolus or a Gallienus. You alone I
      acknowledge as my conqueror and my sovereign.” 73 But as female
      fortitude is commonly artificial, so it is seldom steady or
      consistent. The courage of Zenobia deserted her in the hour of
      trial; she trembled at the angry clamors of the soldiers, who
      called aloud for her immediate execution, forgot the generous
      despair of Cleopatra, which she had proposed as her model, and
      ignominiously purchased life by the sacrifice of her fame and her
      friends. It was to their counsels, which governed the weakness of
      her sex, that she imputed the guilt of her obstinate resistance;
      it was on their heads that she directed the vengeance of the
      cruel Aurelian. The fame of Longinus, who was included among the
      numerous and perhaps innocent victims of her fear, will survive
      that of the queen who betrayed, or the tyrant who condemned him.
      Genius and learning were incapable of moving a fierce unlettered
      soldier, but they had served to elevate and harmonize the soul of
      Longinus. Without uttering a complaint, he calmly followed the
      executioner, pitying his unhappy mistress, and bestowing comfort
      on his afflicted friends. 74

      73 (return) [ Pollio in Hist. August. p. 199.]

      74 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 219. Zosimus, l. i. p.
      51.]

      Returning from the conquest of the East, Aurelian had already
      crossed the Straits which divided Europe from Asia, when he was
      provoked by the intelligence that the Palmyrenians had massacred
      the governor and garrison which he had left among them, and again
      erected the standard of revolt. Without a moment’s deliberation,
      he once more turned his face towards Syria. Antioch was alarmed
      by his rapid approach, and the helpless city of Palmyra felt the
      irresistible weight of his resentment. We have a letter of
      Aurelian himself, in which he acknowledges, 75 that old men,
      women, children, and peasants, had been involved in that dreadful
      execution, which should have been confined to armed rebellion;
      and although his principal concern seems directed to the
      reëstablishment of a temple of the Sun, he discovers some pity
      for the remnant of the Palmyrenians, to whom he grants the
      permission of rebuilding and inhabiting their city. But it is
      easier to destroy than to restore. The seat of commerce, of arts,
      and of Zenobia, gradually sunk into an obscure town, a trifling
      fortress, and at length a miserable village. The present citizens
      of Palmyra, consisting of thirty or forty families, have erected
      their mud cottages within the spacious court of a magnificent
      temple.

      75 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 219.]

      Another and a last labor still awaited the indefatigable
      Aurelian; to suppress a dangerous though obscure rebel, who,
      during the revolt of Palmyra, had arisen on the banks of the
      Nile. Firmus, the friend and ally, as he proudly styled himself,
      of Odenathus and Zenobia, was no more than a wealthy merchant of
      Egypt. In the course of his trade to India, he had formed very
      intimate connections with the Saracens and the Blemmyes, whose
      situation on either coast of the Red Sea gave them an easy
      introduction into the Upper Egypt. The Egyptians he inflamed with
      the hope of freedom, and, at the head of their furious multitude,
      broke into the city of Alexandria, where he assumed the Imperial
      purple, coined money, published edicts, and raised an army,
      which, as he vainly boasted, he was capable of maintaining from
      the sole profits of his paper trade. Such troops were a feeble
      defence against the approach of Aurelian; and it seems almost
      unnecessary to relate, that Firmus was routed, taken, tortured,
      and put to death. 76 Aurelian might now congratulate the senate,
      the people, and himself, that in little more than three years, he
      had restored universal peace and order to the Roman world.

      76 (return) [ See Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 220, 242. As an
      instance of luxury, it is observed, that he had glass windows. He
      was remarkable for his strength and appetite, his courage and
      dexterity. From the letter of Aurelian, we may justly infer, that
      Firmus was the last of the rebels, and consequently that Tetricus
      was already suppressed.]

      Since the foundation of Rome, no general had more nobly deserved
      a triumph than Aurelian; nor was a triumph ever celebrated with
      superior pride and magnificence. 77 The pomp was opened by twenty
      elephants, four royal tigers, and above two hundred of the most
      curious animals from every climate of the North, the East, and
      the South. They were followed by sixteen hundred gladiators,
      devoted to the cruel amusement of the amphitheatre. The wealth of
      Asia, the arms and ensigns of so many conquered nations, and the
      magnificent plate and wardrobe of the Syrian queen, were disposed
      in exact symmetry or artful disorder. The ambassadors of the most
      remote parts of the earth, of Æthiopia, Arabia, Persia,
      Bactriana, India, and China, all remarkable by their rich or
      singular dresses, displayed the fame and power of the Roman
      emperor, who exposed likewise to the public view the presents
      that he had received, and particularly a great number of crowns
      of gold, the offerings of grateful cities.

      The victories of Aurelian were attested by the long train of
      captives who reluctantly attended his triumph, Goths, Vandals,
      Sarmatians, Alemanni, Franks, Gauls, Syrians, and Egyptians. Each
      people was distinguished by its peculiar inscription, and the
      title of Amazons was bestowed on ten martial heroines of the
      Gothic nation who had been taken in arms. 78 But every eye,
      disregarding the crowd of captives, was fixed on the emperor
      Tetricus and the queen of the East. The former, as well as his
      son, whom he had created Augustus, was dressed in Gallic
      trousers, 79 a saffron tunic, and a robe of purple. The beauteous
      figure of Zenobia was confined by fetters of gold; a slave
      supported the gold chain which encircled her neck, and she almost
      fainted under the intolerable weight of jewels. She preceded on
      foot the magnificent chariot, in which she once hoped to enter
      the gates of Rome. It was followed by two other chariots, still
      more sumptuous, of Odenathus and of the Persian monarch. The
      triumphal car of Aurelian (it had formerly been used by a Gothic
      king) was drawn, on this memorable occasion, either by four stags
      or by four elephants. 80 The most illustrious of the senate, the
      people, and the army, closed the solemn procession. Unfeigned
      joy, wonder, and gratitude, swelled the acclamations of the
      multitude; but the satisfaction of the senate was clouded by the
      appearance of Tetricus; nor could they suppress a rising murmur,
      that the haughty emperor should thus expose to public ignominy
      the person of a Roman and a magistrate. 81

      77 (return) [ See the triumph of Aurelian, described by Vopiscus.
      He relates the particulars with his usual minuteness; and, on
      this occasion, they happen to be interesting. Hist. August. p.
      220.]

      78 (return) [ Among barbarous nations, women have often combated
      by the side of their husbands. But it is almost impossible that a
      society of Amazons should ever have existed either in the old or
      new world. * Note: Klaproth’s theory on the origin of such
      traditions is at least recommended by its ingenuity. The males of
      a tribe having gone out on a marauding expedition, and having
      been cut off to a man, the females may have endeavored, for a
      time, to maintain their independence in their camp village, till
      their children grew up. Travels, ch. xxx. Eng. Trans—M.]

      79 (return) [ The use of braccœ, breeches, or trousers, was
      still considered in Italy as a Gallic and barbarian fashion. The
      Romans, however, had made great advances towards it. To encircle
      the legs and thighs with fasciœ, or bands, was understood, in
      the time of Pompey and Horace, to be a proof of ill health or
      effeminacy. In the age of Trajan, the custom was confined to the
      rich and luxurious. It gradually was adopted by the meanest of
      the people. See a very curious note of Casaubon, ad Sueton. in
      August. c. 82.]

      80 (return) [ Most probably the former; the latter seen on the
      medals of Aurelian, only denote (according to the learned
      Cardinal Norris) an oriental victory.]

      81 (return) [ The expression of Calphurnius, (Eclog. i. 50)
      Nullos decet captiva triumphos, as applied to Rome, contains a
      very manifest allusion and censure.]

      But however, in the treatment of his unfortunate rivals, Aurelian
      might indulge his pride, he behaved towards them with a generous
      clemency, which was seldom exercised by the ancient conquerors.
      Princes who, without success, had defended their throne or
      freedom, were frequently strangled in prison, as soon as the
      triumphal pomp ascended the Capitol. These usurpers, whom their
      defeat had convicted of the crime of treason, were permitted to
      spend their lives in affluence and honorable repose.

      The emperor presented Zenobia with an elegant villa at Tibur, or
      Tivoli, about twenty miles from the capital; the Syrian queen
      insensibly sunk into a Roman matron, her daughters married into
      noble families, and her race was not yet extinct in the fifth
      century. 82 Tetricus and his son were reinstated in their rank
      and fortunes. They erected on the Cælian hill a magnificent
      palace, and as soon as it was finished, invited Aurelian to
      supper. On his entrance, he was agreeably surprised with a
      picture which represented their singular history. They were
      delineated offering to the emperor a civic crown and the sceptre
      of Gaul, and again receiving at his hands the ornaments of the
      senatorial dignity. The father was afterwards invested with the
      government of Lucania, 83 and Aurelian, who soon admitted the
      abdicated monarch to his friendship and conversation, familiarly
      asked him, Whether it were not more desirable to administer a
      province of Italy, than to reign beyond the Alps. The son long
      continued a respectable member of the senate; nor was there any
      one of the Roman nobility more esteemed by Aurelian, as well as
      by his successors. 84

      82 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 199. Hieronym. in
      Chron. Prosper in Chron. Baronius supposes that Zenobius, bishop
      of Florence in the time of St. Ambrose, was of her family.]

      83 (return) [ Vopisc. in Hist. August. p. 222. Eutropius, ix. 13.
      Victor Junior. But Pollio, in Hist. August. p. 196, says, that
      Tetricus was made corrector of all Italy.]

      84 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 197.]

      So long and so various was the pomp of Aurelian’s triumph, that
      although it opened with the dawn of day, the slow majesty of the
      procession ascended not the Capitol before the ninth hour; and it
      was already dark when the emperor returned to the palace. The
      festival was protracted by theatrical representations, the games
      of the circus, the hunting of wild beasts, combats of gladiators,
      and naval engagements. Liberal donatives were distributed to the
      army and people, and several institutions, agreeable or
      beneficial to the city, contributed to perpetuate the glory of
      Aurelian. A considerable portion of his oriental spoils was
      consecrated to the gods of Rome; the Capitol, and every other
      temple, glittered with the offerings of his ostentatious piety;
      and the temple of the Sun alone received above fifteen thousand
      pounds of gold. 85 This last was a magnificent structure, erected
      by the emperor on the side of the Quirinal hill, and dedicated,
      soon after the triumph, to that deity whom Aurelian adored as the
      parent of his life and fortunes. His mother had been an inferior
      priestess in a chapel of the Sun; a peculiar devotion to the god
      of Light was a sentiment which the fortunate peasant imbibed in
      his infancy; and every step of his elevation, every victory of
      his reign, fortified superstition by gratitude. 86

      85 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. 222. Zosimus, l. i. p.
      56. He placed in it the images of Belus and of the Sun, which he
      had brought from Palmyra. It was dedicated in the fourth year of
      his reign, (Euseb in Chron.,) but was most assuredly begun
      immediately on his accession.]

      86 (return) [ See, in the Augustan History, p. 210, the omens of
      his fortune. His devotion to the Sun appears in his letters, on
      his medals, and is mentioned in the Cæsars of Julian. Commentaire
      de Spanheim, p. 109.]

      The arms of Aurelian had vanquished the foreign and domestic foes
      of the republic. We are assured, that, by his salutary rigor,
      crimes and factions, mischievous arts and pernicious connivance,
      the luxurious growth of a feeble and oppressive government, were
      eradicated throughout the Roman world. 87 But if we attentively
      reflect how much swifter is the progress of corruption than its
      cure, and if we remember that the years abandoned to public
      disorders exceeded the months allotted to the martial reign of
      Aurelian, we must confess that a few short intervals of peace
      were insufficient for the arduous work of reformation. Even his
      attempt to restore the integrity of the coin was opposed by a
      formidable insurrection. The emperor’s vexation breaks out in one
      of his private letters. “Surely,” says he, “the gods have decreed
      that my life should be a perpetual warfare. A sedition within the
      walls has just now given birth to a very serious civil war. The
      workmen of the mint, at the instigation of Felicissimus, a slave
      to whom I had intrusted an employment in the finances, have risen
      in rebellion. They are at length suppressed; but seven thousand
      of my soldiers have been slain in the contest, of those troops
      whose ordinary station is in Dacia, and the camps along the
      Danube.” 88 Other writers, who confirm the same fact, add
      likewise, that it happened soon after Aurelian’s triumph; that
      the decisive engagement was fought on the Cælian hill; that the
      workmen of the mint had adulterated the coin; and that the
      emperor restored the public credit, by delivering out good money
      in exchange for the bad, which the people was commanded to bring
      into the treasury. 89

      87 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 221.]

      88 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelian calls these soldiers
      Hiberi Riporiences Castriani, and Dacisci.]

      89 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 56. Eutropius, ix. 14. Aurel
      Victor.]

      We might content ourselves with relating this extraordinary
      transaction, but we cannot dissemble how much in its present form
      it appears to us inconsistent and incredible. The debasement of
      the coin is indeed well suited to the administration of
      Gallienus; nor is it unlikely that the instruments of the
      corruption might dread the inflexible justice of Aurelian. But
      the guilt, as well as the profit, must have been confined to a
      very few; nor is it easy to conceive by what arts they could arm
      a people whom they had injured, against a monarch whom they had
      betrayed. We might naturally expect that such miscreants should
      have shared the public detestation with the informers and the
      other ministers of oppression; and that the reformation of the
      coin should have been an action equally popular with the
      destruction of those obsolete accounts, which by the emperor’s
      order were burnt in the forum of Trajan. 90 In an age when the
      principles of commerce were so imperfectly understood, the most
      desirable end might perhaps be effected by harsh and injudicious
      means; but a temporary grievance of such a nature can scarcely
      excite and support a serious civil war. The repetition of
      intolerable taxes, imposed either on the land or on the
      necessaries of life, may at last provoke those who will not, or
      who cannot, relinquish their country. But the case is far
      otherwise in every operation which, by whatsoever expedients,
      restores the just value of money. The transient evil is soon
      obliterated by the permanent benefit, the loss is divided among
      multitudes; and if a few wealthy individuals experience a
      sensible diminution of treasure, with their riches, they at the
      same time lose the degree of weight and importance which they
      derived from the possession of them. However Aurelian might
      choose to disguise the real cause of the insurrection, his
      reformation of the coin could furnish only a faint pretence to a
      party already powerful and discontented. Rome, though deprived of
      freedom, was distracted by faction. The people, towards whom the
      emperor, himself a plebeian, always expressed a peculiar
      fondness, lived in perpetual dissension with the senate, the
      equestrian order, and the Prætorian guards. 91 Nothing less than
      the firm though secret conspiracy of those orders, of the
      authority of the first, the wealth of the second, and the arms of
      the third, could have displayed a strength capable of contending
      in battle with the veteran legions of the Danube, which, under
      the conduct of a martial sovereign, had achieved the conquest of
      the West and of the East.

      90 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 222. Aurel Victor.]

      91 (return) [ It already raged before Aurelian’s return from
      Egypt. See Vipiscus, who quotes an original letter. Hist. August.
      p. 244.]

      Whatever was the cause or the object of this rebellion, imputed
      with so little probability to the workmen of the mint, Aurelian
      used his victory with unrelenting rigor. 92 He was naturally of a
      severe disposition. A peasant and a soldier, his nerves yielded
      not easily to the impressions of sympathy, and he could sustain
      without emotion the sight of tortures and death. Trained from his
      earliest youth in the exercise of arms, he set too small a value
      on the life of a citizen, chastised by military execution the
      slightest offences, and transferred the stern discipline of the
      camp into the civil administration of the laws. His love of
      justice often became a blind and furious passion; and whenever he
      deemed his own or the public safety endangered, he disregarded
      the rules of evidence, and the proportion of punishments. The
      unprovoked rebellion with which the Romans rewarded his services,
      exasperated his haughty spirit. The noblest families of the
      capital were involved in the guilt or suspicion of this dark
      conspiracy. A nasty spirit of revenge urged the bloody
      prosecution, and it proved fatal to one of the nephews of the
      emperor. The executioners (if we may use the expression of a
      contemporary poet) were fatigued, the prisons were crowded, and
      the unhappy senate lamented the death or absence of its most
      illustrious members. 93 Nor was the pride of Aurelian less
      offensive to that assembly than his cruelty. Ignorant or
      impatient of the restraints of civil institutions, he disdained
      to hold his power by any other title than that of the sword, and
      governed by right of conquest an empire which he had saved and
      subdued. 94

      92 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August p. 222. The two Victors.
      Eutropius ix. 14. Zosimus (l. i. p. 43) mentions only three
      senators, and placed their death before the eastern war.]

      93 (return) [ Nulla catenati feralis pompa senatus Carnificum
      lassabit opus; nec carcere pleno Infelix raros numerabit curia
      Patres. Calphurn. Eclog. i. 60.]

      94 (return) [ According to the younger Victor, he sometimes wore
      the diadem, Deus and Dominus appear on his medals.]

      It was observed by one of the most sagacious of the Roman
      princes, that the talents of his predecessor Aurelian were better
      suited to the command of an army, than to the government of an
      empire. 95 Conscious of the character in which nature and
      experience had enabled him to excel, he again took the field a
      few months after his triumph. It was expedient to exercise the
      restless temper of the legions in some foreign war, and the
      Persian monarch, exulting in the shame of Valerian, still braved
      with impunity the offended majesty of Rome. At the head of an
      army, less formidable by its numbers than by its discipline and
      valor, the emperor advanced as far as the Straits which divide
      Europe from Asia. He there experienced that the most absolute
      power is a weak defence against the effects of despair. He had
      threatened one of his secretaries who was accused of extortion;
      and it was known that he seldom threatened in vain. The last hope
      which remained for the criminal was to involve some of the
      principal officers of the army in his danger, or at least in his
      fears. Artfully counterfeiting his master’s hand, he showed them,
      in a long and bloody list, their own names devoted to death.
      Without suspecting or examining the fraud, they resolved to
      secure their lives by the murder of the emperor. On his march,
      between Byzantium and Heraclea, Aurelian was suddenly attacked by
      the conspirators, whose stations gave them a right to surround
      his person, and after a short resistance, fell by the hand of
      Mucapor, a general whom he had always loved and trusted. He died
      regretted by the army, detested by the senate, but universally
      acknowledged as a warlike and fortunate prince, the useful,
      though severe reformer of a degenerate state. 96

      95 (return) [ It was the observation of Dioclatian. See Vopiscus
      in Hist. August. p. 224.]

      96 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 221. Zosimus, l. i. p.
      57. Eutrop ix. 15. The two Victors.]




      Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
      I.

     Conduct Of The Army And Senate After The Death Of Aurelian.
     —Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus, And His Sons.

      Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that,
      whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the
      same. A life of pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of
      indolence or glory, alike led to an untimely grave; and almost
      every reign is closed by the same disgusting repetition of
      treason and murder. The death of Aurelian, however, is remarkable
      by its extraordinary consequences. The legions admired, lamented,
      and revenged their victorious chief. The artifice of his
      perfidious secretary was discovered and punished.

      The deluded conspirators attended the funeral of their injured
      sovereign, with sincere or well-feigned contrition, and submitted
      to the unanimous resolution of the military order, which was
      signified by the following epistle: “The brave and fortunate
      armies to the senate and people of Rome.—The crime of one man,
      and the error of many, have deprived us of the late emperor
      Aurelian. May it please you, venerable lords and fathers! to
      place him in the number of the gods, and to appoint a successor
      whom your judgment shall declare worthy of the Imperial purple!
      None of those whose guilt or misfortune have contributed to our
      loss, shall ever reign over us.” 1 The Roman senators heard,
      without surprise, that another emperor had been assassinated in
      his camp; they secretly rejoiced in the fall of Aurelian; but the
      modest and dutiful address of the legions, when it was
      communicated in full assembly by the consul, diffused the most
      pleasing astonishment. Such honors as fear and perhaps esteem
      could extort, they liberally poured forth on the memory of their
      deceased sovereign. Such acknowledgments as gratitude could
      inspire, they returned to the faithful armies of the republic,
      who entertained so just a sense of the legal authority of the
      senate in the choice of an emperor. Yet, notwithstanding this
      flattering appeal, the most prudent of the assembly declined
      exposing their safety and dignity to the caprice of an armed
      multitude. The strength of the legions was, indeed, a pledge of
      their sincerity, since those who may command are seldom reduced
      to the necessity of dissembling; but could it naturally be
      expected, that a hasty repentance would correct the inveterate
      habits of fourscore years? Should the soldiers relapse into their
      accustomed seditions, their insolence might disgrace the majesty
      of the senate, and prove fatal to the object of its choice.
      Motives like these dictated a decree, by which the election of a
      new emperor was referred to the suffrage of the military order.

      1 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 222. Aurelius Victor
      mentions a formal deputation from the troops to the senate.]

      The contention that ensued is one of the best attested, but most
      improbable events in the history of mankind. 2 The troops, as if
      satiated with the exercise of power, again conjured the senate to
      invest one of its own body with the Imperial purple. The senate
      still persisted in its refusal; the army in its request. The
      reciprocal offer was pressed and rejected at least three times,
      and, whilst the obstinate modesty of either party was resolved to
      receive a master from the hands of the other, eight months
      insensibly elapsed; an amazing period of tranquil anarchy, during
      which the Roman world remained without a sovereign, without a
      usurper, and without a sedition. 201 The generals and magistrates
      appointed by Aurelian continued to execute their ordinary
      functions; and it is observed, that a proconsul of Asia was the
      only considerable person removed from his office in the whole
      course of the interregnum.

      2 (return) [ Vopiscus, our principal authority, wrote at Rome,
      sixteen years only after the death of Aurelian; and, besides the
      recent notoriety of the facts, constantly draws his materials
      from the Journals of the Senate, and the original papers of the
      Ulpian library. Zosimus and Zonaras appear as ignorant of this
      transaction as they were in general of the Roman constitution.]

      201 (return) [ The interregnum could not be more than seven
      months; Aurelian was assassinated in the middle of March, the
      year of Rome 1028. Tacitus was elected the 25th September in the
      same year.—G.]

      An event somewhat similar, but much less authentic, is supposed
      to have happened after the death of Romulus, who, in his life and
      character, bore some affinity with Aurelian. The throne was
      vacant during twelve months, till the election of a Sabine
      philosopher, and the public peace was guarded in the same manner,
      by the union of the several orders of the state. But, in the time
      of Numa and Romulus, the arms of the people were controlled by
      the authority of the Patricians; and the balance of freedom was
      easily preserved in a small and virtuous community. 3 The decline
      of the Roman state, far different from its infancy, was attended
      with every circumstance that could banish from an interregnum the
      prospect of obedience and harmony: an immense and tumultuous
      capital, a wide extent of empire, the servile equality of
      despotism, an army of four hundred thousand mercenaries, and the
      experience of frequent revolutions. Yet, notwithstanding all
      these temptations, the discipline and memory of Aurelian still
      restrained the seditious temper of the troops, as well as the
      fatal ambition of their leaders. The flower of the legions
      maintained their stations on the banks of the Bosphorus, and the
      Imperial standard awed the less powerful camps of Rome and of the
      provinces. A generous though transient enthusiasm seemed to
      animate the military order; and we may hope that a few real
      patriots cultivated the returning friendship of the army and the
      senate as the only expedient capable of restoring the republic to
      its ancient beauty and vigor.

      3 (return) [ Liv. i. 17 Dionys. Halicarn. l. ii. p. 115. Plutarch
      in Numa, p. 60. The first of these writers relates the story like
      an orator, the second like a lawyer, and the third like a
      moralist, and none of them probably without some intermixture of
      fable.]

      On the twenty-fifth of September, near eight months after the
      murder of Aurelian, the consul convoked an assembly of the
      senate, and reported the doubtful and dangerous situation of the
      empire. He slightly insinuated, that the precarious loyalty of
      the soldiers depended on the chance of every hour, and of every
      accident; but he represented, with the most convincing eloquence,
      the various dangers that might attend any further delay in the
      choice of an emperor. Intelligence, he said, was already
      received, that the Germans had passed the Rhine, and occupied
      some of the strongest and most opulent cities of Gaul. The
      ambition of the Persian king kept the East in perpetual alarms;
      Egypt, Africa, and Illyricum, were exposed to foreign and
      domestic arms, and the levity of Syria would prefer even a female
      sceptre to the sanctity of the Roman laws. The consul, then
      addressing himself to Tacitus, the first of the senators, 4
      required his opinion on the important subject of a proper
      candidate for the vacant throne.

      4 (return) [ Vopiscus (in Hist. August p. 227) calls him “primæ
      sententia consularis;” and soon afterwards Princeps senatus. It
      is natural to suppose, that the monarchs of Rome, disdaining that
      humble title, resigned it to the most ancient of the senators.]

      If we can prefer personal merit to accidental greatness, we shall
      esteem the birth of Tacitus more truly noble than that of kings.
      He claimed his descent from the philosophic historian whose
      writings will instruct the last generations of mankind. 5 The
      senator Tacitus was then seventy-five years of age. 6 The long
      period of his innocent life was adorned with wealth and honors.
      He had twice been invested with the consular dignity, 7 and
      enjoyed with elegance and sobriety his ample patrimony of between
      two and three millions sterling. 8 The experience of so many
      princes, whom he had esteemed or endured, from the vain follies
      of Elagabalus to the useful rigor of Aurelian, taught him to form
      a just estimate of the duties, the dangers, and the temptations
      of their sublime station. From the assiduous study of his
      immortal ancestor, he derived the knowledge of the Roman
      constitution, and of human nature. 9 The voice of the people had
      already named Tacitus as the citizen the most worthy of empire.
      The ungrateful rumor reached his ears, and induced him to seek
      the retirement of one of his villas in Campania. He had passed
      two months in the delightful privacy of Baiæ, when he reluctantly
      obeyed the summons of the consul to resume his honorable place in
      the senate, and to assist the republic with his counsels on this
      important occasion.

      5 (return) [ The only objection to this genealogy is, that the
      historian was named Cornelius, the emperor, Claudius. But under
      the lower empire, surnames were extremely various and uncertain.]

      6 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. The Alexandrian Chronicle,
      by an obvious mistake, transfers that age to Aurelian.]

      7 (return) [ In the year 273, he was ordinary consul. But he must
      have been Suffectus many years before, and most probably under
      Valerian.]

      8 (return) [ Bis millies octingenties. Vopiscus in Hist. August
      p. 229. This sum, according to the old standard, was equivalent
      to eight hundred and forty thousand Roman pounds of silver, each
      of the value of three pounds sterling. But in the age of Tacitus,
      the coin had lost much of its weight and purity.]

      9 (return) [ After his accession, he gave orders that ten copies
      of the historian should be annually transcribed and placed in the
      public libraries. The Roman libraries have long since perished,
      and the most valuable part of Tacitus was preserved in a single
      Ms., and discovered in a monastery of Westphalia. See Bayle,
      Dictionnaire, Art. Tacite, and Lipsius ad Annal. ii. 9.]

      He arose to speak, when from every quarter of the house, he was
      saluted with the names of Augustus and emperor. “Tacitus
      Augustus, the gods preserve thee! we choose thee for our
      sovereign; to thy care we intrust the republic and the world.
      Accept the empire from the authority of the senate. It is due to
      thy rank, to thy conduct, to thy manners.” As soon as the tumult
      of acclamations subsided, Tacitus attempted to decline the
      dangerous honor, and to express his wonder, that they should
      elect his age and infirmities to succeed the martial vigor of
      Aurelian. “Are these limbs, conscript fathers! fitted to sustain
      the weight of armor, or to practise the exercises of the camp?
      The variety of climates, and the hardships of a military life,
      would soon oppress a feeble constitution, which subsists only by
      the most tender management. My exhausted strength scarcely
      enables me to discharge the duty of a senator; how insufficient
      would it prove to the arduous labors of war and government! Can
      you hope, that the legions will respect a weak old man, whose
      days have been spent in the shade of peace and retirement? Can
      you desire that I should ever find reason to regret the favorable
      opinion of the senate?” 10

      10 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 227.]

      The reluctance of Tacitus (and it might possibly be sincere) was
      encountered by the affectionate obstinacy of the senate. Five
      hundred voices repeated at once, in eloquent confusion, that the
      greatest of the Roman princes, Numa, Trajan, Hadrian, and the
      Antonines, had ascended the throne in a very advanced season of
      life; that the mind, not the body, a sovereign, not a soldier,
      was the object of their choice; and that they expected from him
      no more than to guide by his wisdom the valor of the legions.
      These pressing though tumultuary instances were seconded by a
      more regular oration of Metius Falconius, the next on the
      consular bench to Tacitus himself. He reminded the assembly of
      the evils which Rome had endured from the vices of headstrong and
      capricious youths, congratulated them on the election of a
      virtuous and experienced senator, and, with a manly, though
      perhaps a selfish, freedom, exhorted Tacitus to remember the
      reasons of his elevation, and to seek a successor, not in his own
      family, but in the republic. The speech of Falconius was enforced
      by a general acclamation. The emperor elect submitted to the
      authority of his country, and received the voluntary homage of
      his equals. The judgment of the senate was confirmed by the
      consent of the Roman people and of the Prætorian guards. 11

      11 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 228. Tacitus addressed the
      Prætorians by the appellation of sanctissimi milites, and the
      people by that of sacratissim. Quirites.]

      The administration of Tacitus was not unworthy of his life and
      principles. A grateful servant of the senate, he considered that
      national council as the author, and himself as the subject, of
      the laws. 12 He studied to heal the wounds which Imperial pride,
      civil discord, and military violence, had inflicted on the
      constitution, and to restore, at least, the image of the ancient
      republic, as it had been preserved by the policy of Augustus, and
      the virtues of Trajan and the Antonines. It may not be useless to
      recapitulate some of the most important prerogatives which the
      senate appeared to have regained by the election of Tacitus. 13
      1. To invest one of their body, under the title of emperor, with
      the general command of the armies, and the government of the
      frontier provinces. 2. To determine the list, or, as it was then
      styled, the College of Consuls. They were twelve in number, who,
      in successive pairs, each, during the space of two months, filled
      the year, and represented the dignity of that ancient office. The
      authority of the senate, in the nomination of the consuls, was
      exercised with such independent freedom, that no regard was paid
      to an irregular request of the emperor in favor of his brother
      Florianus. “The senate,” exclaimed Tacitus, with the honest
      transport of a patriot, “understand the character of a prince
      whom they have chosen.” 3. To appoint the proconsuls and
      presidents of the provinces, and to confer on all the magistrates
      their civil jurisdiction. 4. To receive appeals through the
      intermediate office of the præfect of the city from all the
      tribunals of the empire. 5. To give force and validity, by their
      decrees, to such as they should approve of the emperor’s edicts.
      6. To these several branches of authority we may add some
      inspection over the finances, since, even in the stern reign of
      Aurelian, it was in their power to divert a part of the revenue
      from the public service. 14

      12 (return) [ In his manumissions he never exceeded the number of
      a hundred, as limited by the Caninian law, which was enacted
      under Augustus, and at length repealed by Justinian. See Casaubon
      ad locum Vopisci.]

      13 (return) [ See the lives of Tacitus, Florianus, and Probus, in
      the Augustan History; we may be well assured, that whatever the
      soldier gave the senator had already given.]

      14 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 216. The passage is
      perfectly clear, both Casaubon and Salmasius wish to correct it.]

      Circular epistles were sent, without delay, to all the principal
      cities of the empire, Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Thessalonica,
      Corinth, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage, to claim
      their obedience, and to inform them of the happy revolution,
      which had restored the Roman senate to its ancient dignity. Two
      of these epistles are still extant. We likewise possess two very
      singular fragments of the private correspondence of the senators
      on this occasion. They discover the most excessive joy, and the
      most unbounded hopes. “Cast away your indolence,” it is thus that
      one of the senators addresses his friend, “emerge from your
      retirements of Baiæ and Puteoli. Give yourself to the city, to
      the senate. Rome flourishes, the whole republic flourishes.
      Thanks to the Roman army, to an army truly Roman; at length we
      have recovered our just authority, the end of all our desires. We
      hear appeals, we appoint proconsuls, we create emperors; perhaps
      too we may restrain them—to the wise a word is sufficient.” 15
      These lofty expectations were, however, soon disappointed; nor,
      indeed, was it possible that the armies and the provinces should
      long obey the luxurious and unwarlike nobles of Rome. On the
      slightest touch, the unsupported fabric of their pride and power
      fell to the ground. The expiring senate displayed a sudden
      lustre, blazed for a moment, and was extinguished forever.

      15 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 230, 232, 233. The
      senators celebrated the happy restoration with hecatombs and
      public rejoicings.]

      All that had yet passed at Rome was no more than a theatrical
      representation, unless it was ratified by the more substantial
      power of the legions. Leaving the senators to enjoy their dream
      of freedom and ambition, Tacitus proceeded to the Thracian camp,
      and was there, by the Prætorian præfect, presented to the
      assembled troops, as the prince whom they themselves had
      demanded, and whom the senate had bestowed. As soon as the
      præfect was silent, the emperor addressed himself to the soldiers
      with eloquence and propriety. He gratified their avarice by a
      liberal distribution of treasure, under the names of pay and
      donative. He engaged their esteem by a spirited declaration, that
      although his age might disable him from the performance of
      military exploits, his counsels should never be unworthy of a
      Roman general, the successor of the brave Aurelian. 16

      16 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 228.]

      Whilst the deceased emperor was making preparations for a second
      expedition into the East, he had negotiated with the Alani, 161 a
      Scythian people, who pitched their tents in the neighborhood of
      the Lake Mæotis. Those barbarians, allured by presents and
      subsidies, had promised to invade Persia with a numerous body of
      light cavalry. They were faithful to their engagements; but when
      they arrived on the Roman frontier, Aurelian was already dead,
      the design of the Persian war was at least suspended, and the
      generals, who, during the interregnum, exercised a doubtful
      authority, were unprepared either to receive or to oppose them.
      Provoked by such treatment, which they considered as trifling and
      perfidious, the Alani had recourse to their own valor for their
      payment and revenge; and as they moved with the usual swiftness
      of Tartars, they had soon spread themselves over the provinces of
      Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia, and Galatia. The legions, who from
      the opposite shores of the Bosphorus could almost distinguish the
      flames of the cities and villages, impatiently urged their
      general to lead them against the invaders. The conduct of Tacitus
      was suitable to his age and station. He convinced the barbarians
      of the faith, as well as the power, of the empire. Great numbers
      of the Alani, appeased by the punctual discharge of the
      engagements which Aurelian had contracted with them, relinquished
      their booty and captives, and quietly retreated to their own
      deserts, beyond the Phasis. Against the remainder, who refused
      peace, the Roman emperor waged, in person, a successful war.
      Seconded by an army of brave and experienced veterans, in a few
      weeks he delivered the provinces of Asia from the terror of the
      Scythian invasion. 17

      161 (return) [ On the Alani, see ch. xxvi. note 55.—M.]

      17 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 230. Zosimus, l. i. p.
      57. Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. Two passages in the life of Probus
      (p. 236, 238) convince me, that these Scythian invaders of Pontus
      were Alani. If we may believe Zosimus, (l. i. p. 58,) Florianus
      pursued them as far as the Cimmerian Bosphorus. But he had
      scarcely time for so long and difficult an expedition.]

      But the glory and life of Tacitus were of short duration.
      Transported, in the depth of winter, from the soft retirement of
      Campania to the foot of Mount Caucasus, he sunk under the
      unaccustomed hardships of a military life. The fatigues of the
      body were aggravated by the cares of the mind. For a while, the
      angry and selfish passions of the soldiers had been suspended by
      the enthusiasm of public virtue. They soon broke out with
      redoubled violence, and raged in the camp, and even in the tent
      of the aged emperor. His mild and amiable character served only
      to inspire contempt, and he was incessantly tormented with
      factions which he could not assuage, and by demands which it was
      impossible to satisfy. Whatever flattering expectations he had
      conceived of reconciling the public disorders, Tacitus soon was
      convinced that the licentiousness of the army disdained the
      feeble restraint of laws, and his last hour was hastened by
      anguish and disappointment. It may be doubtful whether the
      soldiers imbrued their hands in the blood of this innocent
      prince. 18 It is certain that their insolence was the cause of
      his death. He expired at Tyana in Cappadocia, after a reign of
      only six months and about twenty days. 19

      18 (return) [ Eutropius and Aurelius Victor only say that he
      died; Victor Junior adds, that it was of a fever. Zosimus and
      Zonaras affirm, that he was killed by the soldiers. Vopiscus
      mentions both accounts, and seems to hesitate. Yet surely these
      jarring opinions are easily reconciled.]

      19 (return) [ According to the two Victors, he reigned exactly
      two hundred days.]

      The eyes of Tacitus were scarcely closed, before his brother
      Florianus showed himself unworthy to reign, by the hasty
      usurpation of the purple, without expecting the approbation of
      the senate. The reverence for the Roman constitution, which yet
      influenced the camp and the provinces, was sufficiently strong to
      dispose them to censure, but not to provoke them to oppose, the
      precipitate ambition of Florianus. The discontent would have
      evaporated in idle murmurs, had not the general of the East, the
      heroic Probus, boldly declared himself the avenger of the senate.

      The contest, however, was still unequal; nor could the most able
      leader, at the head of the effeminate troops of Egypt and Syria,
      encounter, with any hopes of victory, the legions of Europe,
      whose irresistible strength appeared to support the brother of
      Tacitus. But the fortune and activity of Probus triumphed over
      every obstacle. The hardy veterans of his rival, accustomed to
      cold climates, sickened and consumed away in the sultry heats of
      Cilicia, where the summer proved remarkably unwholesome. Their
      numbers were diminished by frequent desertion; the passes of the
      mountains were feebly defended; Tarsus opened its gates; and the
      soldiers of Florianus, when they had permitted him to enjoy the
      Imperial title about three months, delivered the empire from
      civil war by the easy sacrifice of a prince whom they despised.
      20

      20 (return) [ Hist. August, p. 231. Zosimus, l. i. p. 58, 59.
      Zonaras, l. xii. p. 637. Aurelius Victor says, that Probus
      assumed the empire in Illyricum; an opinion which (though adopted
      by a very learned man) would throw that period of history into
      inextricable confusion.]

      The perpetual revolutions of the throne had so perfectly erased
      every notion of hereditary title, that the family of an
      unfortunate emperor was incapable of exciting the jealousy of his
      successors. The children of Tacitus and Florianus were permitted
      to descend into a private station, and to mingle with the general
      mass of the people. Their poverty indeed became an additional
      safeguard to their innocence. When Tacitus was elected by the
      senate, he resigned his ample patrimony to the public service; 21
      an act of generosity specious in appearance, but which evidently
      disclosed his intention of transmitting the empire to his
      descendants. The only consolation of their fallen state was the
      remembrance of transient greatness, and a distant hope, the child
      of a flattering prophecy, that at the end of a thousand years, a
      monarch of the race of Tacitus should arise, the protector of the
      senate, the restorer of Rome, and the conqueror of the whole
      earth. 22

      21 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 229]

      22 (return) [ He was to send judges to the Parthians, Persians,
      and Sarmatians, a president to Taprobani, and a proconsul to the
      Roman island, (supposed by Casaubon and Salmasius to mean
      Britain.) Such a history as mine (says Vopiscus with proper
      modesty) will not subsist a thousand years, to expose or justify
      the prediction.]

      The peasants of Illyricum, who had already given Claudius and
      Aurelian to the sinking empire, had an equal right to glory in
      the elevation of Probus. 23 Above twenty years before, the
      emperor Valerian, with his usual penetration, had discovered the
      rising merit of the young soldier, on whom he conferred the rank
      of tribune, long before the age prescribed by the military
      regulations. The tribune soon justified his choice, by a victory
      over a great body of Sarmatians, in which he saved the life of a
      near relation of Valerian; and deserved to receive from the
      emperor’s hand the collars, bracelets, spears, and banners, the
      mural and the civic crown, and all the honorable rewards reserved
      by ancient Rome for successful valor. The third, and afterwards
      the tenth, legion were intrusted to the command of Probus, who,
      in every step of his promotion, showed himself superior to the
      station which he filled. Africa and Pontus, the Rhine, the
      Danube, the Euphrates, and the Nile, by turns afforded him the
      most splendid occasions of displaying his personal prowess and
      his conduct in war. Aurelian was indebted for the honest courage
      with which he often checked the cruelty of his master. Tacitus,
      who desired by the abilities of his generals to supply his own
      deficiency of military talents, named him commander-in-chief of
      all the eastern provinces, with five times the usual salary, the
      promise of the consulship, and the hope of a triumph. When Probus
      ascended the Imperial throne, he was about forty-four years of
      age; 24 in the full possession of his fame, of the love of the
      army, and of a mature vigor of mind and body.

      23 (return) [ For the private life of Probus, see Vopiscus in
      Hist. August p. 234—237]

      24 (return) [ According to the Alexandrian chronicle, he was
      fifty at the time of his death.]

      His acknowledged merit, and the success of his arms against
      Florianus, left him without an enemy or a competitor. Yet, if we
      may credit his own professions, very far from being desirous of
      the empire, he had accepted it with the most sincere reluctance.
      “But it is no longer in my power,” says Probus, in a private
      letter, “to lay down a title so full of envy and of danger. I
      must continue to personate the character which the soldiers have
      imposed upon me.” 25 His dutiful address to the senate displayed
      the sentiments, or at least the language, of a Roman patriot:
      “When you elected one of your order, conscript fathers! to
      succeed the emperor Aurelian, you acted in a manner suitable to
      your justice and wisdom. For you are the legal sovereigns of the
      world, and the power which you derive from your ancestors will
      descend to your posterity. Happy would it have been, if
      Florianus, instead of usurping the purple of his brother, like a
      private inheritance, had expected what your majesty might
      determine, either in his favor, or in that of any other person.
      The prudent soldiers have punished his rashness. To me they have
      offered the title of Augustus. But I submit to your clemency my
      pretensions and my merits.” 26 When this respectful epistle was
      read by the consul, the senators were unable to disguise their
      satisfaction, that Probus should condescend thus numbly to
      solicit a sceptre which he already possessed. They celebrated
      with the warmest gratitude his virtues, his exploits, and above
      all his moderation. A decree immediately passed, without a
      dissenting voice, to ratify the election of the eastern armies,
      and to confer on their chief all the several branches of the
      Imperial dignity: the names of Cæsar and Augustus, the title of
      Father of his country, the right of making in the same day three
      motions in the senate, 27 the office of Pontifex Maximus, the
      tribunitian power, and the proconsular command; a mode of
      investiture, which, though it seemed to multiply the authority of
      the emperor, expressed the constitution of the ancient republic.
      The reign of Probus corresponded with this fair beginning. The
      senate was permitted to direct the civil administration of the
      empire. Their faithful general asserted the honor of the Roman
      arms, and often laid at their feet crowns of gold and barbaric
      trophies, the fruits of his numerous victories. 28 Yet, whilst he
      gratified their vanity, he must secretly have despised their
      indolence and weakness. Though it was every moment in their power
      to repeal the disgraceful edict of Gallienus, the proud
      successors of the Scipios patiently acquiesced in their exclusion
      from all military employments. They soon experienced, that those
      who refuse the sword must renounce the sceptre.

      25 (return) [ This letter was addressed to the Prætorian præfect,
      whom (on condition of his good behavior) he promised to continue
      in his great office. See Hist. August. p. 237.]

      26 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 237. The date of the
      letter is assuredly faulty. Instead of Nen. Februar. we may read
      Non August.]

      27 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 238. It is odd that the senate
      should treat Probus less favorably than Marcus Antoninus. That
      prince had received, even before the death of Pius, Jus quintoe
      relationis. See Capitolin. in Hist. August. p. 24.]

      28 (return) [ See the dutiful letter of Probus to the senate,
      after his German victories. Hist. August. p. 239.]




      Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
      II.

      The strength of Aurelian had crushed on every side the enemies of
      Rome. After his death they seemed to revive with an increase of
      fury and of numbers. They were again vanquished by the active
      vigor of Probus, who, in a short reign of about six years, 29
      equalled the fame of ancient heroes, and restored peace and order
      to every province of the Roman world. The dangerous frontier of
      Rhætia he so firmly secured, that he left it without the
      suspicion of an enemy. He broke the wandering power of the
      Sarmatian tribes, and by the terror of his arms compelled those
      barbarians to relinquish their spoil. The Gothic nation courted
      the alliance of so warlike an emperor. 30 He attacked the
      Isaurians in their mountains, besieged and took several of their
      strongest castles, 31 and flattered himself that he had forever
      suppressed a domestic foe, whose independence so deeply wounded
      the majesty of the empire. The troubles excited by the usurper
      Firmus in the Upper Egypt had never been perfectly appeased, and
      the cities of Ptolemais and Coptos, fortified by the alliance of
      the Blemmyes, still maintained an obscure rebellion. The
      chastisement of those cities, and of their auxiliaries the
      savages of the South, is said to have alarmed the court of
      Persia, 32 and the Great King sued in vain for the friendship of
      Probus. Most of the exploits which distinguished his reign were
      achieved by the personal valor and conduct of the emperor,
      insomuch that the writer of his life expresses some amazement
      how, in so short a time, a single man could be present in so many
      distant wars. The remaining actions he intrusted to the care of
      his lieutenants, the judicious choice of whom forms no
      inconsiderable part of his glory. Carus, Diocletian, Maximian,
      Constantius, Galerius, Asclepiodatus, Annibalianus, and a crowd
      of other chiefs, who afterwards ascended or supported the throne,
      were trained to arms in the severe school of Aurelian and Probus.
      33

      29 (return) [ The date and duration of the reign of Probus are
      very correctly ascertained by Cardinal Noris in his learned work,
      De Epochis Syro-Macedonum, p. 96—105. A passage of Eusebius
      connects the second year of Probus with the æras of several of
      the Syrian cities.]

      30 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 239.]

      31 (return) [ Zosimus (l. i. p. 62—65) tells us a very long and
      trifling story of Lycius, the Isaurian robber.]

      32 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 65. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p.
      239, 240. But it seems incredible that the defeat of the savages
      of Æthiopia could affect the Persian monarch.]

      33 (return) [ Besides these well-known chiefs, several others are
      named by Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 241,) whose actions have not
      reached knowledge.]

      But the most important service which Probus rendered to the
      republic was the deliverance of Gaul, and the recovery of seventy
      flourishing cities oppressed by the barbarians of Germany, who,
      since the death of Aurelian, had ravaged that great province with
      impunity. 34 Among the various multitude of those fierce invaders
      we may distinguish, with some degree of clearness, three great
      armies, or rather nations, successively vanquished by the valor
      of Probus. He drove back the Franks into their morasses; a
      descriptive circumstance from whence we may infer, that the
      confederacy known by the manly appellation of _Free_, already
      occupied the flat maritime country, intersected and almost
      overflown by the stagnating waters of the Rhine, and that several
      tribes of the Frisians and Batavians had acceded to their
      alliance. He vanquished the Burgundians, a considerable people of
      the Vandalic race. 341 They had wandered in quest of booty from
      the banks of the Oder to those of the Seine. They esteemed
      themselves sufficiently fortunate to purchase, by the restitution
      of all their booty, the permission of an undisturbed retreat.
      They attempted to elude that article of the treaty. Their
      punishment was immediate and terrible. 35 But of all the invaders
      of Gaul, the most formidable were the Lygians, a distant people,
      who reigned over a wide domain on the frontiers of Poland and
      Silesia. 36 In the Lygian nation, the Arii held the first rank by
      their numbers and fierceness. “The Arii” (it is thus that they
      are described by the energy of Tacitus) “study to improve by art
      and circumstances the innate terrors of their barbarism. Their
      shields are black, their bodies are painted black. They choose
      for the combat the darkest hour of the night. Their host
      advances, covered as it were with a funeral shade; 37 nor do they
      often find an enemy capable of sustaining so strange and infernal
      an aspect. Of all our senses, the eyes are the first vanquished
      in battle.” 38 Yet the arms and discipline of the Romans easily
      discomfited these horrid phantoms. The Lygii were defeated in a
      general engagement, and Semno, the most renowned of their chiefs,
      fell alive into the hands of Probus. That prudent emperor,
      unwilling to reduce a brave people to despair, granted them an
      honorable capitulation, and permitted them to return in safety to
      their native country. But the losses which they suffered in the
      march, the battle, and the retreat, broke the power of the
      nation: nor is the Lygian name ever repeated in the history
      either of Germany or of the empire. The deliverance of Gaul is
      reported to have cost the lives of four hundred thousand of the
      invaders; a work of labor to the Romans, and of expense to the
      emperor, who gave a piece of gold for the head of every
      barbarian. 39 But as the fame of warriors is built on the
      destruction of human kind, we may naturally suspect that the
      sanguinary account was multiplied by the avarice of the soldiers,
      and accepted without any very severe examination by the liberal
      vanity of Probus.

      34 (return) [ See the Cæsars of Julian, and Hist. August. p. 238,
      240, 241.]

      341 (return) [ It was only under the emperors Diocletian and
      Maximian, that the Burgundians, in concert with the Alemanni,
      invaded the interior of Gaul; under the reign of Probus, they did
      no more than pass the river which separated them from the Roman
      Empire: they were repelled. Gatterer presumes that this river was
      the Danube; a passage in Zosimus appears to me rather to indicate
      the Rhine. Zos. l. i. p. 37, edit H. Etienne, 1581.—G. On the
      origin of the Burgundians may be consulted Malte Brun, Geogr vi.
      p. 396, (edit. 1831,) who observes that all the remains of the
      Burgundian language indicate that they spoke a Gothic
      dialect.—M.]

      35 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 62. Hist. August. p. 240. But the
      latter supposes the punishment inflicted with the consent of
      their kings: if so, it was partial, like the offence.]

      36 (return) [ See Cluver. Germania Antiqua, l. iii. Ptolemy
      places in their country the city of Calisia, probably Calish in
      Silesia. * Note: Luden (vol ii. 501) supposes that these have
      been erroneously identified with the Lygii of Tacitus. Perhaps
      one fertile source of mistakes has been, that the Romans have
      turned appellations into national names. Malte Brun observes of
      the Lygii, “that their name appears Sclavonian, and signifies
      ‘inhabitants of plains;’ they are probably the Lieches of the
      middle ages, and the ancestors of the Poles. We find among the
      Arii the worship of the two twin gods known in the Sclavian
      mythology.” Malte Brun, vol. i. p. 278, (edit. 1831.)—M. But
      compare Schafarik, Slawische Alterthumer, 1, p. 406. They were of
      German or Keltish descent, occupying the Wendish (or Slavian)
      district, Luhy.—M. 1845.]

      37 (return) [ Feralis umbra, is the expression of Tacitus: it is
      surely a very bold one.]

      38 (return) [ Tacit. Germania, (c. 43.)]

      39 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 238]

      Since the expedition of Maximin, the Roman generals had confined
      their ambition to a defensive war against the nations of Germany,
      who perpetually pressed on the frontiers of the empire. The more
      daring Probus pursued his Gallic victories, passed the Rhine, and
      displayed his invincible eagles on the banks of the Elbe and the
      Neckar. He was fully convinced that nothing could reconcile the
      minds of the barbarians to peace, unless they experienced, in
      their own country, the calamities of war. Germany, exhausted by
      the ill success of the last emigration, was astonished by his
      presence. Nine of the most considerable princes repaired to his
      camp, and fell prostrate at his feet. Such a treaty was humbly
      received by the Germans, as it pleased the conqueror to dictate.
      He exacted a strict restitution of the effects and captives which
      they had carried away from the provinces; and obliged their own
      magistrates to punish the more obstinate robbers who presumed to
      detain any part of the spoil. A considerable tribute of corn,
      cattle, and horses, the only wealth of barbarians, was reserved
      for the use of the garrisons which Probus established on the
      limits of their territory. He even entertained some thoughts of
      compelling the Germans to relinquish the exercise of arms, and to
      trust their differences to the justice, their safety to the
      power, of Rome. To accomplish these salutary ends, the constant
      residence of an Imperial governor, supported by a numerous army,
      was indispensably requisite. Probus therefore judged it more
      expedient to defer the execution of so great a design; which was
      indeed rather of specious than solid utility. 40 Had Germany been
      reduced into the state of a province, the Romans, with immense
      labor and expense, would have acquired only a more extensive
      boundary to defend against the fiercer and more active barbarians
      of Scythia.

      40 (return) [ Hist. August. 238, 239. Vopiscus quotes a letter
      from the emperor to the senate, in which he mentions his design
      of reducing Germany into a province.]

      Instead of reducing the warlike natives of Germany to the
      condition of subjects, Probus contented himself with the humble
      expedient of raising a bulwark against their inroads. The country
      which now forms the circle of Swabia had been left desert in the
      age of Augustus by the emigration of its ancient inhabitants. 41
      The fertility of the soil soon attracted a new colony from the
      adjacent provinces of Gaul. Crowds of adventurers, of a roving
      temper and of desperate fortunes, occupied the doubtful
      possession, and acknowledged, by the payment of tithes, the
      majesty of the empire. 42 To protect these new subjects, a line
      of frontier garrisons was gradually extended from the Rhine to
      the Danube. About the reign of Hadrian, when that mode of defence
      began to be practised, these garrisons were connected and covered
      by a strong intrenchment of trees and palisades. In the place of
      so rude a bulwark, the emperor Probus constructed a stone wall of
      a considerable height, and strengthened it by towers at
      convenient distances. From the neighborhood of Neustadt and
      Ratisbon on the Danube, it stretched across hills, valleys,
      rivers, and morasses, as far as Wimpfen on the Neckar, and at
      length terminated on the banks of the Rhine, after a winding
      course of near two hundred miles. 43 This important barrier,
      uniting the two mighty streams that protected the provinces of
      Europe, seemed to fill up the vacant space through which the
      barbarians, and particularly the Alemanni, could penetrate with
      the greatest facility into the heart of the empire. But the
      experience of the world, from China to Britain, has exposed the
      vain attempt of fortifying any extensive tract of country. 44 An
      active enemy, who can select and vary his points of attack, must,
      in the end, discover some feeble spot, or some unguarded moment.
      The strength, as well as the attention, of the defenders is
      divided; and such are the blind effects of terror on the firmest
      troops, that a line broken in a single place is almost instantly
      deserted. The fate of the wall which Probus erected may confirm
      the general observation. Within a few years after his death, it
      was overthrown by the Alemanni. Its scattered ruins, universally
      ascribed to the power of the Dæmon, now serve only to excite the
      wonder of the Swabian peasant.

      41 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. According to Valleius Paterculus,
      (ii. 108,) Maroboduus led his Marcomanni into Bohemia; Cluverius
      (German. Antiq. iii. 8) proves that it was from Swabia.]

      42 (return) [ These settlers, from the payment of tithes, were
      denominated Decunates. Tacit. Germania, c. 29]

      43 (return) [ See notes de l’Abbé de la Bleterie a la Germanie de
      Tacite, p. 183. His account of the wall is chiefly borrowed (as
      he says himself) from the Alsatia Illustrata of Schoepflin.]

      44 (return) [ See Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptiens,
      tom. ii. p. 81—102. The anonymous author is well acquainted with
      the globe in general, and with Germany in particular: with regard
      to the latter, he quotes a work of M. Hanselman; but he seems to
      confound the wall of Probus, designed against the Alemanni, with
      the fortification of the Mattiaci, constructed in the
      neighborhood of Frankfort against the Catti. * Note: De Pauw is
      well known to have been the author of this work, as of the
      Recherches sur les Americains before quoted. The judgment of M.
      Remusat on this writer is in a very different, I fear a juster
      tone. Quand au lieu de rechercher, d’examiner, d’etudier, on se
      borne, comme cet ecrivain, a juger a prononcer, a decider, sans
      connoitre ni l’histoire. ni les langues, sans recourir aux
      sources, sans meme se douter de leur existence, on peut en
      imposer pendant quelque temps a des lecteurs prevenus ou peu
      instruits; mais le mepris qui ne manque guere de succeder a cet
      engouement fait bientot justice de ces assertions hazardees, et
      elles retombent dans l’oubli d’autant plus promptement, qu’elles
      ont ete posees avec plus de confiance. Sur les l angues Tartares,
      p. 231.—M.]

      Among the useful conditions of peace imposed by Probus on the
      vanquished nations of Germany, was the obligation of supplying
      the Roman army with sixteen thousand recruits, the bravest and
      most robust of their youth. The emperor dispersed them through
      all the provinces, and distributed this dangerous reënforcement,
      in small bands of fifty or sixty each, among the national troops;
      judiciously observing, that the aid which the republic derived
      from the barbarians should be felt but not seen. 45 Their aid was
      now become necessary. The feeble elegance of Italy and the
      internal provinces could no longer support the weight of arms.
      The hardy frontiers of the Rhine and Danube still produced minds
      and bodies equal to the labors of the camp; but a perpetual
      series of wars had gradually diminished their numbers. The
      infrequency of marriage, and the ruin of agriculture, affected
      the principles of population, and not only destroyed the strength
      of the present, but intercepted the hope of future, generations.
      The wisdom of Probus embraced a great and beneficial plan of
      replenishing the exhausted frontiers, by new colonies of captive
      or fugitive barbarians, on whom he bestowed lands, cattle,
      instruments of husbandry, and every encouragement that might
      engage them to educate a race of soldiers for the service of the
      republic. Into Britain, and most probably into Cambridgeshire, 46
      he transported a considerable body of Vandals. The impossibility
      of an escape reconciled them to their situation, and in the
      subsequent troubles of that island, they approved themselves the
      most faithful servants of the state. 47 Great numbers of Franks
      and Gepidæ were settled on the banks of the Danube and the Rhine.
      A hundred thousand Bastarnæ, expelled from their own country,
      cheerfully accepted an establishment in Thrace, and soon imbibed
      the manners and sentiments of Roman subjects. 48 But the
      expectations of Probus were too often disappointed. The
      impatience and idleness of the barbarians could ill brook the
      slow labors of agriculture. Their unconquerable love of freedom,
      rising against despotism, provoked them into hasty rebellions,
      alike fatal to themselves and to the provinces; 49 nor could
      these artificial supplies, however repeated by succeeding
      emperors, restore the important limit of Gaul and Illyricum to
      its ancient and native vigor.

      45 (return) [ He distributed about fifty or sixty barbarians to a
      Numerus, as it was then called, a corps with whose established
      number we are not exactly acquainted.]

      46 (return) [ Camden’s Britannia, Introduction, p. 136; but he
      speaks from a very doubtful conjecture.]

      47 (return) [ Zosimus, l. i. p. 62. According to Vopiscus,
      another body of Vandals was less faithful.]

      48 (return) [Footnote 48: Hist. August. p. 240. They were
      probably expelled by the Goths. Zosim. l. i. p. 66.]

      49 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240.]

      Of all the barbarians who abandoned their new settlements, and
      disturbed the public tranquillity, a very small number returned
      to their own country. For a short season they might wander in
      arms through the empire; but in the end they were surely
      destroyed by the power of a warlike emperor. The successful
      rashness of a party of Franks was attended, however, with such
      memorable consequences, that it ought not to be passed unnoticed.
      They had been established by Probus, on the sea-coast of Pontus,
      with a view of strengthening the frontier against the inroads of
      the Alani. A fleet stationed in one of the harbors of the Euxine
      fell into the hands of the Franks; and they resolved, through
      unknown seas, to explore their way from the mouth of the Phasis
      to that of the Rhine. They easily escaped through the Bosphorus
      and the Hellespont, and cruising along the Mediterranean,
      indulged their appetite for revenge and plunder by frequent
      descents on the unsuspecting shores of Asia, Greece, and Africa.
      The opulent city of Syracuse, in whose port the navies of Athens
      and Carthage had formerly been sunk, was sacked by a handful of
      barbarians, who massacred the greatest part of the trembling
      inhabitants. From the island of Sicily the Franks proceeded to
      the columns of Hercules, trusted themselves to the ocean, coasted
      round Spain and Gaul, and steering their triumphant course
      through the British Channel, at length finished their surprising
      voyage, by landing in safety on the Batavian or Frisian shores.
      50 The example of their success, instructing their countrymen to
      conceive the advantages and to despise the dangers of the sea,
      pointed out to their enterprising spirit a new road to wealth and
      glory.

      50 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. v. 18. Zosimus, l. i. p. 66.]

      Notwithstanding the vigilance and activity of Probus, it was
      almost impossible that he could at once contain in obedience
      every part of his wide-extended dominions. The barbarians, who
      broke their chains, had seized the favorable opportunity of a
      domestic war. When the emperor marched to the relief of Gaul, he
      devolved the command of the East on Saturninus. That general, a
      man of merit and experience, was driven into rebellion by the
      absence of his sovereign, the levity of the Alexandrian people,
      the pressing instances of his friends, and his own fears; but
      from the moment of his elevation, he never entertained a hope of
      empire, or even of life. “Alas!” he said, “the republic has lost
      a useful servant, and the rashness of an hour has destroyed the
      services of many years. You know not,” continued he, “the misery
      of sovereign power; a sword is perpetually suspended over our
      head. We dread our very guards, we distrust our companions. The
      choice of action or of repose is no longer in our disposition,
      nor is there any age, or character, or conduct, that can protect
      us from the censure of envy. In thus exalting me to the throne,
      you have doomed me to a life of cares, and to an untimely fate.
      The only consolation which remains is the assurance that I shall
      not fall alone.” 51 But as the former part of his prediction was
      verified by the victory, so the latter was disappointed by the
      clemency, of Probus. That amiable prince attempted even to save
      the unhappy Saturninus from the fury of the soldiers. He had more
      than once solicited the usurper himself to place some confidence
      in the mercy of a sovereign who so highly esteemed his character,
      that he had punished, as a malicious informer, the first who
      related the improbable news of his disaffection. 52 Saturninus
      might, perhaps, have embraced the generous offer, had he not been
      restrained by the obstinate distrust of his adherents. Their
      guilt was deeper, and their hopes more sanguine, than those of
      their experienced leader.

      51 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 245, 246. The
      unfortunate orator had studied rhetoric at Carthage; and was
      therefore more probably a Moor (Zosim. l. i. p. 60) than a Gaul,
      as Vopiscus calls him.]

      52 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xii. p. 638.]

      The revolt of Saturninus was scarcely extinguished in the East,
      before new troubles were excited in the West, by the rebellion of
      Bonosus and Proculus, in Gaul. The most distinguished merit of
      those two officers was their respective prowess, of the one in
      the combats of Bacchus, of the other in those of Venus, 53 yet
      neither of them was destitute of courage and capacity, and both
      sustained, with honor, the august character which the fear of
      punishment had engaged them to assume, till they sunk at length
      beneath the superior genius of Probus. He used the victory with
      his accustomed moderation, and spared the fortune, as well as the
      lives of their innocent families. 54

      53 (return) [ A very surprising instance is recorded of the
      prowess of Proculus. He had taken one hundred Sarmatian virgins.
      The rest of the story he must relate in his own language: “Ex his
      una necte decem inivi; omnes tamen, quod in me erat, mulieres
      intra dies quindecim reddidi.” Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 246.]

      54 (return) [ Proculus, who was a native of Albengue, on the
      Genoese coast armed two thousand of his own slaves. His riches
      were great, but they were acquired by robbery. It was afterwards
      a saying of his family, sibi non placere esse vel principes vel
      latrones. Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 247.]

      The arms of Probus had now suppressed all the foreign and
      domestic enemies of the state. His mild but steady administration
      confirmed the re-ëstablishment of the public tranquillity; nor
      was there left in the provinces a hostile barbarian, a tyrant, or
      even a robber, to revive the memory of past disorders. It was
      time that the emperor should revisit Rome, and celebrate his own
      glory and the general happiness. The triumph due to the valor of
      Probus was conducted with a magnificence suitable to his fortune,
      and the people, who had so lately admired the trophies of
      Aurelian, gazed with equal pleasure on those of his heroic
      successor. 55 We cannot, on this occasion, forget the desperate
      courage of about fourscore gladiators, reserved, with near six
      hundred others, for the inhuman sports of the amphitheatre.
      Disdaining to shed their blood for the amusement of the populace,
      they killed their keepers, broke from the place of their
      confinement, and filled the streets of Rome with blood and
      confusion. After an obstinate resistance, they were overpowered
      and cut in pieces by the regular forces; but they obtained at
      least an honorable death, and the satisfaction of a just revenge.
      56

      55 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240.]

      56 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 66.]

      The military discipline which reigned in the camps of Probus was
      less cruel than that of Aurelian, but it was equally rigid and
      exact. The latter had punished the irregularities of the soldiers
      with unrelenting severity, the former prevented them by employing
      the legions in constant and useful labors. When Probus commanded
      in Egypt, he executed many considerable works for the splendor
      and benefit of that rich country. The navigation of the Nile, so
      important to Rome itself, was improved; and temples, buildings,
      porticos, and palaces, were constructed by the hands of the
      soldiers, who acted by turns as architects, as engineers, and as
      husbandmen. 57 It was reported of Hannibal, that, in order to
      preserve his troops from the dangerous temptations of idleness,
      he had obliged them to form large plantations of olive-trees
      along the coast of Africa. 58 From a similar principle, Probus
      exercised his legions in covering with rich vineyards the hills
      of Gaul and Pannonia, and two considerable spots are described,
      which were entirely dug and planted by military labor. 59 One of
      these, known under the name of Mount Almo, was situated near
      Sirmium, the country where Probus was born, for which he ever
      retained a partial affection, and whose gratitude he endeavored
      to secure, by converting into tillage a large and unhealthy tract
      of marshy ground. An army thus employed constituted perhaps the
      most useful, as well as the bravest, portion of Roman subjects.

      57 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 236.]

      58 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. in Prob. But the policy of Hannibal,
      unnoticed by any more ancient writer, is irreconcilable with the
      history of his life. He left Africa when he was nine years old,
      returned to it when he was forty-five, and immediately lost his
      army in the decisive battle of Zama. Livilus, xxx. 37.]

      59 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 240. Eutrop. ix. 17. Aurel.
      Victor. in Prob. Victor Junior. He revoked the prohibition of
      Domitian, and granted a general permission of planting vines to
      the Gauls, the Britons, and the Pannonians.]

      But in the prosecution of a favorite scheme, the best of men,
      satisfied with the rectitude of their intentions, are subject to
      forget the bounds of moderation; nor did Probus himself
      sufficiently consult the patience and disposition of his fierce
      legionaries. 60 The dangers of the military profession seem only
      to be compensated by a life of pleasure and idleness; but if the
      duties of the soldier are incessantly aggravated by the labors of
      the peasant, he will at last sink under the intolerable burden,
      or shake it off with indignation. The imprudence of Probus is
      said to have inflamed the discontent of his troops. More
      attentive to the interests of mankind than to those of the army,
      he expressed the vain hope, that, by the establishment of
      universal peace, he should soon abolish the necessity of a
      standing and mercenary force. 61 The unguarded expression proved
      fatal to him. In one of the hottest days of summer, as he
      severely urged the unwholesome labor of draining the marshes of
      Sirmium, the soldiers, impatient of fatigue, on a sudden threw
      down their tools, grasped their arms, and broke out into a
      furious mutiny. The emperor, conscious of his danger, took refuge
      in a lofty tower, constructed for the purpose of surveying the
      progress of the work. 62 The tower was instantly forced, and a
      thousand swords were plunged at once into the bosom of the
      unfortunate Probus. The rage of the troops subsided as soon as it
      had been gratified. They then lamented their fatal rashness,
      forgot the severity of the emperor whom they had massacred, and
      hastened to perpetuate, by an honorable monument, the memory of
      his virtues and victories. 63

      60 (return) [ Julian bestows a severe, and indeed excessive,
      censure on the rigor of Probus, who, as he thinks, almost
      deserved his fate.]

      61 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 241. He lavishes on
      this idle hope a large stock of very foolish eloquence.]

      62 (return) [ Turris ferrata. It seems to have been a movable
      tower, and cased with iron.]

      63 (return) [ Probus, et vere probus situs est; Victor omnium
      gentium Barbararum; victor etiam tyrannorum.]

      When the legions had indulged their grief and repentance for the
      death of Probus, their unanimous consent declared Carus, his
      Prætorian præfect, the most deserving of the Imperial throne.
      Every circumstance that relates to this prince appears of a mixed
      and doubtful nature. He gloried in the title of Roman Citizen;
      and affected to compare the purity of _his_ blood with the
      foreign and even barbarous origin of the preceding emperors; yet
      the most inquisitive of his contemporaries, very far from
      admitting his claim, have variously deduced his own birth, or
      that of his parents, from Illyricum, from Gaul, or from Africa.
      64 Though a soldier, he had received a learned education; though
      a senator, he was invested with the first dignity of the army;
      and in an age when the civil and military professions began to be
      irrecoverably separated from each other, they were united in the
      person of Carus. Notwithstanding the severe justice which he
      exercised against the assassins of Probus, to whose favor and
      esteem he was highly indebted, he could not escape the suspicion
      of being accessory to a deed from whence he derived the principal
      advantage. He enjoyed, at least before his elevation, an
      acknowledged character of virtue and abilities; 65 but his
      austere temper insensibly degenerated into moroseness and
      cruelty; and the imperfect writers of his life almost hesitate
      whether they shall not rank him in the number of Roman tyrants.
      66 When Carus assumed the purple, he was about sixty years of
      age, and his two sons, Carinus and Numerian had already attained
      the season of manhood. 67

      64 (return) [ Yet all this may be conciliated. He was born at
      Narbonne in Illyricum, confounded by Eutropius with the more
      famous city of that name in Gaul. His father might be an African,
      and his mother a noble Roman. Carus himself was educated in the
      capital. See Scaliger Animadversion. ad Euseb. Chron. p. 241.]

      65 (return) [ Probus had requested of the senate an equestrian
      statue and a marble palace, at the public expense, as a just
      recompense of the singular merit of Carus. Vopiscus in Hist.
      August. p. 249.]

      66 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 242, 249. Julian
      excludes the emperor Carus and both his sons from the banquet of
      the Cæsars.]

      67 (return) [ John Malala, tom. i. p. 401. But the authority of
      that ignorant Greek is very slight. He ridiculously derives from
      Carus the city of Carrhæ, and the province of Caria, the latter
      of which is mentioned by Homer.]

      The authority of the senate expired with Probus; nor was the
      repentance of the soldiers displayed by the same dutiful regard
      for the civil power, which they had testified after the
      unfortunate death of Aurelian. The election of Carus was decided
      without expecting the approbation of the senate, and the new
      emperor contented himself with announcing, in a cold and stately
      epistle, that he had ascended the vacant throne. 68 A behavior so
      very opposite to that of his amiable predecessor afforded no
      favorable presage of the new reign: and the Romans, deprived of
      power and freedom, asserted their privilege of licentious
      murmurs. 69 The voice of congratulation and flattery was not,
      however, silent; and we may still peruse, with pleasure and
      contempt, an eclogue, which was composed on the accession of the
      emperor Carus. Two shepherds, avoiding the noontide heat, retire
      into the cave of Faunus. On a spreading beech they discover some
      recent characters. The rural deity had described, in prophetic
      verses, the felicity promised to the empire under the reign of so
      great a prince. Faunus hails the approach of that hero, who,
      receiving on his shoulders the sinking weight of the Roman world,
      shall extinguish war and faction, and once again restore the
      innocence and security of the golden age. 70

      68 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 249. Carus congratulated the
      senate, that one of their own order was made emperor.]

      69 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 242.]

      70 (return) [ See the first eclogue of Calphurnius. The design of
      it is preferes by Fontenelle to that of Virgil’s Pollio. See tom.
      iii. p. 148.]

      It is more than probable, that these elegant trifles never
      reached the ears of a veteran general, who, with the consent of
      the legions, was preparing to execute the long-suspended design
      of the Persian war. Before his departure for this distant
      expedition, Carus conferred on his two sons, Carinus and
      Numerian, the title of Cæsar, and investing the former with
      almost an equal share of the Imperial power, directed the young
      prince first to suppress some troubles which had arisen in Gaul,
      and afterwards to fix the seat of his residence at Rome, and to
      assume the government of the Western provinces. 71 The safety of
      Illyricum was confirmed by a memorable defeat of the Sarmatians;
      sixteen thousand of those barbarians remained on the field of
      battle, and the number of captives amounted to twenty thousand.
      The old emperor, animated with the fame and prospect of victory,
      pursued his march, in the midst of winter, through the countries
      of Thrace and Asia Minor, and at length, with his younger son,
      Numerian, arrived on the confines of the Persian monarchy. There,
      encamping on the summit of a lofty mountain, he pointed out to
      his troops the opulence and luxury of the enemy whom they were
      about to invade.

      71 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 353. Eutropius, ix. 18. Pagi.
      Annal.]

      The successor of Artaxerxes, 711 Varanes, or Bahram, though he
      had subdued the Segestans, one of the most warlike nations of
      Upper Asia, 72 was alarmed at the approach of the Romans, and
      endeavored to retard their progress by a negotiation of peace.
      721

      His ambassadors entered the camp about sunset, at the time when
      the troops were satisfying their hunger with a frugal repast. The
      Persians expressed their desire of being introduced to the
      presence of the Roman emperor. They were at length conducted to a
      soldier, who was seated on the grass. A piece of stale bacon and
      a few hard peas composed his supper. A coarse woollen garment of
      purple was the only circumstance that announced his dignity. The
      conference was conducted with the same disregard of courtly
      elegance. Carus, taking off a cap which he wore to conceal his
      baldness, assured the ambassadors, that, unless their master
      acknowledged the superiority of Rome, he would speedily render
      Persia as naked of trees as his own head was destitute of hair.
      73 Notwithstanding some traces of art and preparation, we may
      discover in this scene the manners of Carus, and the severe
      simplicity which the martial princes, who succeeded Gallienus,
      had already restored in the Roman camps. The ministers of the
      Great King trembled and retired.

      711 (return) [ Three monarchs had intervened, Sapor, (Shahpour,)
      Hormisdas, (Hormooz,) Varanes; Baharam the First.—M.]

      72 (return) [ Agathias, l. iv. p. 135. We find one of his sayings
      in the Bibliotheque Orientale of M. d’Herbelot. “The definition
      of humanity includes all other virtues.”]

      721 (return) [ The manner in which his life was saved by the
      Chief Pontiff from a conspiracy of his nobles, is as remarkable
      as his saying. “By the advice (of the Pontiff) all the nobles
      absented themselves from court. The king wandered through his
      palace alone. He saw no one; all was silence around. He became
      alarmed and distressed. At last the Chief Pontiff appeared, and
      bowed his head in apparent misery, but spoke not a word. The king
      entreated him to declare what had happened. The virtuous man
      boldly related all that had passed, and conjured Bahram, in the
      name of his glorious ancestors, to change his conduct and save
      himself from destruction. The king was much moved, professed
      himself most penitent, and said he was resolved his future life
      should prove his sincerity. The overjoyed High Priest, delighted
      at this success, made a signal, at which all the nobles and
      attendants were in an instant, as if by magic, in their usual
      places. The monarch now perceived that only one opinion prevailed
      on his past conduct. He repeated therefore to his nobles all he
      had said to the Chief Pontiff, and his future reign was unstained
      by cruelty or oppression.” Malcolm’s Persia,—M.]

      73 (return) [ Synesius tells this story of Carinus; and it is
      much more natural to understand it of Carus, than (as Petavius
      and Tillemont choose to do) of Probus.]

      The threats of Carus were not without effect. He ravaged
      Mesopotamia, cut in pieces whatever opposed his passage, made
      himself master of the great cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon,
      (which seemed to have surrendered without resistance,) and
      carried his victorious arms beyond the Tigris. 74 He had seized
      the favorable moment for an invasion. The Persian councils were
      distracted by domestic factions, and the greater part of their
      forces were detained on the frontiers of India. Rome and the East
      received with transport the news of such important advantages.
      Flattery and hope painted, in the most lively colors, the fall of
      Persia, the conquest of Arabia, the submission of Egypt, and a
      lasting deliverance from the inroads of the Scythian nations. 75
      But the reign of Carus was destined to expose the vanity of
      predictions. They were scarcely uttered before they were
      contradicted by his death; an event attended with such ambiguous
      circumstances, that it may be related in a letter from his own
      secretary to the præfect of the city. “Carus,” says he, “our
      dearest emperor, was confined by sickness to his bed, when a
      furious tempest arose in the camp. The darkness which overspread
      the sky was so thick, that we could no longer distinguish each
      other; and the incessant flashes of lightning took from us the
      knowledge of all that passed in the general confusion.
      Immediately after the most violent clap of thunder, we heard a
      sudden cry that the emperor was dead; and it soon appeared, that
      his chamberlains, in a rage of grief, had set fire to the royal
      pavilion; a circumstance which gave rise to the report that Carus
      was killed by lightning. But, as far as we have been able to
      investigate the truth, his death was the natural effect of his
      disorder.” 76

      74 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Eutropius, ix.
      18. The two Victors.]

      75 (return) [ To the Persian victory of Carus I refer the
      dialogue of the Philopatris, which has so long been an object of
      dispute among the learned. But to explain and justify my opinion,
      would require a dissertation. Note: Niebuhr, in the new edition
      of the Byzantine Historians, (vol. x.) has boldly assigned the
      Philopatris to the tenth century, and to the reign of Nicephorus
      Phocas. An opinion so decisively pronounced by Niebuhr and
      favorably received by Hase, the learned editor of Leo Diaconus,
      commands respectful consideration. But the whole tone of the work
      appears to me altogether inconsistent with any period in which
      philosophy did not stand, as it were, on some ground of equality
      with Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity is sarcastically
      introduced rather as the strange doctrine of a new religion, than
      the established tenet of a faith universally prevalent. The
      argument, adopted from Solanus, concerning the formula of the
      procession of the Holy Ghost, is utterly worthless, as it is a
      mere quotation in the words of the Gospel of St. John, xv. 26.
      The only argument of any value is the historic one, from the
      allusion to the recent violation of many virgins in the Island of
      Crete. But neither is the language of Niebuhr quite accurate, nor
      his reference to the Acroases of Theodosius satisfactory. When,
      then, could this occurrence take place? Why not in the
      devastation of the island by the Gothic pirates, during the reign
      of Claudius. Hist. Aug. in Claud. p. 814. edit. Var. Lugd. Bat
      1661.—M.]

      76 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 250. Yet Eutropius, Festus, Rufus,
      the two Victors, Jerome, Sidonius Apollinaris, Syncellus, and
      Zonaras, all ascribe the death of Carus to lightning.]




      Chapter XII: Reigns Of Tacitus, Probus, Carus And His Sons.—Part
      III.

      The vacancy of the throne was not productive of any disturbance.
      The ambition of the aspiring generals was checked by their
      natural fears, and young Numerian, with his absent brother
      Carinus, were unanimously acknowledged as Roman emperors.

      The public expected that the successor of Carus would pursue his
      father’s footsteps, and, without allowing the Persians to recover
      from their consternation, would advance sword in hand to the
      palaces of Susa and Ecbatana. 77 But the legions, however strong
      in numbers and discipline, were dismayed by the most abject
      superstition. Notwithstanding all the arts that were practised to
      disguise the manner of the late emperor’s death, it was found
      impossible to remove the opinion of the multitude, and the power
      of opinion is irresistible. Places or persons struck with
      lightning were considered by the ancients with pious horror, as
      singularly devoted to the wrath of Heaven. 78 An oracle was
      remembered, which marked the River Tigris as the fatal boundary
      of the Roman arms. The troops, terrified with the fate of Carus
      and with their own danger, called aloud on young Numerian to obey
      the will of the gods, and to lead them away from this
      inauspicious scene of war. The feeble emperor was unable to
      subdue their obstinate prejudice, and the Persians wondered at
      the unexpected retreat of a victorious enemy. 79

      77 (return) [ See Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v. 71, &c.]

      78 (return) [ See Festus and his commentators on the word
      Scribonianum. Places struck by lightning were surrounded with a
      wall; things were buried with mysterious ceremony.]

      79 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 250. Aurelius Victor
      seems to believe the prediction, and to approve the retreat.]

      The intelligence of the mysterious fate of the late emperor was
      soon carried from the frontiers of Persia to Rome; and the
      senate, as well as the provinces, congratulated the accession of
      the sons of Carus. These fortunate youths were strangers,
      however, to that conscious superiority, either of birth or of
      merit, which can alone render the possession of a throne easy,
      and, as it were, natural. Born and educated in a private station,
      the election of their father raised them at once to the rank of
      princes; and his death, which happened about sixteen months
      afterwards, left them the unexpected legacy of a vast empire. To
      sustain with temper this rapid elevation, an uncommon share of
      virtue and prudence was requisite; and Carinus, the elder of the
      brothers, was more than commonly deficient in those qualities. In
      the Gallic war he discovered some degree of personal courage; 80
      but from the moment of his arrival at Rome, he abandoned himself
      to the luxury of the capital, and to the abuse of his fortune. He
      was soft, yet cruel; devoted to pleasure, but destitute of taste;
      and though exquisitely susceptible of vanity, indifferent to the
      public esteem. In the course of a few months, he successively
      married and divorced nine wives, most of whom he left pregnant;
      and notwithstanding this legal inconstancy, found time to indulge
      such a variety of irregular appetites, as brought dishonor on
      himself and on the noblest houses of Rome. He beheld with
      inveterate hatred all those who might remember his former
      obscurity, or censure his present conduct. He banished, or put to
      death, the friends and counsellors whom his father had placed
      about him, to guide his inexperienced youth; and he persecuted
      with the meanest revenge his school-fellows and companions who
      had not sufficiently respected the latent majesty of the emperor.

      With the senators, Carinus affected a lofty and regal demeanor,
      frequently declaring, that he designed to distribute their
      estates among the populace of Rome. From the dregs of that
      populace he selected his favorites, and even his ministers. The
      palace, and even the Imperial table, were filled with singers,
      dancers, prostitutes, and all the various retinue of vice and
      folly. One of his doorkeepers 81 he intrusted with the government
      of the city. In the room of the Prætorian præfect, whom he put to
      death, Carinus substituted one of the ministers of his looser
      pleasures. Another, who possessed the same, or even a more
      infamous, title to favor, was invested with the consulship. A
      confidential secretary, who had acquired uncommon skill in the
      art of forgery, delivered the indolent emperor, with his own
      consent from the irksome duty of signing his name.

      80 (return) [ Nemesian. Cynegeticon, v 69. He was a contemporary,
      but a poet.]

      81 (return) [ Cancellarius. This word, so humble in its origin,
      has, by a singular fortune, risen into the title of the first
      great office of state in the monarchies of Europe. See Casaubon
      and Salmasius, ad Hist. August, p. 253.]

      When the emperor Carus undertook the Persian war, he was induced,
      by motives of affection as well as policy, to secure the fortunes
      of his family, by leaving in the hands of his eldest son the
      armies and provinces of the West. The intelligence which he soon
      received of the conduct of Carinus filled him with shame and
      regret; nor had he concealed his resolution of satisfying the
      republic by a severe act of justice, and of adopting, in the
      place of an unworthy son, the brave and virtuous Constantius, who
      at that time was governor of Dalmatia. But the elevation of
      Constantius was for a while deferred; and as soon as the father’s
      death had released Carinus from the control of fear or decency,
      he displayed to the Romans the extravagancies of Elagabalus,
      aggravated by the cruelty of Domitian. 82

      82 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 253, 254. Eutropius,
      x. 19. Vic to Junior. The reign of Diocletian indeed was so long
      and prosperous, that it must have been very unfavorable to the
      reputation of Carinus.]

      The only merit of the administration of Carinus that history
      could record, or poetry celebrate, was the uncommon splendor with
      which, in his own and his brother’s name, he exhibited the Roman
      games of the theatre, the circus, and the amphitheatre. More than
      twenty years afterwards, when the courtiers of Diocletian
      represented to their frugal sovereign the fame and popularity of
      his munificent predecessor, he acknowledged that the reign of
      Carinus had indeed been a reign of pleasure. 83 But this vain
      prodigality, which the prudence of Diocletian might justly
      despise, was enjoyed with surprise and transport by the Roman
      people. The oldest of the citizens, recollecting the spectacles
      of former days, the triumphal pomp of Probus or Aurelian, and the
      secular games of the emperor Philip, acknowledged that they were
      all surpassed by the superior magnificence of Carinus. 84

      83 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 254. He calls him
      Carus, but the sense is sufficiently obvious, and the words were
      often confounded.]

      84 (return) [ See Calphurnius, Eclog. vii. 43. We may observe,
      that the spectacles of Probus were still recent, and that the
      poet is seconded by the historian.]

      The spectacles of Carinus may therefore be best illustrated by
      the observation of some particulars, which history has
      condescended to relate concerning those of his predecessors. If
      we confine ourselves solely to the hunting of wild beasts,
      however we may censure the vanity of the design or the cruelty of
      the execution, we are obliged to confess that neither before nor
      since the time of the Romans so much art and expense have ever
      been lavished for the amusement of the people. 85 By the order of
      Probus, a great quantity of large trees, torn up by the roots,
      were transplanted into the midst of the circus. The spacious and
      shady forest was immediately filled with a thousand ostriches, a
      thousand stags, a thousand fallow deer, and a thousand wild
      boars; and all this variety of game was abandoned to the riotous
      impetuosity of the multitude. The tragedy of the succeeding day
      consisted in the massacre of a hundred lions, an equal number of
      lionesses, two hundred leopards, and three hundred bears. 86 The
      collection prepared by the younger Gordian for his triumph, and
      which his successor exhibited in the secular games, was less
      remarkable by the number than by the singularity of the animals.
      Twenty zebras displayed their elegant forms and variegated beauty
      to the eyes of the Roman people. 87 Ten elks, and as many
      camelopards, the loftiest and most harmless creatures that wander
      over the plains of Sarmatia and Æthiopia, were contrasted with
      thirty African hyænas and ten Indian tigers, the most implacable
      savages of the torrid zone. The unoffending strength with which
      Nature has endowed the greater quadrupeds was admired in the
      rhinoceros, the hippopotamus of the Nile, 88 and a majestic troop
      of thirty-two elephants. 89 While the populace gazed with stupid
      wonder on the splendid show, the naturalist might indeed observe
      the figure and properties of so many different species,
      transported from every part of the ancient world into the
      amphitheatre of Rome. But this accidental benefit, which science
      might derive from folly, is surely insufficient to justify such a
      wanton abuse of the public riches. There occurs, however, a
      single instance in the first Punic war, in which the senate
      wisely connected this amusement of the multitude with the
      interest of the state. A considerable number of elephants, taken
      in the defeat of the Carthaginian army, were driven through the
      circus by a few slaves, armed only with blunt javelins. 90 The
      useful spectacle served to impress the Roman soldier with a just
      contempt for those unwieldy animals; and he no longer dreaded to
      encounter them in the ranks of war.

      85 (return) [ The philosopher Montaigne (Essais, l. iii. 6) gives
      a very just and lively view of Roman magnificence in these
      spectacles.]

      86 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 240.]

      87 (return) [ They are called Onagri; but the number is too
      inconsiderable for mere wild asses. Cuper (de Elephantis
      Exercitat. ii. 7) has proved from Oppian, Dion, and an anonymous
      Greek, that zebras had been seen at Rome. They were brought from
      some island of the ocean, perhaps Madagascar.]

      88 (return) [Carinus gave a hippopotamus, (see Calphurn. Eclog.
      vi. 66.) In the latter spectacles, I do not recollect any
      crocodiles, of which Augustus once exhibited thirty-six. Dion
      Cassius, l. lv. p. 781.]

      89 (return) [ Capitolin. in Hist. August. p. 164, 165. We are not
      acquainted with the animals which he calls archeleontes; some
      read argoleontes others agrioleontes: both corrections are very
      nugatory]

      90 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. viii. 6, from the annals of
      Piso.]

      The hunting or exhibition of wild beasts was conducted with a
      magnificence suitable to a people who styled themselves the
      masters of the world; nor was the edifice appropriated to that
      entertainment less expressive of Roman greatness. Posterity
      admires, and will long admire, the awful remains of the
      amphitheatre of Titus, which so well deserved the epithet of
      Colossal. 91 It was a building of an elliptic figure, five
      hundred and sixty-four feet in length, and four hundred and
      sixty-seven in breadth, founded on fourscore arches, and rising,
      with four successive orders of architecture, to the height of one
      hundred and forty feet. 92 The outside of the edifice was
      encrusted with marble, and decorated with statues. The slopes of
      the vast concave, which formed the inside, were filled and
      surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of seats of marble likewise,
      covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with ease about
      fourscore thousand spectators. 93 Sixty-four _vomitories_ (for by
      that name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth
      the immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and
      staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each
      person, whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, or the
      plebeian order, arrived at his destined place without trouble or
      confusion. 94 Nothing was omitted, which, in any respect, could
      be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectators.

      They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy,
      occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continally
      refreshed by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated
      by the grateful scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice,
      the _arena_, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and
      successively assumed the most different forms. At one moment it
      seemed to rise out of the earth, like the garden of the
      Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks and caverns
      of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible
      supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level plain,
      might be suddenly converted into a wide lake, covered with armed
      vessels, and replenished with the monsters of the deep. 95 In the
      decoration of these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their
      wealth and liberality; and we read on various occasions that the
      whole furniture of the amphitheatre consisted either of silver,
      or of gold, or of amber. 96 The poet who describes the games of
      Carinus, in the character of a shepherd, attracted to the capital
      by the fame of their magnificence, affirms that the nets designed
      as a defence against the wild beasts were of gold wire; that the
      porticos were gilded; and that the _belt_ or circle which divided
      the several ranks of spectators from each other was studded with
      a precious mosaic of beautiful stones. 97

      91 (return) [ See Maffei, Verona Illustrata, p. iv. l. i. c. 2.]

      92 (return) [ Maffei, l. ii. c. 2. The height was very much
      exaggerated by the ancients. It reached almost to the heavens,
      according to Calphurnius, (Eclog. vii. 23,) and surpassed the ken
      of human sight, according to Ammianus Marcellinus (xvi. 10.) Yet
      how trifling to the great pyramid of Egypt, which rises 500 feet
      perpendicular]

      93 (return) [ According to different copies of Victor, we read
      77,000, or 87,000 spectators; but Maffei (l. ii. c. 12) finds
      room on the open seats for no more than 34,000. The remainder
      were contained in the upper covered galleries.]

      94 (return) [ See Maffei, l. ii. c. 5—12. He treats the very
      difficult subject with all possible clearness, and like an
      architect, as well as an antiquarian.]

      95 (return) [ Calphurn. Eclog vii. 64, 73. These lines are
      curious, and the whole eclogue has been of infinite use to
      Maffei. Calphurnius, as well as Martial, (see his first book,)
      was a poet; but when they described the amphitheatre, they both
      wrote from their own senses, and to those of the Romans.]

      96 (return) [ Consult Plin. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 16, xxxvii. 11.]

      97 (return) [ Balteus en gemmis, en inlita porticus auro Certatim
      radiant, &c. Calphurn. vii.]

      In the midst of this glittering pageantry, the emperor Carinus,
      secure of his fortune, enjoyed the acclamations of the people,
      the flattery of his courtiers, and the songs of the poets, who,
      for want of a more essential merit, were reduced to celebrate the
      divine graces of his person. 98 In the same hour, but at the
      distance of nine hundred miles from Rome, his brother expired;
      and a sudden revolution transferred into the hands of a stranger
      the sceptre of the house of Carus. 99

      98 (return) [ Et Martis vultus et Apollinis esse putavi, says
      Calphurnius; but John Malala, who had perhaps seen pictures of
      Carinus, describes him as thick, short, and white, tom. i. p.
      403.]

      99 (return) [ With regard to the time when these Roman games were
      celebrated, Scaliger, Salmasius, and Cuper have given themselves
      a great deal of trouble to perplex a very clear subject.]

      The sons of Carus never saw each other after their father’s
      death. The arrangements which their new situation required were
      probably deferred till the return of the younger brother to Rome,
      where a triumph was decreed to the young emperors for the
      glorious success of the Persian war. 100 It is uncertain whether
      they intended to divide between them the administration, or the
      provinces, of the empire; but it is very unlikely that their
      union would have proved of any long duration. The jealousy of
      power must have been inflamed by the opposition of characters. In
      the most corrupt of times, Carinus was unworthy to live: Numerian
      deserved to reign in a happier period. His affable manners and
      gentle virtues secured him, as soon as they became known, the
      regard and affections of the public. He possessed the elegant
      accomplishments of a poet and orator, which dignify as well as
      adorn the humblest and the most exalted station. His eloquence,
      however it was applauded by the senate, was formed not so much on
      the model of Cicero, as on that of the modern declaimers; but in
      an age very far from being destitute of poetical merit, he
      contended for the prize with the most celebrated of his
      contemporaries, and still remained the friend of his rivals; a
      circumstance which evinces either the goodness of his heart, or
      the superiority of his genius. 101 But the talents of Numerian
      were rather of the contemplative than of the active kind. When
      his father’s elevation reluctantly forced him from the shade of
      retirement, neither his temper nor his pursuits had qualified him
      for the command of armies. His constitution was destroyed by the
      hardships of the Persian war; and he had contracted, from the
      heat of the climate, 102 such a weakness in his eyes, as obliged
      him, in the course of a long retreat, to confine himself to the
      solitude and darkness of a tent or litter.

      The administration of all affairs, civil as well as military, was
      devolved on Arrius Aper, the Prætorian præfect, who to the power
      of his important office added the honor of being father-in-law to
      Numerian. The Imperial pavilion was strictly guarded by his most
      trusty adherents; and during many days, Aper delivered to the
      army the supposed mandates of their invisible sovereign. 103

      100 (return) [ Nemesianus (in the Cynegeticon) seems to
      anticipate in his fancy that auspicious day.]

      101 (return) [ He won all the crowns from Nemesianus, with whom
      he vied in didactic poetry. The senate erected a statue to the
      son of Carus, with a very ambiguous inscription, “To the most
      powerful of orators.” See Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 251.]

      102 (return) [ A more natural cause, at least, than that assigned
      by Vopiscus, (Hist. August. p. 251,) incessantly weeping for his
      father’s death.]

      103 (return) [ In the Persian war, Aper was suspected of a design
      to betray Carus. Hist. August. p. 250.]

      It was not till eight months after the death of Carus, that the
      Roman army, returning by slow marches from the banks of the
      Tigris, arrived on those of the Thracian Bosphorus. The legions
      halted at Chalcedon in Asia, while the court passed over to
      Heraclea, on the European side of the Propontis. 104 But a report
      soon circulated through the camp, at first in secret whispers,
      and at length in loud clamors, of the emperor’s death, and of the
      presumption of his ambitious minister, who still exercised the
      sovereign power in the name of a prince who was no more. The
      impatience of the soldiers could not long support a state of
      suspense. With rude curiosity they broke into the Imperial tent,
      and discovered only the corpse of Numerian. 105 The gradual
      decline of his health might have induced them to believe that his
      death was natural; but the concealment was interpreted as an
      evidence of guilt, and the measures which Aper had taken to
      secure his election became the immediate occasion of his ruin.
      Yet, even in the transport of their rage and grief, the troops
      observed a regular proceeding, which proves how firmly discipline
      had been reëstablished by the martial successors of Gallienus. A
      general assembly of the army was appointed to be held at
      Chalcedon, whither Aper was transported in chains, as a prisoner
      and a criminal. A vacant tribunal was erected in the midst of the
      camp, and the generals and tribunes formed a great military
      council. They soon announced to the multitude that their choice
      had fallen on Diocletian, commander of the domestics or
      body-guards, as the person the most capable of revenging and
      succeeding their beloved emperor. The future fortunes of the
      candidate depended on the chance or conduct of the present hour.
      Conscious that the station which he had filled exposed him to
      some suspicions, Diocletian ascended the tribunal, and raising
      his eyes towards the Sun, made a solemn profession of his own
      innocence, in the presence of that all-seeing Deity. 106 Then,
      assuming the tone of a sovereign and a judge, he commanded that
      Aper should be brought in chains to the foot of the tribunal.
      “This man,” said he, “is the murderer of Numerian;” and without
      giving him time to enter on a dangerous justification, drew his
      sword, and buried it in the breast of the unfortunate præfect. A
      charge supported by such decisive proof was admitted without
      contradiction, and the legions, with repeated acclamations,
      acknowledged the justice and authority of the emperor Diocletian.
      107

      104 (return) [ We are obliged to the Alexandrian Chronicle, p.
      274, for the knowledge of the time and place where Diocletian was
      elected emperor.]

      105 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 251. Eutrop. ix. 88. Hieronym. in
      Chron. According to these judicious writers, the death of
      Numerian was discovered by the stench of his dead body. Could no
      aromatics be found in the Imperial household?]

      106 (return) [ Aurel. Victor. Eutropius, ix. 20. Hieronym. in
      Chron.]

      107 (return) [ Vopiscus in Hist. August. p. 252. The reason why
      Diocletian killed Aper, (a wild boar,) was founded on a prophecy
      and a pun, as foolish as they are well known.]

      Before we enter upon the memorable reign of that prince, it will
      be proper to punish and dismiss the unworthy brother of Numerian.
      Carinus possessed arms and treasures sufficient to support his
      legal title to the empire. But his personal vices overbalanced
      every advantage of birth and situation. The most faithful
      servants of the father despised the incapacity, and dreaded the
      cruel arrogance, of the son. The hearts of the people were
      engaged in favor of his rival, and even the senate was inclined
      to prefer a usurper to a tyrant. The arts of Diocletian inflamed
      the general discontent; and the winter was employed in secret
      intrigues, and open preparations for a civil war. In the spring,
      the forces of the East and of the West encountered each other in
      the plains of Margus, a small city of Mæsia, in the neighborhood
      of the Danube. 108 The troops, so lately returned from the
      Persian war, had acquired their glory at the expense of health
      and numbers; nor were they in a condition to contend with the
      unexhausted strength of the legions of Europe. Their ranks were
      broken, and, for a moment, Diocletian despaired of the purple and
      of life. But the advantage which Carinus had obtained by the
      valor of his soldiers, he quickly lost by the infidelity of his
      officers. A tribune, whose wife he had seduced, seized the
      opportunity of revenge, and, by a single blow, extinguished civil
      discord in the blood of the adulterer. 109

      108 (return) [ Eutropius marks its situation very accurately; it
      was between the Mons Aureus and Viminiacum. M. d’Anville
      (Geographic Ancienne, tom. i. p. 304) places Margus at Kastolatz
      in Servia, a little below Belgrade and Semendria. * Note:
      Kullieza—Eton Atlas—M.]

      109 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 254. Eutropius, ix. 20. Aurelius
      Victor et Epitome]




      Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
      I.

     The Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates, Maximian,
     Galerius, And Constantius.—General Reestablishment Of Order And
     Tranquillity.—The Persian War, Victory, And Triumph.—The New Form
     Of Administration.—Abdication And Retirement Of Diocletian And
     Maximian.

      As the reign of Diocletian was more illustrious than that of any
      of his predecessors, so was his birth more abject and obscure.
      The strong claims of merit and of violence had frequently
      superseded the ideal prerogatives of nobility; but a distinct
      line of separation was hitherto preserved between the free and
      the servile part of mankind. The parents of Diocletian had been
      slaves in the house of Anulinus, a Roman senator; nor was he
      himself distinguished by any other name than that which he
      derived from a small town in Dalmatia, from whence his mother
      deduced her origin. 1 It is, however, probable that his father
      obtained the freedom of the family, and that he soon acquired an
      office of scribe, which was commonly exercised by persons of his
      condition. 2 Favorable oracles, or rather the consciousness of
      superior merit, prompted his aspiring son to pursue the
      profession of arms and the hopes of fortune; and it would be
      extremely curious to observe the gradation of arts and accidents
      which enabled him in the end to fulfil those oracles, and to
      display that merit to the world. Diocletian was successively
      promoted to the government of Mæsia, the honors of the
      consulship, and the important command of the guards of the
      palace. He distinguished his abilities in the Persian war; and
      after the death of Numerian, the slave, by the confession and
      judgment of his rivals, was declared the most worthy of the
      Imperial throne. The malice of religious zeal, whilst it arraigns
      the savage fierceness of his colleague Maximian, has affected to
      cast suspicions on the personal courage of the emperor
      Diocletian. 3 It would not be easy to persuade us of the
      cowardice of a soldier of fortune, who acquired and preserved the
      esteem of the legions as well as the favor of so many warlike
      princes. Yet even calumny is sagacious enough to discover and to
      attack the most vulnerable part. The valor of Diocletian was
      never found inadequate to his duty, or to the occasion; but he
      appears not to have possessed the daring and generous spirit of a
      hero, who courts danger and fame, disdains artifice, and boldly
      challenges the allegiance of his equals. His abilities were
      useful rather than splendid; a vigorous mind, improved by the
      experience and study of mankind; dexterity and application in
      business; a judicious mixture of liberality and economy, of
      mildness and rigor; profound dissimulation, under the disguise of
      military frankness; steadiness to pursue his ends; flexibility to
      vary his means; and, above all, the great art of submitting his
      own passions, as well as those of others, to the interest of his
      ambition, and of coloring his ambition with the most specious
      pretences of justice and public utility. Like Augustus,
      Diocletian may be considered as the founder of a new empire. Like
      the adopted son of Cæsar, he was distinguished as a statesman
      rather than as a warrior; nor did either of those princes employ
      force, whenever their purpose could be effected by policy.

      1 (return) [ Eutrop. ix. 19. Victor in Epitome. The town seems to
      have been properly called Doclia, from a small tribe of
      Illyrians, (see Cellarius, Geograph. Antiqua, tom. i. p. 393;)
      and the original name of the fortunate slave was probably Docles;
      he first lengthened it to the Grecian harmony of Diocles, and at
      length to the Roman majesty of Diocletianus. He likewise assumed
      the Patrician name of Valerius and it is usually given him by
      Aurelius Victor.]

      2 (return) [ See Dacier on the sixth satire of the second book of
      Horace Cornel. Nepos, ’n Vit. Eumen. c. l.]

      3 (return) [ Lactantius (or whoever was the author of the little
      treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum) accuses Diocletian of timidity
      in two places, c. 7. 8. In chap. 9 he says of him, “erat in omni
      tumultu meticulosu et animi disjectus.”]

      The victory of Diocletian was remarkable for its singular
      mildness. A people accustomed to applaud the clemency of the
      conqueror, if the usual punishments of death, exile, and
      confiscation, were inflicted with any degree of temper and
      equity, beheld, with the most pleasing astonishment, a civil war,
      the flames of which were extinguished in the field of battle.
      Diocletian received into his confidence Aristobulus, the
      principal minister of the house of Carus, respected the lives,
      the fortunes, and the dignity, of his adversaries, and even
      continued in their respective stations the greater number of the
      servants of Carinus. 4 It is not improbable that motives of
      prudence might assist the humanity of the artful Dalmatian; of
      these servants, many had purchased his favor by secret treachery;
      in others, he esteemed their grateful fidelity to an unfortunate
      master. The discerning judgment of Aurelian, of Probus, and of
      Carus, had filled the several departments of the state and army
      with officers of approved merit, whose removal would have injured
      the public service, without promoting the interest of his
      successor. Such a conduct, however, displayed to the Roman world
      the fairest prospect of the new reign, and the emperor affected
      to confirm this favorable prepossession, by declaring, that,
      among all the virtues of his predecessors, he was the most
      ambitious of imitating the humane philosophy of Marcus Antoninus.
      5

      4 (return) [ In this encomium, Aurelius Victor seems to convey a
      just, though indirect, censure of the cruelty of Constantius. It
      appears from the Fasti, that Aristobulus remained præfect of the
      city, and that he ended with Diocletian the consulship which he
      had commenced with Carinus.]

      5 (return) [ Aurelius Victor styles Diocletian, “Parentum potius
      quam Dominum.” See Hist. August. p. 30.]

      The first considerable action of his reign seemed to evince his
      sincerity as well as his moderation. After the example of Marcus,
      he gave himself a colleague in the person of Maximian, on whom he
      bestowed at first the title of Cæsar, and afterwards that of
      Augustus. 6 But the motives of his conduct, as well as the object
      of his choice, were of a very different nature from those of his
      admired predecessor. By investing a luxurious youth with the
      honors of the purple, Marcus had discharged a debt of private
      gratitude, at the expense, indeed, of the happiness of the state.
      By associating a friend and a fellow-soldier to the labors of
      government, Diocletian, in a time of public danger, provided for
      the defence both of the East and of the West. Maximian was born a
      peasant, and, like Aurelian, in the territory of Sirmium.
      Ignorant of letters, 7 careless of laws, the rusticity of his
      appearance and manners still betrayed in the most elevated
      fortune the meanness of his extraction. War was the only art
      which he professed. In a long course of service he had
      distinguished himself on every frontier of the empire; and though
      his military talents were formed to obey rather than to command,
      though, perhaps, he never attained the skill of a consummate
      general, he was capable, by his valor, constancy, and experience,
      of executing the most arduous undertakings. Nor were the vices of
      Maximian less useful to his benefactor. Insensible to pity, and
      fearless of consequences, he was the ready instrument of every
      act of cruelty which the policy of that artful prince might at
      once suggest and disclaim. As soon as a bloody sacrifice had been
      offered to prudence or to revenge, Diocletian, by his seasonable
      intercession, saved the remaining few whom he had never designed
      to punish, gently censured the severity of his stern colleague,
      and enjoyed the comparison of a golden and an iron age, which was
      universally applied to their opposite maxims of government.
      Notwithstanding the difference of their characters, the two
      emperors maintained, on the throne, that friendship which they
      had contracted in a private station. The haughty, turbulent
      spirit of Maximian, so fatal, afterwards, to himself and to the
      public peace, was accustomed to respect the genius of Diocletian,
      and confessed the ascendant of reason over brutal violence. 8
      From a motive either of pride or superstition, the two emperors
      assumed the titles, the one of Jovius, the other of Herculius.
      Whilst the motion of the world (such was the language of their
      venal orators) was maintained by the all-seeing wisdom of
      Jupiter, the invincible arm of Hercules purged the earth from
      monsters and tyrants. 9

      6 (return) [ The question of the time when Maximian received the
      honors of Cæsar and Augustus has divided modern critics, and
      given occasion to a great deal of learned wrangling. I have
      followed M. de Tillemont, (Histoire des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
      500-505,) who has weighed the several reasons and difficulties
      with his scrupulous accuracy. * Note: Eckbel concurs in this
      view, viii p. 15.—M.]

      7 (return) [ In an oration delivered before him, (Panegyr. Vet.
      ii. 8,) Mamertinus expresses a doubt, whether his hero, in
      imitating the conduct of Hannibal and Scipio, had ever heard of
      their names. From thence we may fairly infer, that Maximian was
      more desirous of being considered as a soldier than as a man of
      letters; and it is in this manner that we can often translate the
      language of flattery into that of truth.]

      8 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 8. Aurelius Victor. As among
      the Panegyrics, we find orations pronounced in praise of
      Maximian, and others which flatter his adversaries at his
      expense, we derive some knowledge from the contrast.]

      9 (return) [ See the second and third Panegyrics, particularly
      iii. 3, 10, 14 but it would be tedious to copy the diffuse and
      affected expressions of their false eloquence. With regard to the
      titles, consult Aurel. Victor Lactantius de M. P. c. 52. Spanheim
      de Usu Numismatum, &c. xii 8.]

      But even the omnipotence of Jovius and Herculius was insufficient
      to sustain the weight of the public administration. The prudence
      of Diocletian discovered that the empire, assailed on every side
      by the barbarians, required on every side the presence of a great
      army, and of an emperor. With this view, he resolved once more to
      divide his unwieldy power, and with the inferior title of
      _Cæsars_, 901 to confer on two generals of approved merit an
      unequal share of the sovereign authority. 10 Galerius, surnamed
      Armentarius, from his original profession of a herdsman, and
      Constantius, who from his pale complexion had acquired the
      denomination of Chlorus, 11 were the two persons invested with
      the second honors of the Imperial purple. In describing the
      country, extraction, and manners of Herculius, we have already
      delineated those of Galerius, who was often, and not improperly,
      styled the younger Maximian, though, in many instances both of
      virtue and ability, he appears to have possessed a manifest
      superiority over the elder. The birth of Constantius was less
      obscure than that of his colleagues. Eutropius, his father, was
      one of the most considerable nobles of Dardania, and his mother
      was the niece of the emperor Claudius. 12 Although the youth of
      Constantius had been spent in arms, he was endowed with a mild
      and amiable disposition, and the popular voice had long since
      acknowledged him worthy of the rank which he at last attained. To
      strengthen the bonds of political, by those of domestic, union,
      each of the emperors assumed the character of a father to one of
      the Cæsars, Diocletian to Galerius, and Maximian to Constantius;
      and each, obliging them to repudiate their former wives, bestowed
      his daughter in marriage or his adopted son. 13 These four
      princes distributed among themselves the wide extent of the Roman
      empire. The defence of Gaul, Spain, 14 and Britain, was intrusted
      to Constantius: Galerius was stationed on the banks of the
      Danube, as the safeguard of the Illyrian provinces. Italy and
      Africa were considered as the department of Maximian; and for his
      peculiar portion, Diocletian reserved Thrace, Egypt, and the rich
      countries of Asia. Every one was sovereign with his own
      jurisdiction; but their united authority extended over the whole
      monarchy, and each of them was prepared to assist his colleagues
      with his counsels or presence. The Cæsars, in their exalted rank,
      revered the majesty of the emperors, and the three younger
      princes invariably acknowledged, by their gratitude and
      obedience, the common parent of their fortunes. The suspicious
      jealousy of power found not any place among them; and the
      singular happiness of their union has been compared to a chorus
      of music, whose harmony was regulated and maintained by the
      skilful hand of the first artist. 15

      901 (return) [ On the relative power of the Augusti and the
      Cæsars, consult a dissertation at the end of Manso’s Leben
      Constantius des Grossen—M.]

      10 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Victor in Epitome. Eutrop. ix. 22.
      Lactant de M. P. c. 8. Hieronym. in Chron.]

      11 (return) [ It is only among the modern Greeks that Tillemont
      can discover his appellation of Chlorus. Any remarkable degree of
      paleness seems inconsistent with the rubor mentioned in
      Panegyric, v. 19.]

      12 (return) [ Julian, the grandson of Constantius, boasts that
      his family was derived from the warlike Mæsians. Misopogon, p.
      348. The Dardanians dwelt on the edge of Mæsia.]

      13 (return) [ Galerius married Valeria, the daughter of
      Diocletian; if we speak with strictness, Theodora, the wife of
      Constantius, was daughter only to the wife of Maximian. Spanheim,
      Dissertat, xi. 2.]

      14 (return) [ This division agrees with that of the four
      præfectures; yet there is some reason to doubt whether Spain was
      not a province of Maximian. See Tillemont, tom. iv. p. 517. *
      Note: According to Aurelius Victor and other authorities, Thrace
      belonged to the division of Galerius. See Tillemont, iv. 36. But
      the laws of Diocletian are in general dated in Illyria or
      Thrace.—M.]

      15 (return) [ Julian in Cæsarib. p. 315. Spanheim’s notes to the
      French translation, p. 122.]

      This important measure was not carried into execution till about
      six years after the association of Maximian, and that interval of
      time had not been destitute of memorable incidents. But we have
      preferred, for the sake of perspicuity, first to describe the
      more perfect form of Diocletian’s government, and afterwards to
      relate the actions of his reign, following rather the natural
      order of the events, than the dates of a very doubtful
      chronology.

      The first exploit of Maximian, though it is mentioned in a few
      words by our imperfect writers, deserves, from its singularity,
      to be recorded in a history of human manners. He suppressed the
      peasants of Gaul, who, under the appellation of Bagaudæ, 16 had
      risen in a general insurrection; very similar to those which in
      the fourteenth century successively afflicted both France and
      England. 17 It should seem that very many of those institutions,
      referred by an easy solution to the feudal system, are derived
      from the Celtic barbarians. When Cæsar subdued the Gauls, that
      great nation was already divided into three orders of men; the
      clergy, the nobility, and the common people. The first governed
      by superstition, the second by arms, but the third and last was
      not of any weight or account in their public councils. It was
      very natural for the plebeians, oppressed by debt, or
      apprehensive of injuries, to implore the protection of some
      powerful chief, who acquired over their persons and property the
      same absolute right as, among the Greeks and Romans, a master
      exercised over his slaves. 18 The greatest part of the nation was
      gradually reduced into a state of servitude; compelled to
      perpetual labor on the estates of the Gallic nobles, and confined
      to the soil, either by the real weight of fetters, or by the no
      less cruel and forcible restraints of the laws. During the long
      series of troubles which agitated Gaul, from the reign of
      Gallienus to that of Diocletian, the condition of these servile
      peasants was peculiarly miserable; and they experienced at once
      the complicated tyranny of their masters, of the barbarians, of
      the soldiers, and of the officers of the revenue. 19

      16 (return) [ The general name of Bagaudæ (in the signification
      of rebels) continued till the fifth century in Gaul. Some critics
      derive it from a Celtic word Bagad, a tumultuous assembly.
      Scaliger ad Euseb. Du Cange Glossar. (Compare S. Turner,
      Anglo-Sax. History, i. 214.—M.)]

      17 (return) [ Chronique de Froissart, vol. i. c. 182, ii. 73, 79.
      The naivete of his story is lost in our best modern writers.]

      18 (return) [ Cæsar de Bell. Gallic. vi. 13. Orgetorix, the
      Helvetian, could arm for his defence a body of ten thousand
      slaves.]

      19 (return) [ Their oppression and misery are acknowledged by
      Eumenius (Panegyr. vi. 8,) Gallias efferatas injuriis.]

      Their patience was at last provoked into despair. On every side
      they rose in multitudes, armed with rustic weapons, and with
      irresistible fury. The ploughman became a foot soldier, the
      shepherd mounted on horseback, the deserted villages and open
      towns were abandoned to the flames, and the ravages of the
      peasants equalled those of the fiercest barbarians. 20 They
      asserted the natural rights of men, but they asserted those
      rights with the most savage cruelty. The Gallic nobles, justly
      dreading their revenge, either took refuge in the fortified
      cities, or fled from the wild scene of anarchy. The peasants
      reigned without control; and two of their most daring leaders had
      the folly and rashness to assume the Imperial ornaments. 21 Their
      power soon expired at the approach of the legions. The strength
      of union and discipline obtained an easy victory over a
      licentious and divided multitude. 22 A severe retaliation was
      inflicted on the peasants who were found in arms; the affrighted
      remnant returned to their respective habitations, and their
      unsuccessful effort for freedom served only to confirm their
      slavery. So strong and uniform is the current of popular
      passions, that we might almost venture, from very scanty
      materials, to relate the particulars of this war; but we are not
      disposed to believe that the principal leaders, Ælianus and
      Amandus, were Christians, 23 or to insinuate, that the rebellion,
      as it happened in the time of Luther, was occasioned by the abuse
      of those benevolent principles of Christianity, which inculcate
      the natural freedom of mankind.

      20 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ii. 4. Aurelius Victor.]

      21 (return) [ Ælianus and Amandus. We have medals coined by them
      Goltzius in Thes. R. A. p. 117, 121.]

      22 (return) [ Levibus proeliis domuit. Eutrop. ix. 20.]

      23 (return) [ The fact rests indeed on very slight authority, a
      life of St. Babolinus, which is probably of the seventh century.
      See Duchesne Scriptores Rer. Francicar. tom. i. p. 662.]

      Maximian had no sooner recovered Gaul from the hands of the
      peasants, than he lost Britain by the usurpation of Carausius.
      Ever since the rash but successful enterprise of the Franks under
      the reign of Probus, their daring countrymen had constructed
      squadrons of light brigantines, in which they incessantly ravaged
      the provinces adjacent to the ocean. 24 To repel their desultory
      incursions, it was found necessary to create a naval power; and
      the judicious measure was prosecuted with prudence and vigor.
      Gessoriacum, or Boulogne, in the straits of the British Channel,
      was chosen by the emperor for the station of the Roman fleet; and
      the command of it was intrusted to Carausius, a Menapian of the
      meanest origin, 25 but who had long signalized his skill as a
      pilot, and his valor as a soldier. The integrity of the new
      admiral corresponded not with his abilities. When the German
      pirates sailed from their own harbors, he connived at their
      passage, but he diligently intercepted their return, and
      appropriated to his own use an ample share of the spoil which
      they had acquired. The wealth of Carausius was, on this occasion,
      very justly considered as an evidence of his guilt; and Maximian
      had already given orders for his death. But the crafty Menapian
      foresaw and prevented the severity of the emperor. By his
      liberality he had attached to his fortunes the fleet which he
      commanded, and secured the barbarians in his interest. From the
      port of Boulogne he sailed over to Britain, persuaded the legion,
      and the auxiliaries which guarded that island, to embrace his
      party, and boldly assuming, with the Imperial purple, the title
      of Augustus, defied the justice and the arms of his injured
      sovereign. 26

      24 (return) [ Aurelius Victor calls them Germans. Eutropius (ix.
      21) gives them the name of Saxons. But Eutropius lived in the
      ensuing century, and seems to use the language of his own times.]

      25 (return) [ The three expressions of Eutropius, Aurelius
      Victor, and Eumenius, “vilissime natus,” “Bataviæ alumnus,” and
      “Menapiæ civis,” give us a very doubtful account of the birth of
      Carausius. Dr. Stukely, however, (Hist. of Carausius, p. 62,)
      chooses to make him a native of St. David’s and a prince of the
      blood royal of Britain. The former idea he had found in Richard
      of Cirencester, p. 44. * Note: The Menapians were settled between
      the Scheldt and the Meuse, is the northern part of Brabant.
      D’Anville, Geogr. Anc. i. 93.—G.]

      26 (return) [ Panegyr. v. 12. Britain at this time was secure,
      and slightly guarded.]

      When Britain was thus dismembered from the empire, its importance
      was sensibly felt, and its loss sincerely lamented. The Romans
      celebrated, and perhaps magnified, the extent of that noble
      island, provided on every side with convenient harbors; the
      temperature of the climate, and the fertility of the soil, alike
      adapted for the production of corn or of vines; the valuable
      minerals with which it abounded; its rich pastures covered with
      innumerable flocks, and its woods free from wild beasts or
      venomous serpents. Above all, they regretted the large amount of
      the revenue of Britain, whilst they confessed, that such a
      province well deserved to become the seat of an independent
      monarchy. 27 During the space of seven years it was possessed by
      Carausius; and fortune continued propitious to a rebellion
      supported with courage and ability. The British emperor defended
      the frontiers of his dominions against the Caledonians of the
      North, invited, from the continent, a great number of skilful
      artists, and displayed, on a variety of coins that are still
      extant, his taste and opulence. Born on the confines of the
      Franks, he courted the friendship of that formidable people, by
      the flattering imitation of their dress and manners. The bravest
      of their youth he enlisted among his land or sea forces; and, in
      return for their useful alliance, he communicated to the
      barbarians the dangerous knowledge of military and naval arts.
      Carausius still preserved the possession of Boulogne and the
      adjacent country. His fleets rode triumphant in the channel,
      commanded the mouths of the Seine and of the Rhine, ravaged the
      coasts of the ocean, and diffused beyond the columns of Hercules
      the terror of his name. Under his command, Britain, destined in a
      future age to obtain the empire of the sea, already assumed its
      natural and respectable station of a maritime power. 28

      27 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet v 11, vii. 9. The orator Eumenius
      wished to exalt the glory of the hero (Constantius) with the
      importance of the conquest. Notwithstanding our laudable
      partiality for our native country, it is difficult to conceive,
      that, in the beginning of the fourth century England deserved all
      these commendations. A century and a half before, it hardly paid
      its own establishment.]

      28 (return) [ As a great number of medals of Carausius are still
      preserved, he is become a very favorite object of antiquarian
      curiosity, and every circumstance of his life and actions has
      been investigated with sagacious accuracy. Dr. Stukely, in
      particular, has devoted a large volume to the British emperor. I
      have used his materials, and rejected most of his fanciful
      conjectures.]

      By seizing the fleet of Boulogne, Carausius had deprived his
      master of the means of pursuit and revenge. And when, after a
      vast expense of time and labor, a new armament was launched into
      the water, 29 the Imperial troops, unaccustomed to that element,
      were easily baffled and defeated by the veteran sailors of the
      usurper. This disappointed effort was soon productive of a treaty
      of peace. Diocletian and his colleague, who justly dreaded the
      enterprising spirit of Carausius, resigned to him the sovereignty
      of Britain, and reluctantly admitted their perfidious servant to
      a participation of the Imperial honors. 30 But the adoption of
      the two Cæsars restored new vigor to the Romans arms; and while
      the Rhine was guarded by the presence of Maximian, his brave
      associate Constantius assumed the conduct of the British war. His
      first enterprise was against the important place of Boulogne. A
      stupendous mole, raised across the entrance of the harbor,
      intercepted all hopes of relief. The town surrendered after an
      obstinate defence; and a considerable part of the naval strength
      of Carausius fell into the hands of the besiegers. During the
      three years which Constantius employed in preparing a fleet
      adequate to the conquest of Britain, he secured the coast of
      Gaul, invaded the country of the Franks, and deprived the usurper
      of the assistance of those powerful allies.

      29 (return) [ When Mamertinus pronounced his first panegyric, the
      naval preparations of Maximian were completed; and the orator
      presaged an assured victory. His silence in the second panegyric
      might alone inform us that the expedition had not succeeded.]

      30 (return) [ Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, and the medals, (Pax
      Augg.) inform us of this temporary reconciliation; though I will
      not presume (as Dr. Stukely has done, Medallic History of
      Carausius, p. 86, &c) to insert the identical articles of the
      treaty.]

      Before the preparations were finished, Constantius received the
      intelligence of the tyrant’s death, and it was considered as a
      sure presage of the approaching victory. The servants of
      Carausius imitated the example of treason which he had given. He
      was murdered by his first minister, Allectus, and the assassin
      succeeded to his power and to his danger. But he possessed not
      equal abilities either to exercise the one or to repel the other.

      He beheld, with anxious terror, the opposite shores of the
      continent already filled with arms, with troops, and with
      vessels; for Constantius had very prudently divided his forces,
      that he might likewise divide the attention and resistance of the
      enemy. The attack was at length made by the principal squadron,
      which, under the command of the præfect Asclepiodatus, an officer
      of distinguished merit, had been assembled in the north of the
      Seine. So imperfect in those times was the art of navigation,
      that orators have celebrated the daring courage of the Romans,
      who ventured to set sail with a side-wind, and on a stormy day.
      The weather proved favorable to their enterprise. Under the cover
      of a thick fog, they escaped the fleet of Allectus, which had
      been stationed off the Isle of Wight to receive them, landed in
      safety on some part of the western coast, and convinced the
      Britons, that a superiority of naval strength will not always
      protect their country from a foreign invasion. Asclepiodatus had
      no sooner disembarked the imperial troops, then he set fire to
      his ships; and, as the expedition proved fortunate, his heroic
      conduct was universally admired. The usurper had posted himself
      near London, to expect the formidable attack of Constantius, who
      commanded in person the fleet of Boulogne; but the descent of a
      new enemy required his immediate presence in the West. He
      performed this long march in so precipitate a manner, that he
      encountered the whole force of the præfect with a small body of
      harassed and disheartened troops. The engagement was soon
      terminated by the total defeat and death of Allectus; a single
      battle, as it has often happened, decided the fate of this great
      island; and when Constantius landed on the shores of Kent, he
      found them covered with obedient subjects. Their acclamations
      were loud and unanimous; and the virtues of the conqueror may
      induce us to believe, that they sincerely rejoiced in a
      revolution, which, after a separation of ten years, restored
      Britain to the body of the Roman empire. 31

      31 (return) [ With regard to the recovery of Britain, we obtain a
      few hints from Aurelius Victor and Eutropius.]




      Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
      II.

      Britain had none but domestic enemies to dread; and as long as
      the governors preserved their fidelity, and the troops their
      discipline, the incursions of the naked savages of Scotland or
      Ireland could never materially affect the safety of the province.

      The peace of the continent, and the defence of the principal
      rivers which bounded the empire, were objects of far greater
      difficulty and importance. The policy of Diocletian, which
      inspired the councils of his associates, provided for the public
      tranquility, by encouraging a spirit of dissension among the
      barbarians, and by strengthening the fortifications of the Roman
      limit. In the East he fixed a line of camps from Egypt to the
      Persian dominions, and for every camp, he instituted an adequate
      number of stationary troops, commanded by their respective
      officers, and supplied with every kind of arms, from the new
      arsenals which he had formed at Antioch, Emesa, and Damascus. 32
      Nor was the precaution of the emperor less watchful against the
      well-known valor of the barbarians of Europe. From the mouth of
      the Rhine to that of the Danube, the ancient camps, towns, and
      citidels, were diligently reëstablished, and, in the most exposed
      places, new ones were skilfully constructed: the strictest
      vigilance was introduced among the garrisons of the frontier, and
      every expedient was practised that could render the long chain of
      fortifications firm and impenetrable. 33 A barrier so respectable
      was seldom violated, and the barbarians often turned against each
      other their disappointed rage. The Goths, the Vandals, the
      Gepidæ, the Burgundians, the Alemanni, wasted each other’s
      strength by destructive hostilities: and whosoever vanquished,
      they vanquished the enemies of Rome. The subjects of Diocletian
      enjoyed the bloody spectacle, and congratulated each other, that
      the mischiefs of civil war were now experienced only by the
      barbarians. 34

      32 (return) [ John Malala, in Chron, Antiochen. tom. i. p. 408,
      409.]

      33 (return) [ Zosim. l. i. p. 3. That partial historian seems to
      celebrate the vigilance of Diocletian with a design of exposing
      the negligence of Constantine; we may, however, listen to an
      orator: “Nam quid ego alarum et cohortium castra percenseam, toto
      Rheni et Istri et Euphraus limite restituta.” Panegyr. Vet. iv.
      18.]

      34 (return) [ Ruunt omnes in sanguinem suum populi, quibus ron
      contigilesse Romanis, obstinatæque feritatis poenas nunc sponte
      persolvunt. Panegyr. Vet. iii. 16. Mamertinus illustrates the
      fact by the example of almost all the nations in the world.]

      Notwithstanding the policy of Diocletian, it was impossible to
      maintain an equal and undisturbed tranquillity during a reign of
      twenty years, and along a frontier of many hundred miles.
      Sometimes the barbarians suspended their domestic animosities,
      and the relaxed vigilance of the garrisons sometimes gave a
      passage to their strength or dexterity. Whenever the provinces
      were invaded, Diocletian conducted himself with that calm dignity
      which he always affected or possessed; reserved his presence for
      such occasions as were worthy of his interposition, never exposed
      his person or reputation to any unnecessary danger, insured his
      success by every means that prudence could suggest, and
      displayed, with ostentation, the consequences of his victory. In
      wars of a more difficult nature, and more doubtful event, he
      employed the rough valor of Maximian; and that faithful soldier
      was content to ascribe his own victories to the wise counsels and
      auspicious influence of his benefactor. But after the adoption of
      the two Cæsars, the emperors themselves, retiring to a less
      laborious scene of action, devolved on their adopted sons the
      defence of the Danube and of the Rhine. The vigilant Galerius was
      never reduced to the necessity of vanquishing an army of
      barbarians on the Roman territory. 35 The brave and active
      Constantius delivered Gaul from a very furious inroad of the
      Alemanni; and his victories of Langres and Vindonissa appear to
      have been actions of considerable danger and merit. As he
      traversed the open country with a feeble guard, he was
      encompassed on a sudden by the superior multitude of the enemy.
      He retreated with difficulty towards Langres; but, in the general
      consternation, the citizens refused to open their gates, and the
      wounded prince was drawn up the wall by the means of a rope. But,
      on the news of his distress, the Roman troops hastened from all
      sides to his relief, and before the evening he had satisfied his
      honor and revenge by the slaughter of six thousand Alemanni. 36
      From the monuments of those times, the obscure traces of several
      other victories over the barbarians of Sarmatia and Germany might
      possibly be collected; but the tedious search would not be
      rewarded either with amusement or with instruction.

      35 (return) [ He complained, though not with the strictest truth,
      “Jam fluxisse annos quindecim in quibus, in Illyrico, ad ripam
      Danubii relegatus cum gentibus barbaris luctaret.” Lactant. de M.
      P. c. 18.]

      36 (return) [ In the Greek text of Eusebius, we read six
      thousand, a number which I have preferred to the sixty thousand
      of Jerome, Orosius Eutropius, and his Greek translator Pæanius.]

      The conduct which the emperor Probus had adopted in the disposal
      of the vanquished was imitated by Diocletian and his associates.
      The captive barbarians, exchanging death for slavery, were
      distributed among the provincials, and assigned to those
      districts (in Gaul, the territories of Amiens, Beauvais, Cambray,
      Treves, Langres, and Troyes, are particularly specified) 37 which
      had been depopulated by the calamities of war. They were usefully
      employed as shepherds and husbandmen, but were denied the
      exercise of arms, except when it was found expedient to enroll
      them in the military service. Nor did the emperors refuse the
      property of lands, with a less servile tenure, to such of the
      barbarians as solicited the protection of Rome. They granted a
      settlement to several colonies of the Carpi, the Bastarnæ, and
      the Sarmatians; and, by a dangerous indulgence, permitted them in
      some measure to retain their national manners and independence.
      38 Among the provincials, it was a subject of flattering
      exultation, that the barbarian, so lately an object of terror,
      now cultivated their lands, drove their cattle to the neighboring
      fair, and contributed by his labor to the public plenty. They
      congratulated their masters on the powerful accession of subjects
      and soldiers; but they forgot to observe, that multitudes of
      secret enemies, insolent from favor, or desperate from
      oppression, were introduced into the heart of the empire. 39

      37 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. vii. 21.]

      38 (return) [ There was a settlement of the Sarmatians in the
      neighborhood of Treves, which seems to have been deserted by
      those lazy barbarians. Ausonius speaks of them in his Mosella:——
      “Unde iter ingrediens nemorosa per avia solum, Et nulla humani
      spectans vestigia cultus; ........ Arvaque Sauromatum nuper
      metata colonis.”]

      39 (return) [ There was a town of the Carpi in the Lower Mæsia.
      See the rhetorical exultation of Eumenius.]

      While the Cæsars exercised their valor on the banks of the Rhine
      and Danube, the presence of the emperors was required on the
      southern confines of the Roman world. From the Nile to Mount
      Atlas, Africa was in arms. A confederacy of five Moorish nations
      issued from their deserts to invade the peaceful provinces. 40
      Julian had assumed the purple at Carthage. 41 Achilleus at
      Alexandria, and even the Blemmyes, renewed, or rather continued,
      their incursions into the Upper Egypt. Scarcely any circumstances
      have been preserved of the exploits of Maximian in the western
      parts of Africa; but it appears, by the event, that the progress
      of his arms was rapid and decisive, that he vanquished the
      fiercest barbarians of Mauritania, and that he removed them from
      the mountains, whose inaccessible strength had inspired their
      inhabitants with a lawless confidence, and habituated them to a
      life of rapine and violence. 42 Diocletian, on his side, opened
      the campaign in Egypt by the siege of Alexandria, cut off the
      aqueducts which conveyed the waters of the Nile into every
      quarter of that immense city, 43 and rendering his camp
      impregnable to the sallies of the besieged multitude, he pushed
      his reiterated attacks with caution and vigor. After a siege of
      eight months, Alexandria, wasted by the sword and by fire,
      implored the clemency of the conqueror, but it experienced the
      full extent of his severity. Many thousands of the citizens
      perished in a promiscuous slaughter, and there were few obnoxious
      persons in Egypt who escaped a sentence either of death or at
      least of exile. 44 The fate of Busiris and of Coptos was still
      more melancholy than that of Alexandria: those proud cities, the
      former distinguished by its antiquity, the latter enriched by the
      passage of the Indian trade, were utterly destroyed by the arms
      and by the severe order of Diocletian. 45 The character of the
      Egyptian nation, insensible to kindness, but extremely
      susceptible of fear, could alone justify this excessive rigor.
      The seditions of Alexandria had often affected the tranquillity
      and subsistence of Rome itself. Since the usurpation of Firmus,
      the province of Upper Egypt, incessantly relapsing into
      rebellion, had embraced the alliance of the savages of Æthiopia.
      The number of the Blemmyes, scattered between the Island of Meroe
      and the Red Sea, was very inconsiderable, their disposition was
      unwarlike, their weapons rude and inoffensive. 46 Yet in the
      public disorders, these barbarians, whom antiquity, shocked with
      the deformity of their figure, had almost excluded from the human
      species, presumed to rank themselves among the enemies of Rome.
      47 Such had been the unworthy allies of the Egyptians; and while
      the attention of the state was engaged in more serious wars,
      their vexations inroads might again harass the repose of the
      province. With a view of opposing to the Blemmyes a suitable
      adversary, Diocletian persuaded the Nobatæ, or people of Nubia,
      to remove from their ancient habitations in the deserts of Libya,
      and resigned to them an extensive but unprofitable territory
      above Syene and the cataracts of the Nile, with the stipulation,
      that they should ever respect and guard the frontier of the
      empire. The treaty long subsisted; and till the establishment of
      Christianity introduced stricter notions of religious worship, it
      was annually ratified by a solemn sacrifice in the isle of
      Elephantine, in which the Romans, as well as the barbarians,
      adored the same visible or invisible powers of the universe. 48

      40 (return) [ Scaliger (Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 243) decides, in
      his usual manner, that the Quinque gentiani, or five African
      nations, were the five great cities, the Pentapolis of the
      inoffensive province of Cyrene.]

      41 (return) [ After his defeat, Julian stabbed himself with a
      dagger, and immediately leaped into the flames. Victor in
      Epitome.]

      42 (return) [ Tu ferocissimos Mauritaniæ populos inaccessis
      montium jugis et naturali munitione fidentes, expugnasti,
      recepisti, transtulisti. Panegyr Vet. vi. 8.]

      43 (return) [ See the description of Alexandria, in Hirtius de
      Bel. Alexandrin c. 5.]

      44 (return) [ Eutrop. ix. 24. Orosius, vii. 25. John Malala in
      Chron. Antioch. p. 409, 410. Yet Eumenius assures us, that Egypt
      was pacified by the clemency of Diocletian.]

      45 (return) [ Eusebius (in Chron.) places their destruction
      several years sooner and at a time when Egypt itself was in a
      state of rebellion against the Romans.]

      46 (return) [ Strabo, l. xvii. p. 172. Pomponius Mela, l. i. c.
      4. His words are curious: “Intra, si credere libet vix, homines
      magisque semiferi Ægipanes, et Blemmyes, et Satyri.”]

      47 (return) [ Ausus sese inserere fortunæ et provocare arma
      Romana.]

      48 (return) [ See Procopius de Bell. Persic. l. i. c. 19. Note:
      Compare, on the epoch of the final extirpation of the rites of
      Paganism from the Isle of Philæ, (Elephantine,) which subsisted
      till the edict of Theodosius, in the sixth century, a
      dissertation of M. Letronne, on certain Greek inscriptions. The
      dissertation contains some very interesting observations on the
      conduct and policy of Diocletian in Egypt. Mater pour l’Hist. du
      Christianisme en Egypte, Nubie et Abyssinie, Paris 1817—M.]

      At the same time that Diocletian chastised the past crimes of the
      Egyptians, he provided for their future safety and happiness by
      many wise regulations, which were confirmed and enforced under
      the succeeding reigns. 49 One very remarkable edict which he
      published, instead of being condemned as the effect of jealous
      tyranny, deserves to be applauded as an act of prudence and
      humanity. He caused a diligent inquiry to be made “for all the
      ancient books which treated of the admirable art of making gold
      and silver, and without pity, committed them to the flames;
      apprehensive, as we are assumed, lest the opulence of the
      Egyptians should inspire them with confidence to rebel against
      the empire.” 50 But if Diocletian had been convinced of the
      reality of that valuable art, far from extinguishing the memory,
      he would have converted the operation of it to the benefit of the
      public revenue. It is much more likely, that his good sense
      discovered to him the folly of such magnificent pretensions, and
      that he was desirous of preserving the reason and fortunes of his
      subjects from the mischievous pursuit. It may be remarked, that
      these ancient books, so liberally ascribed to Pythagoras, to
      Solomon, or to Hermes, were the pious frauds of more recent
      adepts. The Greeks were inattentive either to the use or to the
      abuse of chemistry. In that immense register, where Pliny has
      deposited the discoveries, the arts, and the errors of mankind,
      there is not the least mention of the transmutation of metals;
      and the persecution of Diocletian is the first authentic event in
      the history of alchemy. The conquest of Egypt by the Arabs
      diffused that vain science over the globe. Congenial to the
      avarice of the human heart, it was studied in China as in Europe,
      with equal eagerness, and with equal success. The darkness of the
      middle ages insured a favorable reception to every tale of
      wonder, and the revival of learning gave new vigor to hope, and
      suggested more specious arts of deception. Philosophy, with the
      aid of experience, has at length banished the study of alchemy;
      and the present age, however desirous of riches, is content to
      seek them by the humbler means of commerce and industry. 51

      49 (return) [ He fixed the public allowance of corn, for the
      people of Alexandria, at two millions of medimni; about four
      hundred thousand quarters. Chron. Paschal. p. 276 Procop. Hist.
      Arcan. c. 26.]

      50 (return) [ John Antioch, in Excerp. Valesian. p. 834. Suidas
      in Diocletian.]

      51 (return) [ See a short history and confutation of Alchemy, in
      the works of that philosophical compiler, La Mothe le Vayer, tom.
      i. p. 32—353.]

      The reduction of Egypt was immediately followed by the Persian
      war. It was reserved for the reign of Diocletian to vanquish that
      powerful nation, and to extort a confession from the successors
      of Artaxerxes, of the superior majesty of the Roman empire.

      We have observed, under the reign of Valerian, that Armenia was
      subdued by the perfidy and the arms of the Persians, and that,
      after the assassination of Chosroes, his son Tiridates, the
      infant heir of the monarchy, was saved by the fidelity of his
      friends, and educated under the protection of the emperors.
      Tiridates derived from his exile such advantages as he could
      never have obtained on the throne of Armenia; the early knowledge
      of adversity, of mankind, and of the Roman discipline. He
      signalized his youth by deeds of valor, and displayed a matchless
      dexterity, as well as strength, in every martial exercise, and
      even in the less honorable contests of the Olympian games. 52
      Those qualities were more nobly exerted in the defence of his
      benefactor Licinius. 53 That officer, in the sedition which
      occasioned the death of Probus, was exposed to the most imminent
      danger, and the enraged soldiers were forcing their way into his
      tent, when they were checked by the single arm of the Armenian
      prince. The gratitude of Tiridates contributed soon afterwards to
      his restoration. Licinius was in every station the friend and
      companion of Galerius, and the merit of Galerius, long before he
      was raised to the dignity of Cæsar, had been known and esteemed
      by Diocletian. In the third year of that emperor’s reign
      Tiridates was invested with the kingdom of Armenia. The justice
      of the measure was not less evident than its expediency. It was
      time to rescue from the usurpation of the Persian monarch an
      important territory, which, since the reign of Nero, had been
      always granted under the protection of the empire to a younger
      branch of the house of Arsaces. 54

      52 (return) [ See the education and strength of Tiridates in the
      Armenian history of Moses of Chorene, l. ii. c. 76. He could
      seize two wild bulls by the horns, and break them off with his
      hands.]

      53 (return) [ If we give credit to the younger Victor, who
      supposes that in the year 323 Licinius was only sixty years of
      age, he could scarcely be the same person as the patron of
      Tiridates; but we know from much better authority, (Euseb. Hist.
      Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 8,) that Licinius was at that time in the
      last period of old age: sixteen years before, he is represented
      with gray hairs, and as the contemporary of Galerius. See
      Lactant. c. 32. Licinius was probably born about the year 250.]

      54 (return) [ See the sixty-second and sixty-third books of Dion
      Cassius.]

      When Tiridates appeared on the frontiers of Armenia, he was
      received with an unfeigned transport of joy and loyalty. During
      twenty-six years, the country had experienced the real and
      imaginary hardships of a foreign yoke. The Persian monarchs
      adorned their new conquest with magnificent buildings; but those
      monuments had been erected at the expense of the people, and were
      abhorred as badges of slavery. The apprehension of a revolt had
      inspired the most rigorous precautions: oppression had been
      aggravated by insult, and the consciousness of the public hatred
      had been productive of every measure that could render it still
      more implacable. We have already remarked the intolerant spirit
      of the Magian religion. The statues of the deified kings of
      Armenia, and the sacred images of the sun and moon, were broke in
      pieces by the zeal of the conqueror; and the perpetual fire of
      Ormuzd was kindled and preserved upon an altar erected on the
      summit of Mount Bagavan. 55 It was natural, that a people
      exasperated by so many injuries, should arm with zeal in the
      cause of their independence, their religion, and their hereditary
      sovereign. The torrent bore down every obstacle, and the Persian
      garrisons retreated before its fury. The nobles of Armenia flew
      to the standard of Tiridates, all alleging their past merit,
      offering their future service, and soliciting from the new king
      those honors and rewards from which they had been excluded with
      disdain under the foreign government. 56 The command of the army
      was bestowed on Artavasdes, whose father had saved the infancy of
      Tiridates, and whose family had been massacred for that generous
      action. The brother of Artavasdes obtained the government of a
      province. One of the first military dignities was conferred on
      the satrap Otas, a man of singular temperance and fortitude, who
      presented to the king his sister 57 and a considerable treasure,
      both of which, in a sequestered fortress, Otas had preserved from
      violation. Among the Armenian nobles appeared an ally, whose
      fortunes are too remarkable to pass unnoticed. His name was
      Mamgo, 571 his origin was Scythian, and the horde which
      acknowledge his authority had encamped a very few years before on
      the skirts of the Chinese empire, 58 which at that time extended
      as far as the neighborhood of Sogdiana. 59 Having incurred the
      displeasure of his master, Mamgo, with his followers, retired to
      the banks of the Oxus, and implored the protection of Sapor. The
      emperor of China claimed the fugitive, and alleged the rights of
      sovereignty. The Persian monarch pleaded the laws of hospitality,
      and with some difficulty avoided a war, by the promise that he
      would banish Mamgo to the uttermost parts of the West, a
      punishment, as he described it, not less dreadful than death
      itself. Armenia was chosen for the place of exile, and a large
      district was assigned to the Scythian horde, on which they might
      feed their flocks and herds, and remove their encampment from one
      place to another, according to the different seasons of the year.

      They were employed to repel the invasion of Tiridates; but their
      leader, after weighing the obligations and injuries which he had
      received from the Persian monarch, resolved to abandon his party.

      The Armenian prince, who was well acquainted with the merit as
      well as power of Mamgo, treated him with distinguished respect;
      and, by admitting him into his confidence, acquired a brave and
      faithful servant, who contributed very effectually to his
      restoration. 60

      55 (return) [ Moses of Chorene. Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 74. The
      statues had been erected by Valarsaces, who reigned in Armenia
      about 130 years before Christ, and was the first king of the
      family of Arsaces, (see Moses, Hist. Armen. l. ii. 2, 3.) The
      deification of the Arsacides is mentioned by Justin, (xli. 5,)
      and by Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 6.)]

      56 (return) [ The Armenian nobility was numerous and powerful.
      Moses mentions many families which were distinguished under the
      reign of Valarsaces, (l. ii. 7,) and which still subsisted in his
      own time, about the middle of the fifth century. See the preface
      of his Editors.]

      57 (return) [ She was named Chosroiduchta, and had not the os
      patulum like other women. (Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 79.) I do not
      understand the expression. * Note: Os patulum signifies merely a
      large and widely opening mouth. Ovid (Metam. xv. 513) says,
      speaking of the monster who attacked Hippolytus, patulo partem
      maris evomit ore. Probably a wide mouth was a common defect among
      the Armenian women.—G.]

      571 (return) [ Mamgo (according to M. St. Martin, note to Le
      Beau. ii. 213) belonged to the imperial race of Hon, who had
      filled the throne of China for four hundred years. Dethroned by
      the usurping race of Wei, Mamgo found a hospitable reception in
      Persia in the reign of Ardeschir. The emperor of china having
      demanded the surrender of the fugitive and his partisans, Sapor,
      then king, threatened with war both by Rome and China, counselled
      Mamgo to retire into Armenia. “I have expelled him from my
      dominions, (he answered the Chinese ambassador;) I have banished
      him to the extremity of the earth, where the sun sets; I have
      dismissed him to certain death.” Compare Mem. sur l’Armenie, ii.
      25.—M.]

      58 (return) [ In the Armenian history, (l. ii. 78,) as well as in
      the Geography, (p. 367,) China is called Zenia, or Zenastan. It
      is characterized by the production of silk, by the opulence of
      the natives, and by their love of peace, above all the other
      nations of the earth. * Note: See St. Martin, Mem. sur l’Armenie,
      i. 304.]

      59 (return) [ Vou-ti, the first emperor of the seventh dynasty,
      who then reigned in China, had political transactions with
      Fergana, a province of Sogdiana, and is said to have received a
      Roman embassy, (Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p. 38.) In those ages
      the Chinese kept a garrison at Kashgar, and one of their
      generals, about the time of Trajan, marched as far as the Caspian
      Sea. With regard to the intercourse between China and the Western
      countries, a curious memoir of M. de Guignes may be consulted, in
      the Academie des Inscriptions, tom. xxii. p. 355. * Note: The
      Chinese Annals mention, under the ninth year of Yan-hi, which
      corresponds with the year 166 J. C., an embassy which arrived
      from Tathsin, and was sent by a prince called An-thun, who can be
      no other than Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who then ruled over the
      Romans. St. Martin, Mem. sur l’Armænic. ii. 30. See also
      Klaproth, Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie, p. 69. The embassy came
      by Jy-nan, Tonquin.—M.]

      60 (return) [ See Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 81.]

      For a while, fortune appeared to favor the enterprising valor of
      Tiridates. He not only expelled the enemies of his family and
      country from the whole extent of Armenia, but in the prosecution
      of his revenge he carried his arms, or at least his incursions,
      into the heart of Assyria. The historian, who has preserved the
      name of Tiridates from oblivion, celebrates, with a degree of
      national enthusiasm, his personal prowess: and, in the true
      spirit of eastern romance, describes the giants and the elephants
      that fell beneath his invincible arm. It is from other
      information that we discover the distracted state of the Persian
      monarchy, to which the king of Armenia was indebted for some part
      of his advantages. The throne was disputed by the ambition of
      contending brothers; and Hormuz, after exerting without success
      the strength of his own party, had recourse to the dangerous
      assistance of the barbarians who inhabited the banks of the
      Caspian Sea. 61 The civil war was, however, soon terminated,
      either by a victor or by a reconciliation; and Narses, who was
      universally acknowledged as king of Persia, directed his whole
      force against the foreign enemy. The contest then became too
      unequal; nor was the valor of the hero able to withstand the
      power of the monarch. Tiridates, a second time expelled from the
      throne of Armenia, once more took refuge in the court of the
      emperors. 611 Narses soon reëstablished his authority over the
      revolted province; and loudly complaining of the protection
      afforded by the Romans to rebels and fugitives, aspired to the
      conquest of the East. 62

      61 (return) [ Ipsos Persas ipsumque Regem ascitis Saccis, et
      Russis, et Gellis, petit frater Ormies. Panegyric. Vet. iii. 1.
      The Saccæ were a nation of wandering Scythians, who encamped
      towards the sources of the Oxus and the Jaxartes. The Gelli where
      the inhabitants of Ghilan, along the Caspian Sea, and who so
      long, under the name of Dilemines, infested the Persian monarchy.
      See d’Herbelot, Bibliotheque]

      611 (return) [ M St. Martin represents this differently. Le roi
      de Perse * * * profits d’un voyage que Tiridate avoit fait a Rome
      pour attaquer ce royaume. This reads like the evasion of the
      national historians to disguise the fact discreditable to their
      hero. See Mem. sur l’Armenie, i. 304.—M.]

      62 (return) [ Moses of Chorene takes no notice of this second
      revolution, which I have been obliged to collect from a passage
      of Ammianus Marcellinus, (l. xxiii. c. 5.) Lactantius speaks of
      the ambition of Narses: “Concitatus domesticis exemplis avi sui
      Saporis ad occupandum orientem magnis copiis inhiabat.” De Mort.
      Persecut. c. 9.]

      Neither prudence nor honor could permit the emperors to forsake
      the cause of the Armenian king, and it was resolved to exert the
      force of the empire in the Persian war. Diocletian, with the calm
      dignity which he constantly assumed, fixed his own station in the
      city of Antioch, from whence he prepared and directed the
      military operations. 63 The conduct of the legions was intrusted
      to the intrepid valor of Galerius, who, for that important
      purpose, was removed from the banks of the Danube to those of the
      Euphrates. The armies soon encountered each other in the plains
      of Mesopotamia, and two battles were fought with various and
      doubtful success; but the third engagement was of a more decisive
      nature; and the Roman army received a total overthrow, which is
      attributed to the rashness of Galerius, who, with an
      inconsiderable body of troops, attacked the innumerable host of
      the Persians. 64 But the consideration of the country that was
      the scene of action, may suggest another reason for his defeat.
      The same ground on which Galerius was vanquished, had been
      rendered memorable by the death of Crassus, and the slaughter of
      ten legions. It was a plain of more than sixty miles, which
      extended from the hills of Carrhæ to the Euphrates; a smooth and
      barren surface of sandy desert, without a hillock, without a
      tree, and without a spring of fresh water. 65 The steady infantry
      of the Romans, fainting with heat and thirst, could neither hope
      for victory if they preserved their ranks, nor break their ranks
      without exposing themselves to the most imminent danger. In this
      situation they were gradually encompassed by the superior
      numbers, harassed by the rapid evolutions, and destroyed by the
      arrows of the barbarian cavalry.

      The king of Armenia had signalized his valor in the battle, and
      acquired personal glory by the public misfortune. He was pursued
      as far as the Euphrates; his horse was wounded, and it appeared
      impossible for him to escape the victorious enemy. In this
      extremity Tiridates embraced the only refuge which appeared
      before him: he dismounted and plunged into the stream. His armor
      was heavy, the river very deep, and at those parts at least half
      a mile in breadth; 66 yet such was his strength and dexterity,
      that he reached in safety the opposite bank. 67 With regard to
      the Roman general, we are ignorant of the circumstances of his
      escape; but when he returned to Antioch, Diocletian received him,
      not with the tenderness of a friend and colleague, but with the
      indignation of an offended sovereign. The haughtiest of men,
      clothed in his purple, but humbled by the sense of his fault and
      misfortune, was obliged to follow the emperor’s chariot above a
      mile on foot, and to exhibit, before the whole court, the
      spectacle of his disgrace. 68

      63 (return) [ We may readily believe, that Lactantius ascribes to
      cowardice the conduct of Diocletian. Julian, in his oration,
      says, that he remained with all the forces of the empire; a very
      hyperbolical expression.]

      64 (return) [ Our five abbreviators, Eutropius, Festus, the two
      Victors, and Orosius, all relate the last and great battle; but
      Orosius is the only one who speaks of the two former.]

      65 (return) [ The nature of the country is finely described by
      Plutarch, in the life of Crassus; and by Xenophon, in the first
      book of the Anabasis]

      66 (return) [ See Foster’s Dissertation in the second volume of
      the translation of the Anabasis by Spelman; which I will venture
      to recommend as one of the best versions extant.]

      67 (return) [ Hist. Armen. l. ii. c. 76. I have transferred this
      exploit of Tiridates from an imaginary defeat to the real one of
      Galerius.]

      68 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. The mile, in the hands
      of Eutropoius, (ix. 24,) of Festus (c. 25,) and of Orosius, (vii
      25), easily increased to several miles]

      As soon as Diocletian had indulged his private resentment, and
      asserted the majesty of supreme power, he yielded to the
      submissive entreaties of the Cæsar, and permitted him to retrieve
      his own honor, as well as that of the Roman arms. In the room of
      the unwarlike troops of Asia, which had most probably served in
      the first expedition, a second army was drawn from the veterans
      and new levies of the Illyrian frontier, and a considerable body
      of Gothic auxiliaries were taken into the Imperial pay. 69 At the
      head of a chosen army of twenty-five thousand men, Galerius again
      passed the Euphrates; but, instead of exposing his legions in the
      open plains of Mesopotamia he advanced through the mountains of
      Armenia, where he found the inhabitants devoted to his cause, and
      the country as favorable to the operations of infantry as it was
      inconvenient for the motions of cavalry. 70 Adversity had
      confirmed the Roman discipline, while the barbarians, elated by
      success, were become so negligent and remiss, that in the moment
      when they least expected it, they were surprised by the active
      conduct of Galerius, who, attended only by two horsemen, had with
      his own eyes secretly examined the state and position of their
      camp. A surprise, especially in the night time, was for the most
      part fatal to a Persian army. “Their horses were tied, and
      generally shackled, to prevent their running away; and if an
      alarm happened, a Persian had his housing to fix, his horse to
      bridle, and his corselet to put on, before he could mount.” 71 On
      this occasion, the impetuous attack of Galerius spread disorder
      and dismay over the camp of the barbarians. A slight resistance
      was followed by a dreadful carnage, and, in the general
      confusion, the wounded monarch (for Narses commanded his armies
      in person) fled towards the deserts of Media. His sumptuous
      tents, and those of his satraps, afforded an immense booty to the
      conqueror; and an incident is mentioned, which proves the rustic
      but martial ignorance of the legions in the elegant superfluities
      of life. A bag of shining leather, filled with pearls, fell into
      the hands of a private soldier; he carefully preserved the bag,
      but he threw away its contents, judging that whatever was of no
      use could not possibly be of any value. 72 The principal loss of
      Narses was of a much more affecting nature. Several of his wives,
      his sisters, and children, who had attended the army, were made
      captives in the defeat. But though the character of Galerius had
      in general very little affinity with that of Alexander, he
      imitated, after his victory, the amiable behavior of the
      Macedonian towards the family of Darius. The wives and children
      of Narses were protected from violence and rapine, conveyed to a
      place of safety, and treated with every mark of respect and
      tenderness, that was due from a generous enemy to their age,
      their sex, and their royal dignity. 73

      69 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c.
      21.]

      70 (return) [ Aurelius Victor says, “Per Armeniam in hostes
      contendit, quæ fermo sola, seu facilior vincendi via est.” He
      followed the conduct of Trajan, and the idea of Julius Cæsar.]

      71 (return) [ Xenophon’s Anabasis, l. iii. For that reason the
      Persian cavalry encamped sixty stadia from the enemy.]

      72 (return) [ The story is told by Ammianus, l. xxii. Instead of
      saccum, some read scutum.]

      73 (return) [ The Persians confessed the Roman superiority in
      morals as well as in arms. Eutrop. ix. 24. But this respect and
      gratitude of enemies is very seldom to be found in their own
      accounts.]




      Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
      III.

      While the East anxiously expected the decision of this great
      contest, the emperor Diocletian, having assembled in Syria a
      strong army of observation, displayed from a distance the
      resources of the Roman power, and reserved himself for any future
      emergency of the war. On the intelligence of the victory he
      condescended to advance towards the frontier, with a view of
      moderating, by his presence and counsels, the pride of Galerius.
      The interview of the Roman princes at Nisibis was accompanied
      with every expression of respect on one side, and of esteem on
      the other. It was in that city that they soon afterwards gave
      audience to the ambassador of the Great King. 74 The power, or at
      least the spirit, of Narses, had been broken by his last defeat;
      and he considered an immediate peace as the only means that could
      stop the progress of the Roman arms. He despatched Apharban, a
      servant who possessed his favor and confidence, with a commission
      to negotiate a treaty, or rather to receive whatever conditions
      the conqueror should impose. Apharban opened the conference by
      expressing his master’s gratitude for the generous treatment of
      his family, and by soliciting the liberty of those illustrious
      captives. He celebrated the valor of Galerius, without degrading
      the reputation of Narses, and thought it no dishonor to confess
      the superiority of the victorious Cæsar, over a monarch who had
      surpassed in glory all the princes of his race. Notwithstanding
      the justice of the Persian cause, he was empowered to submit the
      present differences to the decision of the emperors themselves;
      convinced as he was, that, in the midst of prosperity, they would
      not be unmindful of the vicissitudes of fortune. Apharban
      concluded his discourse in the style of eastern allegory, by
      observing that the Roman and Persian monarchies were the two eyes
      of the world, which would remain imperfect and mutilated if
      either of them should be put out.

      74 (return) [ The account of the negotiation is taken from the
      fragments of Peter the Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationum,
      published in the Byzantine Collection. Peter lived under
      Justinian; but it is very evident, by the nature of his
      materials, that they are drawn from the most authentic and
      respectable writers.]

      “It well becomes the Persians,” replied Galerius, with a
      transport of fury, which seemed to convulse his whole frame, “it
      well becomes the Persians to expatiate on the vicissitudes of
      fortune, and calmly to read us lectures on the virtues of
      moderation. Let them remember their own _moderation_ towards the
      unhappy Valerian. They vanquished him by fraud, they treated him
      with indignity. They detained him till the last moment of his
      life in shameful captivity, and after his death they exposed his
      body to perpetual ignominy.” Softening, however, his tone,
      Galerius insinuated to the ambassador, that it had never been the
      practice of the Romans to trample on a prostrate enemy; and that,
      on this occasion, they should consult their own dignity rather
      than the Persian merit. He dismissed Apharban with a hope that
      Narses would soon be informed on what conditions he might obtain,
      from the clemency of the emperors, a lasting peace, and the
      restoration of his wives and children. In this conference we may
      discover the fierce passions of Galerius, as well as his
      deference to the superior wisdom and authority of Diocletian. The
      ambition of the former grasped at the conquest of the East, and
      had proposed to reduce Persia into the state of a province. The
      prudence of the latter, who adhered to the moderate policy of
      Augustus and the Antonines, embraced the favorable opportunity of
      terminating a successful war by an honorable and advantageous
      peace. 75

      75 (return) [ Adeo victor (says Aurelius) ut ni Valerius, cujus
      nutu omnis gerebantur, abnuisset, Romani fasces in provinciam
      novam ferrentur Verum pars terrarum tamen nobis utilior quæsita.]

      In pursuance of their promise, the emperors soon afterwards
      appointed Sicorius Probus, one of their secretaries, to acquaint
      the Persian court with their final resolution. As the minister of
      peace, he was received with every mark of politeness and
      friendship; but, under the pretence of allowing him the necessary
      repose after so long a journey, the audience of Probus was
      deferred from day to day; and he attended the slow motions of the
      king, till at length he was admitted to his presence, near the
      River Asprudus in Media. The secret motive of Narses, in this
      delay, had been to collect such a military force as might enable
      him, though sincerely desirous of peace, to negotiate with the
      greater weight and dignity. Three persons only assisted at this
      important conference, the minister Apharban, the præfect of the
      guards, and an officer who had commanded on the Armenian
      frontier. 76 The first condition proposed by the ambassador is
      not at present of a very intelligible nature; that the city of
      Nisibis might be established for the place of mutual exchange,
      or, as we should formerly have termed it, for the staple of
      trade, between the two empires. There is no difficulty in
      conceiving the intention of the Roman princes to improve their
      revenue by some restraints upon commerce; but as Nisibis was
      situated within their own dominions, and as they were masters
      both of the imports and exports, it should seem that such
      restraints were the objects of an internal law, rather than of a
      foreign treaty. To render them more effectual, some stipulations
      were probably required on the side of the king of Persia, which
      appeared so very repugnant either to his interest or to his
      dignity, that Narses could not be persuaded to subscribe them. As
      this was the only article to which he refused his consent, it was
      no longer insisted on; and the emperors either suffered the trade
      to flow in its natural channels, or contented themselves with
      such restrictions, as it depended on their own authority to
      establish.

      76 (return) [ He had been governor of Sumium, (Pot. Patricius in
      Excerpt. Legat. p. 30.) This province seems to be mentioned by
      Moses of Chorene, (Geograph. p. 360,) and lay to the east of
      Mount Ararat. * Note: The Siounikh of the Armenian writers St.
      Martin i. 142.—M.]

      As soon as this difficulty was removed, a solemn peace was
      concluded and ratified between the two nations. The conditions of
      a treaty so glorious to the empire, and so necessary to Persia,
      may deserve a more peculiar attention, as the history of Rome
      presents very few transactions of a similar nature; most of her
      wars having either been terminated by absolute conquest, or waged
      against barbarians ignorant of the use of letters. I. The Aboras,
      or, as it is called by Xenophon, the Araxes, was fixed as the
      boundary between the two monarchies. 77 That river, which rose
      near the Tigris, was increased, a few miles below Nisibis, by the
      little stream of the Mygdonius, passed under the walls of
      Singara, and fell into the Euphrates at Circesium, a frontier
      town, which, by the care of Diocletian, was very strongly
      fortified. 78 Mesopotomia, the object of so many wars, was ceded
      to the empire; and the Persians, by this treaty, renounced all
      pretensions to that great province. II. They relinquished to the
      Romans five provinces beyond the Tigris. 79 Their situation
      formed a very useful barrier, and their natural strength was soon
      improved by art and military skill. Four of these, to the north
      of the river, were districts of obscure fame and inconsiderable
      extent; Intiline, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and Moxoene; 791 but on
      the east of the Tigris, the empire acquired the large and
      mountainous territory of Carduene, the ancient seat of the
      Carduchians, who preserved for many ages their manly freedom in
      the heart of the despotic monarchies of Asia. The ten thousand
      Greeks traversed their country, after a painful march, or rather
      engagement, of seven days; and it is confessed by their leader,
      in his incomparable relation of the retreat, that they suffered
      more from the arrows of the Carduchians, than from the power of
      the Great King. 80 Their posterity, the Curds, with very little
      alteration either of name or manners, 801 acknowledged the
      nominal sovereignty of the Turkish sultan. III. It is almost
      needless to observe, that Tiridates, the faithful ally of Rome,
      was restored to the throne of his fathers, and that the rights of
      the Imperial supremacy were fully asserted and secured. The
      limits of Armenia were extended as far as the fortress of Sintha
      in Media, and this increase of dominion was not so much an act of
      liberality as of justice. Of the provinces already mentioned
      beyond the Tigris, the four first had been dismembered by the
      Parthians from the crown of Armenia; 81 and when the Romans
      acquired the possession of them, they stipulated, at the expense
      of the usurpers, an ample compensation, which invested their ally
      with the extensive and fertile country of Atropatene. Its
      principal city, in the same situation perhaps as the modern
      Tauris, was frequently honored by the residence of Tiridates; and
      as it sometimes bore the name of Ecbatana, he imitated, in the
      buildings and fortifications, the splendid capital of the Medes.
      82 IV. The country of Iberia was barren, its inhabitants rude and
      savage. But they were accustomed to the use of arms, and they
      separated from the empire barbarians much fiercer and more
      formidable than themselves. The narrow defiles of Mount Caucasus
      were in their hands, and it was in their choice, either to admit
      or to exclude the wandering tribes of Sarmatia, whenever a
      rapacious spirit urged them to penetrate into the richer climes
      of the South. 83 The nomination of the kings of Iberia, which was
      resigned by the Persian monarch to the emperors, contributed to
      the strength and security of the Roman power in Asia. 84 The East
      enjoyed a profound tranquillity during forty years; and the
      treaty between the rival monarchies was strictly observed till
      the death of Tiridates; when a new generation, animated with
      different views and different passions, succeeded to the
      government of the world; and the grandson of Narses undertook a
      long and memorable war against the princes of the house of
      Constantine.

      77 (return) [ By an error of the geographer Ptolemy, the position
      of Singara is removed from the Aboras to the Tigris, which may
      have produced the mistake of Peter, in assigning the latter river
      for the boundary, instead of the former. The line of the Roman
      frontier traversed, but never followed, the course of the Tigris.
      * Note: There are here several errors. Gibbon has confounded the
      streams, and the towns which they pass. The Aboras, or rather the
      Chaboras, the Araxes of Xenophon, has its source above Ras-Ain or
      Re-Saina, (Theodosiopolis,) about twenty-seven leagues from the
      Tigris; it receives the waters of the Mygdonius, or Saocoras,
      about thirty-three leagues below Nisibis. at a town now called Al
      Nahraim; it does not pass under the walls of Singara; it is the
      Saocoras that washes the walls of that town: the latter river has
      its source near Nisibis. at five leagues from the Tigris. See
      D’Anv. l’Euphrate et le Tigre, 46, 49, 50, and the map.—— To the
      east of the Tigris is another less considerable river, named also
      the Chaboras, which D’Anville calls the Centrites, Khabour,
      Nicephorius, without quoting the authorities on which he gives
      those names. Gibbon did not mean to speak of this river, which
      does not pass by Singara, and does not fall into the Euphrates.
      See Michaelis, Supp. ad Lex. Hebraica. 3d part, p. 664, 665.—G.]

      78 (return) [ Procopius de Edificiis, l. ii. c. 6.]

      79 (return) [ Three of the provinces, Zabdicene, Arzanene, and
      Carduene, are allowed on all sides. But instead of the other two,
      Peter (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) inserts Rehimene and Sophene. I
      have preferred Ammianus, (l. xxv. 7,) because it might be proved
      that Sophene was never in the hands of the Persians, either
      before the reign of Diocletian, or after that of Jovian. For want
      of correct maps, like those of M. d’Anville, almost all the
      moderns, with Tillemont and Valesius at their head, have
      imagined, that it was in respect to Persia, and not to Rome, that
      the five provinces were situate beyond the Tigris.]

      791 (return) [ See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, i. 380. He would
      read, for Intiline, Ingeleme, the name of a small province of
      Armenia, near the sources of the Tigris, mentioned by St.
      Epiphanius, (Hæres, 60;) for the unknown name Arzacene, with
      Gibbon, Arzanene. These provinces do not appear to have made an
      integral part of the Roman empire; Roman garrisons replaced those
      of Persia, but the sovereignty remained in the hands of the
      feudatory princes of Armenia. A prince of Carduene, ally or
      dependent on the empire, with the Roman name of Jovianus, occurs
      in the reign of Julian.—M.]

      80 (return) [ Xenophon’s Anabasis, l. iv. Their bows were three
      cubits in length, their arrows two; they rolled down stones that
      were each a wagon load. The Greeks found a great many villages in
      that rude country.]

      801 (return) [ I travelled through this country in 1810, and
      should judge, from what I have read and seen of its inhabitants,
      that they have remained unchanged in their appearance and
      character for more than twenty centuries Malcolm, note to Hist.
      of Persia, vol. i. p. 82.—M.]

      81 (return) [ According to Eutropius, (vi. 9, as the text is
      represented by the best Mss.,) the city of Tigranocerta was in
      Arzanene. The names and situation of the other three may be
      faintly traced.]

      82 (return) [ Compare Herodotus, l. i. c. 97, with Moses
      Choronens. Hist Armen. l. ii. c. 84, and the map of Armenia given
      by his editors.]

      83 (return) [ Hiberi, locorum potentes, Caspia via Sarmatam in
      Armenios raptim effundunt. Tacit. Annal. vi. 34. See Strabon.
      Geograph. l. xi. p. 764, edit. Casaub.]

      84 (return) [ Peter Patricius (in Excerpt. Leg. p. 30) is the
      only writer who mentions the Iberian article of the treaty.]

      The arduous work of rescuing the distressed empire from tyrants
      and barbarians had now been completely achieved by a succession
      of Illyrian peasants. As soon as Diocletian entered into the
      twentieth year of his reign, he celebrated that memorable æra, as
      well as the success of his arms, by the pomp of a Roman triumph.
      85 Maximian, the equal partner of his power, was his only
      companion in the glory of that day. The two Cæsars had fought and
      conquered, but the merit of their exploits was ascribed,
      according to the rigor of ancient maxims, to the auspicious
      influence of their fathers and emperors. 86 The triumph of
      Diocletian and Maximian was less magnificent, perhaps, than those
      of Aurelian and Probus, but it was dignified by several
      circumstances of superior fame and good fortune. Africa and
      Britain, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Nile, furnished their
      respective trophies; but the most distinguished ornament was of a
      more singular nature, a Persian victory followed by an important
      conquest. The representations of rivers, mountains, and
      provinces, were carried before the Imperial car. The images of
      the captive wives, the sisters, and the children of the Great
      King, afforded a new and grateful spectacle to the vanity of the
      people. 87 In the eyes of posterity, this triumph is remarkable,
      by a distinction of a less honorable kind. It was the last that
      Rome ever beheld. Soon after this period, the emperors ceased to
      vanquish, and Rome ceased to be the capital of the empire.

      85 (return) [ Euseb. in Chron. Pagi ad annum. Till the discovery
      of the treatise De Mortibus Persecutorum, it was not certain that
      the triumph and the Vicennalia was celebrated at the same time.]

      86 (return) [ At the time of the Vicennalia, Galerius seems to
      have kept station on the Danube. See Lactant. de M. P. c. 38.]

      87 (return) [ Eutropius (ix. 27) mentions them as a part of the
      triumph. As the persons had been restored to Narses, nothing more
      than their images could be exhibited.]

      The spot on which Rome was founded had been consecrated by
      ancient ceremonies and imaginary miracles. The presence of some
      god, or the memory of some hero, seemed to animate every part of
      the city, and the empire of the world had been promised to the
      Capitol. 88 The native Romans felt and confessed the power of
      this agreeable illusion. It was derived from their ancestors, had
      grown up with their earliest habits of life, and was protected,
      in some measure, by the opinion of political utility. The form
      and the seat of government were intimately blended together, nor
      was it esteemed possible to transport the one without destroying
      the other. 89 But the sovereignty of the capital was gradually
      annihilated in the extent of conquest; the provinces rose to the
      same level, and the vanquished nations acquired the name and
      privileges, without imbibing the partial affections, of Romans.
      During a long period, however, the remains of the ancient
      constitution, and the influence of custom, preserved the dignity
      of Rome. The emperors, though perhaps of African or Illyrian
      extraction, respected their adopted country, as the seat of their
      power, and the centre of their extensive dominions. The
      emergencies of war very frequently required their presence on the
      frontiers; but Diocletian and Maximian were the first Roman
      princes who fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence in
      the provinces; and their conduct, however it might be suggested
      by private motives, was justified by very specious considerations
      of policy. The court of the emperor of the West was, for the most
      part, established at Milan, whose situation, at the foot of the
      Alps, appeared far more convenient than that of Rome, for the
      important purpose of watching the motions of the barbarians of
      Germany. Milan soon assumed the splendor of an Imperial city. The
      houses are described as numerous and well built; the manners of
      the people as polished and liberal. A circus, a theatre, a mint,
      a palace, baths, which bore the name of their founder Maximian;
      porticos adorned with statues, and a double circumference of
      walls, contributed to the beauty of the new capital; nor did it
      seem oppressed even by the proximity of Rome. 90 To rival the
      majesty of Rome was the ambition likewise of Diocletian, who
      employed his leisure, and the wealth of the East, in the
      embellishment of Nicomedia, a city placed on the verge of Europe
      and Asia, almost at an equal distance between the Danube and the
      Euphrates. By the taste of the monarch, and at the expense of the
      people, Nicomedia acquired, in the space of a few years, a degree
      of magnificence which might appear to have required the labor of
      ages, and became inferior only to Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch,
      in extent of populousness. 91 The life of Diocletian and Maximian
      was a life of action, and a considerable portion of it was spent
      in camps, or in the long and frequent marches; but whenever the
      public business allowed them any relaxation, they seemed to have
      retired with pleasure to their favorite residences of Nicomedia
      and Milan. Till Diocletian, in the twentieth year of his reign,
      celebrated his Roman triumph, it is extremely doubtful whether he
      ever visited the ancient capital of the empire. Even on that
      memorable occasion his stay did not exceed two months. Disgusted
      with the licentious familiarity of the people, he quitted Rome
      with precipitation thirteen days before it was expected that he
      should have appeared in the senate, invested with the ensigns of
      the consular dignity. 92

      88 (return) [ Livy gives us a speech of Camillus on that subject,
      (v. 51—55,) full of eloquence and sensibility, in opposition to a
      design of removing the seat of government from Rome to the
      neighboring city of Veii.]

      89 (return) [ Julius Cæsar was reproached with the intention of
      removing the empire to Ilium or Alexandria. See Sueton. in Cæsar.
      c. 79. According to the ingenious conjecture of Le Fevre and
      Dacier, the ode of the third book of Horace was intended to
      divert from the execution of a similar design.]

      90 (return) [ See Aurelius Victor, who likewise mentions the
      buildings erected by Maximian at Carthage, probably during the
      Moorish war. We shall insert some verses of Ausonius de Clar.
      Urb. v.—— Et Mediolani miræomnia: copia rerum; Innumeræ cultæque
      domus; facunda virorum Ingenia, et mores læti: tum duplice muro
      Amplificata loci species; populique voluptas Circus; et inclusi
      moles cuneata Theatri; Templa, Palatinæque arces, opulensque
      Moneta, Et regio Herculei celebris sub honore lavacri. Cunctaque
      marmoreis ornata Peristyla signis; Moeniaque in valli formam
      circumdata labro, Omnia quæ magnis operum velut æmula formis
      Excellunt: nec juncta premit vicinia Romæ.]

      91 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. Libanius, Orat. viii. p.
      203.]

      92 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 17. On a similar occasion,
      Ammianus mentions the dicacitas plebis, as not very agreeable to
      an Imperial ear. (See l. xvi. c. 10.)]

      The dislike expressed by Diocletian towards Rome and Roman
      freedom was not the effect of momentary caprice, but the result
      of the most artful policy. That crafty prince had framed a new
      system of Imperial government, which was afterwards completed by
      the family of Constantine; and as the image of the old
      constitution was religiously preserved in the senate, he resolved
      to deprive that order of its small remains of power and
      consideration. We may recollect, about eight years before the
      elevation of Diocletian, the transient greatness, and the
      ambitious hopes, of the Roman senate. As long as that enthusiasm
      prevailed, many of the nobles imprudently displayed their zeal in
      the cause of freedom; and after the successes of Probus had
      withdrawn their countenance from the republican party, the
      senators were unable to disguise their impotent resentment.

      As the sovereign of Italy, Maximian was intrusted with the care
      of extinguishing this troublesome, rather than dangerous spirit,
      and the task was perfectly suited to his cruel temper. The most
      illustrious members of the senate, whom Diocletian always
      affected to esteem, were involved, by his colleague, in the
      accusation of imaginary plots; and the possession of an elegant
      villa, or a well-cultivated estate, was interpreted as a
      convincing evidence of guilt. 93 The camp of the Prætorians,
      which had so long oppressed, began to protect, the majesty of
      Rome; and as those haughty troops were conscious of the decline
      of their power, they were naturally disposed to unite their
      strength with the authority of the senate. By the prudent
      measures of Diocletian, the numbers of the Prætorians were
      insensibly reduced, their privileges abolished, 94 and their
      place supplied by two faithful legions of Illyricum, who, under
      the new titles of Jovians and Herculians, were appointed to
      perform the service of the Imperial guards. 95 But the most fatal
      though secret wound, which the senate received from the hands of
      Diocletian and Maximian, was inflicted by the inevitable
      operation of their absence. As long as the emperors resided at
      Rome, that assembly might be oppressed, but it could scarcely be
      neglected. The successors of Augustus exercised the power of
      dictating whatever laws their wisdom or caprice might suggest;
      but those laws were ratified by the sanction of the senate. The
      model of ancient freedom was preserved in its deliberations and
      decrees; and wise princes, who respected the prejudices of the
      Roman people, were in some measure obliged to assume the language
      and behavior suitable to the general and first magistrate of the
      republic. In the armies and in the provinces, they displayed the
      dignity of monarchs; and when they fixed their residence at a
      distance from the capital, they forever laid aside the
      dissimulation which Augustus had recommended to his successors.
      In the exercise of the legislative as well as the executive
      power, the sovereign advised with his ministers, instead of
      consulting the great council of the nation. The name of the
      senate was mentioned with honor till the last period of the
      empire; the vanity of its members was still flattered with
      honorary distinctions; 96 but the assembly which had so long been
      the source, and so long the instrument of power, was respectfully
      suffered to sink into oblivion. The senate of Rome, losing all
      connection with the Imperial court and the actual constitution,
      was left a venerable but useless monument of antiquity on the
      Capitoline hill.

      93 (return) [ Lactantius accuses Maximian of destroying fictis
      criminationibus lumina senatus, (De M. P. c. 8.) Aurelius Victor
      speaks very doubtfully of the faith of Diocletian towards his
      friends.]

      94 (return) [ Truncatæ vires urbis, imminuto prætoriarum
      cohortium atque in armis vulgi numero. Aurelius Victor.
      Lactantius attributes to Galerius the prosecution of the same
      plan, (c. 26.)]

      95 (return) [ They were old corps stationed in Illyricum; and
      according to the ancient establishment, they each consisted of
      six thousand men. They had acquired much reputation by the use of
      the plumbatæ, or darts loaded with lead. Each soldier carried
      five of these, which he darted from a considerable distance, with
      great strength and dexterity. See Vegetius, i. 17.]

      96 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. vi. tit. ii. with
      Godefroy’s commentary.]




      Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And His Three Associates.—Part
      IV.

      When the Roman princes had lost sight of the senate and of their
      ancient capital, they easily forgot the origin and nature of
      their legal power. The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, of
      censor, and of tribune, by the union of which it had been formed,
      betrayed to the people its republican extraction. Those modest
      titles were laid aside; 97 and if they still distinguished their
      high station by the appellation of Emperor, or Imperator, that
      word was understood in a new and more dignified sense, and no
      longer denoted the general of the Roman armies, but the sovereign
      of the Roman world. The name of Emperor, which was at first of a
      military nature, was associated with another of a more servile
      kind. The epithet of Dominus, or Lord, in its primitive
      signification, was expressive not of the authority of a prince
      over his subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of
      the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. 98
      Viewing it in that odious light, it had been rejected with
      abhorrence by the first Cæsars. Their resistance insensibly
      became more feeble, and the name less odious; till at length the
      style of _our Lord and Emperor_ was not only bestowed by
      flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public
      monuments. Such lofty epithets were sufficient to elate and
      satisfy the most excessive vanity; and if the successors of
      Diocletian still declined the title of King, it seems to have
      been the effect not so much of their moderation as of their
      delicacy. Wherever the Latin tongue was in use, (and it was the
      language of government throughout the empire,) the Imperial
      title, as it was peculiar to themselves, conveyed a more
      respectable idea than the name of king, which they must have
      shared with a hundred barbarian chieftains; or which, at the
      best, they could derive only from Romulus, or from Tarquin. But
      the sentiments of the East were very different from those of the
      West. From the earliest period of history, the sovereigns of Asia
      had been celebrated in the Greek language by the title of
      Basileus, or King; and since it was considered as the first
      distinction among men, it was soon employed by the servile
      provincials of the East, in their humble addresses to the Roman
      throne. 99 Even the attributes, or at least the titles, of the
      DIVINITY, were usurped by Diocletian and Maximian, who
      transmitted them to a succession of Christian emperors. 100 Such
      extravagant compliments, however, soon lose their impiety by
      losing their meaning; and when the ear is once accustomed to the
      sound, they are heard with indifference, as vague though
      excessive professions of respect.

      97 (return) [ See the 12th dissertation in Spanheim’s excellent
      work de Usu Numismatum. From medals, inscriptions, and
      historians, he examines every title separately, and traces it
      from Augustus to the moment of its disappearing.]

      98 (return) [ Pliny (in Panegyr. c. 3, 55, &c.) speaks of Dominus
      with execration, as synonymous to Tyrant, and opposite to Prince.
      And the same Pliny regularly gives that title (in the tenth book
      of the epistles) to his friend rather than master, the virtuous
      Trajan. This strange contradiction puzzles the commentators, who
      think, and the translators, who can write.]

      99 (return) [ Synesius de Regno, edit. Petav. p. 15. I am
      indebted for this quotation to the Abbé de la Bleterie.]

      100 (return) [ Soe Vandale de Consecratione, p. 354, &c. It was
      customary for the emperors to mention (in the preamble of laws)
      their numen, sacreo majesty, divine oracles, &c. According to
      Tillemont, Gregory Nazianzen complains most bitterly of the
      profanation, especially when it was practised by an Arian
      emperor. * Note: In the time of the republic, says Hegewisch,
      when the consuls, the prætors, and the other magistrates appeared
      in public, to perform the functions of their office, their
      dignity was announced both by the symbols which use had
      consecrated, and the brilliant cortege by which they were
      accompanied. But this dignity belonged to the office, not to the
      individual; this pomp belonged to the magistrate, not to the man.
      * * The consul, followed, in the comitia, by all the senate, the
      prætors, the quæstors, the ædiles, the lictors, the apparitors,
      and the heralds, on reentering his house, was served only by
      freedmen and by his slaves. The first emperors went no further.
      Tiberius had, for his personal attendance, only a moderate number
      of slaves, and a few freedmen. (Tacit. Ann. iv. 7.) But in
      proportion as the republican forms disappeared, one after
      another, the inclination of the emperors to environ themselves
      with personal pomp, displayed itself more and more. ** The
      magnificence and the ceremonial of the East were entirely
      introduced by Diocletian, and were consecrated by Constantine to
      the Imperial use. Thenceforth the palace, the court, the table,
      all the personal attendance, distinguished the emperor from his
      subjects, still more than his superior dignity. The organization
      which Diocletian gave to his new court, attached less honor and
      distinction to rank than to services performed towards the
      members of the Imperial family. Hegewisch, Essai, Hist. sur les
      Finances Romains. Few historians have characterized, in a more
      philosophic manner, the influence of a new institution.—G.——It is
      singular that the son of a slave reduced the haughty aristocracy
      of Home to the offices of servitude.—M.]

      From the time of Augustus to that of Diocletian, the Roman
      princes, conversing in a familiar manner among their
      fellow-citizens, were saluted only with the same respect that was
      usually paid to senators and magistrates. Their principal
      distinction was the Imperial or military robe of purple; whilst
      the senatorial garment was marked by a broad, and the equestrian
      by a narrow, band or stripe of the same honorable color. The
      pride, or rather the policy, of Diocletian engaged that artful
      prince to introduce the stately magnificence of the court of
      Persia. 101 He ventured to assume the diadem, an ornament
      detested by the Romans as the odious ensign of royalty, and the
      use of which had been considered as the most desperate act of the
      madness of Caligula. It was no more than a broad white fillet set
      with pearls, which encircled the emperor’s head. The sumptuous
      robes of Diocletian and his successors were of silk and gold; and
      it is remarked with indignation that even their shoes were
      studded with the most precious gems. The access to their sacred
      person was every day rendered more difficult by the institution
      of new forms and ceremonies. The avenues of the palace were
      strictly guarded by the various schools, as they began to be
      called, of domestic officers. The interior apartments were
      intrusted to the jealous vigilance of the eunuchs, the increase
      of whose numbers and influence was the most infallible symptom of
      the progress of despotism. When a subject was at length admitted
      to the Imperial presence, he was obliged, whatever might be his
      rank, to fall prostrate on the ground, and to adore, according to
      the eastern fashion, the divinity of his lord and master. 102
      Diocletian was a man of sense, who, in the course of private as
      well as public life, had formed a just estimate both of himself
      and of mankind; nor is it easy to conceive that in substituting
      the manners of Persia to those of Rome he was seriously actuated
      by so mean a principle as that of vanity. He flattered himself
      that an ostentation of splendor and luxury would subdue the
      imagination of the multitude; that the monarch would be less
      exposed to the rude license of the people and the soldiers, as
      his person was secluded from the public view; and that habits of
      submission would insensibly be productive of sentiments of
      veneration. Like the modesty affected by Augustus, the state
      maintained by Diocletian was a theatrical representation; but it
      must be confessed, that of the two comedies, the former was of a
      much more liberal and manly character than the latter. It was the
      aim of the one to disguise, and the object of the other to
      display, the unbounded power which the emperors possessed over
      the Roman world.

      101 (return) [ See Spanheim de Usu Numismat. Dissert. xii.]

      102 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Eutropius, ix. 26. It appears by
      the Panegyrists, that the Romans were soon reconciled to the name
      and ceremony of adoration.]

      Ostentation was the first principle of the new system instituted
      by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire,
      the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well as military
      administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of
      government, and rendered its operations less rapid, but more
      secure. Whatever advantages and whatever defects might attend
      these innovations, they must be ascribed in a very great degree
      to the first inventor; but as the new frame of policy was
      gradually improved and completed by succeeding princes, it will
      be more satisfactory to delay the consideration of it till the
      season of its full maturity and perfection. 103 Reserving,
      therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact picture of
      the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing the
      principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of
      Diocletian. He had associated three colleagues in the exercise of
      the supreme power; and as he was convinced that the abilities of
      a single man were inadequate to the public defence, he considered
      the joint administration of four princes not as a temporary
      expedient, but as a fundamental law of the constitution. It was
      his intention that the two elder princes should be distinguished
      by the use of the diadem, and the title of _Augusti;_ that, as
      affection or esteem might direct their choice, they should
      regularly call to their assistance two subordinate colleagues;
      and that the _Cæsars_, rising in their turn to the first rank,
      should supply an uninterrupted succession of emperors. The empire
      was divided into four parts. The East and Italy were the most
      honorable, the Danube and the Rhine the most laborious stations.
      The former claimed the presence of the _Augusti_, the latter were
      intrusted to the administration of the _Cæsars_. The strength of
      the legions was in the hands of the four partners of sovereignty,
      and the despair of successively vanquishing four formidable
      rivals might intimidate the ambition of an aspiring general. In
      their civil government the emperors were supposed to exercise the
      undivided power of the monarch, and their edicts, inscribed with
      their joint names, were received in all the provinces, as
      promulgated by their mutual councils and authority.
      Notwithstanding these precautions, the political union of the
      Roman world was gradually dissolved, and a principle of division
      was introduced, which, in the course of a few years, occasioned
      the perpetual separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.

      103 (return) [ The innovations introduced by Diocletian are
      chiefly deduced, 1st, from some very strong passages in
      Lactantius; and, 2dly, from the new and various offices which, in
      the Theodosian code, appear already established in the beginning
      of the reign of Constantine.]

      The system of Diocletian was accompanied with another very
      material disadvantage, which cannot even at present be totally
      overlooked; a more expensive establishment, and consequently an
      increase of taxes, and the oppression of the people. Instead of a
      modest family of slaves and freedmen, such as had contented the
      simple greatness of Augustus and Trajan, three or four
      magnificent courts were established in the various parts of the
      empire, and as many Roman _kings_ contended with each other and
      with the Persian monarch for the vain superiority of pomp and
      luxury. The number of ministers, of magistrates, of officers, and
      of servants, who filled the different departments of the state,
      was multiplied beyond the example of former times; and (if we may
      borrow the warm expression of a contemporary) “when the
      proportion of those who received exceeded the proportion of those
      who contributed, the provinces were oppressed by the weight of
      tributes.” 104 From this period to the extinction of the empire,
      it would be easy to deduce an uninterrupted series of clamors and
      complaints. According to his religion and situation, each writer
      chooses either Diocletian, or Constantine, or Valens, or
      Theodosius, for the object of his invectives; but they
      unanimously agree in representing the burden of the public
      impositions, and particularly the land tax and capitation, as the
      intolerable and increasing grievance of their own times. From
      such a concurrence, an impartial historian, who is obliged to
      extract truth from satire, as well as from panegyric, will be
      inclined to divide the blame among the princes whom they accuse,
      and to ascribe their exactions much less to their personal vices,
      than to the uniform system of their administration. 1041 The
      emperor Diocletian was indeed the author of that system; but
      during his reign, the growing evil was confined within the bounds
      of modesty and discretion, and he deserves the reproach of
      establishing pernicious precedents, rather than of exercising
      actual oppression. 105 It may be added, that his revenues were
      managed with prudent economy; and that after all the current
      expenses were discharged, there still remained in the Imperial
      treasury an ample provision either for judicious liberality or
      for any emergency of the state.

      104 (return) [ Lactant. de M. P. c. 7.]

      1041 (return) [ The most curious document which has come to light
      since the publication of Gibbon’s History, is the edict of
      Diocletian, published from an inscription found at Eskihissar,
      (Stratoniccia,) by Col. Leake. This inscription was first copied
      by Sherard, afterwards much more completely by Mr. Bankes. It is
      confirmed and illustrated by a more imperfect copy of the same
      edict, found in the Levant by a gentleman of Aix, and brought to
      this country by M. Vescovali. This edict was issued in the name
      of the four Cæsars, Diocletian, Maximian, Constantius, and
      Galerius. It fixed a maximum of prices throughout the empire, for
      all the necessaries and commodities of life. The preamble
      insists, with great vehemence on the extortion and inhumanity of
      the venders and merchants. Quis enim adeo obtunisi (obtusi)
      pectores (is) et a sensu inhumanitatis extorris est qui ignorare
      potest immo non senserit in venalibus rebus quævel in mercimoniis
      aguntur vel diurna urbium conversatione tractantur, in tantum se
      licen liam defusisse, ut effrænata libido rapien—rum copia nec
      annorum ubertatibus mitigaretur. The edict, as Col. Leake clearly
      shows, was issued A. C. 303. Among the articles of which the
      maximum value is assessed, are oil, salt, honey, butchers’ meat,
      poultry, game, fish, vegetables, fruit the wages of laborers and
      artisans, schoolmasters and skins, boots and shoes, harness,
      timber, corn, wine, and beer, (zythus.) The depreciation in the
      value of money, or the rise in the price of commodities, had been
      so great during the past century, that butchers’ meat, which, in
      the second century of the empire, was in Rome about two denaril
      the pound, was now fixed at a maximum of eight. Col. Leake
      supposes the average price could not be less than four: at the
      same time the maximum of the wages of the agricultural laborers
      was twenty-five. The whole edict is, perhaps, the most gigantic
      effort of a blind though well-intentioned despotism, to control
      that which is, and ought to be, beyond the regulation of the
      government. See an Edict of Diocletian, by Col. Leake, London,
      1826. Col. Leake has not observed that this Edict is expressly
      named in the treatise de Mort. Persecut. ch. vii. Idem cum variis
      iniquitatibus immensam faceret caritatem, legem pretiis rerum
      venalium statuere conatus.—M]

      105 (return) [ Indicta lex nova quæ sane illorum temporum
      modestia tolerabilis, in perniciem processit. Aurel. Victor., who
      has treated the character of Diocletian with good sense, though
      in bad Latin.]

      It was in the twenty first year of his reign that Diocletian
      executed his memorable resolution of abdicating the empire; an
      action more naturally to have been expected from the elder or the
      younger Antoninus, than from a prince who had never practised the
      lessons of philosophy either in the attainment or in the use of
      supreme power. Diocletian acquired the glory of giving to the
      world the first example of a resignation, 106 which has not been
      very frequently imitated by succeeding monarchs. The parallel of
      Charles the Fifth, however, will naturally offer itself to our
      mind, not only since the eloquence of a modern historian has
      rendered that name so familiar to an English reader, but from the
      very striking resemblance between the characters of the two
      emperors, whose political abilities were superior to their
      military genius, and whose specious virtues were much less the
      effect of nature than of art. The abdication of Charles appears
      to have been hastened by the vicissitudes of fortune; and the
      disappointment of his favorite schemes urged him to relinquish a
      power which he found inadequate to his ambition. But the reign of
      Diocletian had flowed with a tide of uninterrupted success; nor
      was it till after he had vanquished all his enemies, and
      accomplished all his designs, that he seems to have entertained
      any serious thoughts of resigning the empire. Neither Charles nor
      Diocletian were arrived at a very advanced period of life; since
      the one was only fifty-five, and the other was no more than
      fifty-nine years of age; but the active life of those princes,
      their wars and journeys, the cares of royalty, and their
      application to business, had already impaired their constitution,
      and brought on the infirmities of a premature old age. 107

      106 (return) [ Solus omnium post conditum Romanum Imperium, qui
      extanto fastigio sponte ad privatæ vitæ statum civilitatemque
      remearet, Eutrop. ix. 28.]

      107 (return) [ The particulars of the journey and illness are
      taken from Laclantius, c. 17, who may sometimes be admitted as an
      evidence of public facts, though very seldom of private
      anecdotes.]

      Notwithstanding the severity of a very cold and rainy winter,
      Diocletian left Italy soon after the ceremony of his triumph, and
      began his progress towards the East round the circuit of the
      Illyrian provinces. From the inclemency of the weather, and the
      fatigue of the journey, he soon contracted a slow illness; and
      though he made easy marches, and was generally carried in a close
      litter, his disorder, before he arrived at Nicomedia, about the
      end of the summer, was become very serious and alarming. During
      the whole winter he was confined to his palace: his danger
      inspired a general and unaffected concern; but the people could
      only judge of the various alterations of his health, from the joy
      or consternation which they discovered in the countenances and
      behavior of his attendants. The rumor of his death was for some
      time universally believed, and it was supposed to be concealed
      with a view to prevent the troubles that might have happened
      during the absence of the Cæsar Galerius. At length, however, on
      the first of March, Diocletian once more appeared in public, but
      so pale and emaciated, that he could scarcely have been
      recognized by those to whom his person was the most familiar. It
      was time to put an end to the painful struggle, which he had
      sustained during more than a year, between the care of his health
      and that of his dignity. The former required indulgence and
      relaxation, the latter compelled him to direct, from the bed of
      sickness, the administration of a great empire. He resolved to
      pass the remainder of his days in honorable repose, to place his
      glory beyond the reach of fortune, and to relinquish the theatre
      of the world to his younger and more active associates. 108

      108 (return) [ Aurelius Victor ascribes the abdication, which had
      been so variously accounted for, to two causes: 1st, Diocletian’s
      contempt of ambition; and 2dly, His apprehension of impending
      troubles. One of the panegyrists (vi. 9) mentions the age and
      infirmities of Diocletian as a very natural reason for his
      retirement. * Note: Constantine (Orat. ad Sanct. c. 401) more
      than insinuated that derangement of mind, connected with the
      conflagration of the palace at Nicomedia by lightning, was the
      cause of his abdication. But Heinichen. in a very sensible note
      on this passage in Eusebius, while he admits that his long
      illness might produce a temporary depression of spirits,
      triumphantly appeals to the philosophical conduct of Diocletian
      in his retreat, and the influence which he still retained on
      public affairs.—M.]

      The ceremony of his abdication was performed in a spacious plain,
      about three miles from Nicomedia. The emperor ascended a lofty
      throne, and in a speech, full of reason and dignity, declared his
      intention, both to the people and to the soldiers who were
      assembled on this extraordinary occasion. As soon as he had
      divested himself of his purple, he withdrew from the gazing
      multitude; and traversing the city in a covered chariot,
      proceeded, without delay, to the favorite retirement which he had
      chosen in his native country of Dalmatia. On the same day, which
      was the first of May, 109 Maximian, as it had been previously
      concerted, made his resignation of the Imperial dignity at Milan.

      Even in the splendor of the Roman triumph, Diocletian had
      meditated his design of abdicating the government. As he wished
      to secure the obedience of Maximian, he exacted from him either a
      general assurance that he would submit his actions to the
      authority of his benefactor, or a particular promise that he
      would descend from the throne, whenever he should receive the
      advice and the example. This engagement, though it was confirmed
      by the solemnity of an oath before the altar of the Capitoline
      Jupiter, 110 would have proved a feeble restraint on the fierce
      temper of Maximian, whose passion was the love of power, and who
      neither desired present tranquility nor future reputation. But he
      yielded, however reluctantly, to the ascendant which his wiser
      colleague had acquired over him, and retired, immediately after
      his abdication, to a villa in Lucania, where it was almost
      impossible that such an impatient spirit could find any lasting
      tranquility.

      109 (return) [ The difficulties as well as mistakes attending the
      dates both of the year and of the day of Diocletian’s abdication
      are perfectly cleared up by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      iv. p 525, note 19, and by Pagi ad annum.]

      110 (return) [ See Panegyr. Veter. vi. 9. The oration was
      pronounced after Maximian had resumed the purple.]

      Diocletian, who, from a servile origin, had raised himself to the
      throne, passed the nine last years of his life in a private
      condition. Reason had dictated, and content seems to have
      accompanied, his retreat, in which he enjoyed, for a long time,
      the respect of those princes to whom he had resigned the
      possession of the world. 111 It is seldom that minds long
      exercised in business have formed any habits of conversing with
      themselves, and in the loss of power they principally regret the
      want of occupation. The amusements of letters and of devotion,
      which afford so many resources in solitude, were incapable of
      fixing the attention of Diocletian; but he had preserved, or at
      least he soon recovered, a taste for the most innocent as well as
      natural pleasures, and his leisure hours were sufficiently
      employed in building, planting, and gardening. His answer to
      Maximian is deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that
      restless old man to reassume the reins of government, and the
      Imperial purple. He rejected the temptation with a smile of pity,
      calmly observing, that if he could show Maximian the cabbages
      which he had planted with his own hands at Salona, he should no
      longer be urged to relinquish the enjoyment of happiness for the
      pursuit of power. 112 In his conversations with his friends, he
      frequently acknowledged, that of all arts, the most difficult was
      the art of reigning; and he expressed himself on that favorite
      topic with a degree of warmth which could be the result only of
      experience. “How often,” was he accustomed to say, “is it the
      interest of four or five ministers to combine together to deceive
      their sovereign! Secluded from mankind by his exalted dignity,
      the truth is concealed from his knowledge; he can see only with
      their eyes, he hears nothing but their misrepresentations. He
      confers the most important offices upon vice and weakness, and
      disgraces the most virtuous and deserving among his subjects. By
      such infamous arts,” added Diocletian, “the best and wisest
      princes are sold to the venal corruption of their courtiers.” 113
      A just estimate of greatness, and the assurance of immortal fame,
      improve our relish for the pleasures of retirement; but the Roman
      emperor had filled too important a character in the world, to
      enjoy without alloy the comforts and security of a private
      condition. It was impossible that he could remain ignorant of the
      troubles which afflicted the empire after his abdication. It was
      impossible that he could be indifferent to their consequences.
      Fear, sorrow, and discontent, sometimes pursued him into the
      solitude of Salona. His tenderness, or at least his pride, was
      deeply wounded by the misfortunes of his wife and daughter; and
      the last moments of Diocletian were imbittered by some affronts,
      which Licinius and Constantine might have spared the father of so
      many emperors, and the first author of their own fortune. A
      report, though of a very doubtful nature, has reached our times,
      that he prudently withdrew himself from their power by a
      voluntary death. 114

      111 (return) [ Eumenius pays him a very fine compliment: “At enim
      divinum illum virum, qui primus imperium et participavit et
      posuit, consilii et fact isui non poenitet; nec amisisse se putat
      quod sponte transcripsit. Felix beatusque vere quem vestra,
      tantorum principum, colunt privatum.” Panegyr. Vet. vii. 15.]

      112 (return) [ We are obliged to the younger Victor for this
      celebrated item. Eutropius mentions the thing in a more general
      manner.]

      113 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 223, 224. Vopiscus had learned
      this conversation from his father.]

      114 (return) [ The younger Victor slightly mentions the report.
      But as Diocletian had disobliged a powerful and successful party,
      his memory has been loaded with every crime and misfortune. It
      has been affirmed that he died raving mad, that he was condemned
      as a criminal by the Roman senate, &c.]

      Before we dismiss the consideration of the life and character of
      Diocletian, we may, for a moment, direct our view to the place of
      his retirement. Salona, a principal city of his native province
      of Dalmatia, was near two hundred Roman miles (according to the
      measurement of the public highways) from Aquileia and the
      confines of Italy, and about two hundred and seventy from
      Sirmium, the usual residence of the emperors whenever they
      visited the Illyrian frontier. 115 A miserable village still
      preserves the name of Salona; but so late as the sixteenth
      century, the remains of a theatre, and a confused prospect of
      broken arches and marble columns, continued to attest its ancient
      splendor. 116 About six or seven miles from the city Diocletian
      constructed a magnificent palace, and we may infer, from the
      greatness of the work, how long he had meditated his design of
      abdicating the empire. The choice of a spot which united all that
      could contribute either to health or to luxury did not require
      the partiality of a native. “The soil was dry and fertile, the
      air is pure and wholesome, and, though extremely hot during the
      summer months, this country seldom feels those sultry and noxious
      winds to which the coasts of Istria and some parts of Italy are
      exposed. The views from the palace are no less beautiful than the
      soil and climate were inviting. Towards the west lies the fertile
      shore that stretches along the Adriatic, in which a number of
      small islands are scattered in such a manner as to give this part
      of the sea the appearance of a great lake. On the north side lies
      the bay, which led to the ancient city of Salona; and the country
      beyond it, appearing in sight, forms a proper contrast to that
      more extensive prospect of water, which the Adriatic presents
      both to the south and to the east. Towards the north, the view is
      terminated by high and irregular mountains, situated at a proper
      distance, and in many places covered with villages, woods, and
      vineyards.” 117

      115 (return) [ See the Itiner. p. 269, 272, edit. Wessel.]

      116 (return) [ The Abate Fortis, in his Viaggio in Dalmazia, p.
      43, (printed at Venice in the year 1774, in two small volumes in
      quarto,) quotes a Ms account of the antiquities of Salona,
      composed by Giambattista Giustiniani about the middle of the
      xvith century.]

      117 (return) [ Adam’s Antiquities of Diocletian’s Palace at
      Spalatro, p. 6. We may add a circumstance or two from the Abate
      Fortis: the little stream of the Hyader, mentioned by Lucan,
      produces most exquisite trout, which a sagacious writer, perhaps
      a monk, supposes to have been one of the principal reasons that
      determined Diocletian in the choice of his retirement. Fortis, p.
      45. The same author (p. 38) observes, that a taste for
      agriculture is reviving at Spalatro; and that an experimental
      farm has lately been established near the city, by a society of
      gentlemen.]

      Though Constantine, from a very obvious prejudice, affects to
      mention the palace of Diocletian with contempt, 118 yet one of
      their successors, who could only see it in a neglected and
      mutilated state, celebrates its magnificence in terms of the
      highest admiration. 119 It covered an extent of ground consisting
      of between nine and ten English acres. The form was quadrangular,
      flanked with sixteen towers. Two of the sides were near six
      hundred, and the other two near seven hundred feet in length. The
      whole was constructed of a beautiful freestone, extracted from
      the neighboring quarries of Trau, or Tragutium, and very little
      inferior to marble itself. Four streets, intersecting each other
      at right angles, divided the several parts of this great edifice,
      and the approach to the principal apartment was from a very
      stately entrance, which is still denominated the Golden Gate. The
      approach was terminated by a _peristylium_ of granite columns, on
      one side of which we discover the square temple of Æsculapius, on
      the other the octagon temple of Jupiter. The latter of those
      deities Diocletian revered as the patron of his fortunes, the
      former as the protector of his health. By comparing the present
      remains with the precepts of Vitruvius, the several parts of the
      building, the baths, bedchamber, the _atrium_, the _basilica_,
      and the Cyzicene, Corinthian, and Egyptian halls have been
      described with some degree of precision, or at least of
      probability. Their forms were various, their proportions just;
      but they all were attended with two imperfections, very repugnant
      to our modern notions of taste and conveniency. These stately
      rooms had neither windows nor chimneys. They were lighted from
      the top, (for the building seems to have consisted of no more
      than one story,) and they received their heat by the help of
      pipes that were conveyed along the walls. The range of principal
      apartments was protected towards the south-west by a portico five
      hundred and seventeen feet long, which must have formed a very
      noble and delightful walk, when the beauties of painting and
      sculpture were added to those of the prospect.

      118 (return) [ Constantin. Orat. ad Coetum Sanct. c. 25. In this
      sermon, the emperor, or the bishop who composed it for him,
      affects to relate the miserable end of all the persecutors of the
      church.]

      119 (return) [ Constantin. Porphyr. de Statu Imper. p. 86.]

      Had this magnificent edifice remained in a solitary country, it
      would have been exposed to the ravages of time; but it might,
      perhaps, have escaped the rapacious industry of man. The village
      of Aspalathus, 120 and, long afterwards, the provincial town of
      Spalatro, have grown out of its ruins. The Golden Gate now opens
      into the market-place. St. John the Baptist has usurped the
      honors of Æsculapius; and the temple of Jupiter, under the
      protection of the Virgin, is converted into the cathedral church.

      For this account of Diocletian’s palace we are principally
      indebted to an ingenious artist of our own time and country, whom
      a very liberal curiosity carried into the heart of Dalmatia. 121
      But there is room to suspect that the elegance of his designs and
      engraving has somewhat flattered the objects which it was their
      purpose to represent. We are informed by a more recent and very
      judicious traveller, that the awful ruins of Spalatro are not
      less expressive of the decline of the art than of the greatness
      of the Roman empire in the time of Diocletian. 122 If such was
      indeed the state of architecture, we must naturally believe that
      painting and sculpture had experienced a still more sensible
      decay. The practice of architecture is directed by a few general
      and even mechanical rules. But sculpture, and, above all,
      painting, propose to themselves the imitation not only of the
      forms of nature, but of the characters and passions of the human
      soul. In those sublime arts the dexterity of the hand is of
      little avail, unless it is animated by fancy, and guided by the
      most correct taste and observation.

      120 (return) [ D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 162.]

      121 (return) [ Messieurs Adam and Clerisseau, attended by two
      draughtsmen visited Spalatro in the month of July, 1757. The
      magnificent work which their journey produced was published in
      London seven years afterwards.]

      122 (return) [ I shall quote the words of the Abate Fortis.
      “E’bastevolmente agli amatori dell’ Architettura, e dell’
      Antichita, l’opera del Signor Adams, che a donato molto a que’
      superbi vestigi coll’abituale eleganza del suo toccalapis e del
      bulino. In generale la rozzezza del scalpello, e’l cattivo gusto
      del secolo vi gareggiano colla magnificenz del fabricato.” See
      Viaggio in Dalmazia, p. 40.]

      It is almost unnecessary to remark, that the civil distractions
      of the empire, the license of the soldiers, the inroads of the
      barbarians, and the progress of despotism, had proved very
      unfavorable to genius, and even to learning. The succession of
      Illyrian princes restored the empire without restoring the
      sciences. Their military education was not calculated to inspire
      them with the love of letters; and even the mind of Diocletian,
      however active and capacious in business, was totally uninformed
      by study or speculation. The professions of law and physic are of
      such common use and certain profit that they will always secure a
      sufficient number of practitioners endowed with a reasonable
      degree of abilities and knowledge; but it does not appear that
      the students in those two faculties appeal to any celebrated
      masters who have flourished within that period. The voice of
      poetry was silent. History was reduced to dry and confused
      abridgments, alike destitute of amusement and instruction. A
      languid and affected eloquence was still retained in the pay and
      service of the emperors, who encouraged not any arts except those
      which contributed to the gratification of their pride, or the
      defence of their power. 123

      123 (return) [ The orator Eumenius was secretary to the emperors
      Maximian and Constantius, and Professor of Rhetoric in the
      college of Autun. His salary was six hundred thousand sesterces,
      which, according to the lowest computation of that age, must have
      exceeded three thousand pounds a year. He generously requested
      the permission of employing it in rebuilding the college. See his
      Oration De Restaurandis Scholis; which, though not exempt from
      vanity, may atone for his panegyrics.]

      The declining age of learning and of mankind is marked, however,
      by the rise and rapid progress of the new Platonists. The school
      of Alexandria silenced those of Athens; and the ancient sects
      enrolled themselves under the banners of the more fashionable
      teachers, who recommended their system by the novelty of their
      method, and the austerity of their manners. Several of these
      masters, Ammonius, Plotinus, Amelius, and Porphyry, 124 were men
      of profound thought and intense application; but by mistaking the
      true object of philosophy, their labors contributed much less to
      improve than to corrupt the human understanding. The knowledge
      that is suited to our situation and powers, the whole compass of
      moral, natural, and mathematical science, was neglected by the
      new Platonists; whilst they exhausted their strength in the
      verbal disputes of metaphysics, attempted to explore the secrets
      of the invisible world, and studied to reconcile Aristotle with
      Plato, on subjects of which both these philosophers were as
      ignorant as the rest of mankind. Consuming their reason in these
      deep but unsubstantial meditations, their minds were exposed to
      illusions of fancy. They flattered themselves that they possessed
      the secret of disengaging the soul from its corporal prison;
      claimed a familiar intercourse with demons and spirits; and, by a
      very singular revolution, converted the study of philosophy into
      that of magic. The ancient sages had derided the popular
      superstition; after disguising its extravagance by the thin
      pretence of allegory, the disciples of Plotinus and Porphyry
      became its most zealous defenders. As they agreed with the
      Christians in a few mysterious points of faith, they attacked the
      remainder of their theological system with all the fury of civil
      war. The new Platonists would scarcely deserve a place in the
      history of science, but in that of the church the mention of them
      will very frequently occur.

      124 (return) [Porphyry died about the time of Diocletian’s
      abdication. The life of his master Plotinus, which he composed,
      will give us the most complete idea of the genius of the sect,
      and the manners of its professors. This very curious piece is
      inserted in Fabricius Bibliotheca Græca tom. iv. p. 88—148.]




      Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
      Empire.—Part I.

     Troubles After The Abdication Of Diocletian.—Death Of
     Constantius.—Elevation Of Constantine And Maxen Tius.— Six
     Emperors At The Same Time.—Death Of Maximian And
     Galerius.—Victories Of Constantine Over Maxentius And
     Licinus.—Reunion Of The Empire Under The Authority Of Constantine.

      The balance of power established by Diocletian subsisted no
      longer than while it was sustained by the firm and dexterous hand
      of the founder. It required such a fortunate mixture of different
      tempers and abilities as could scarcely be found or even expected
      a second time; two emperors without jealousy, two Cæsars without
      ambition, and the same general interest invariably pursued by
      four independent princes. The abdication of Diocletian and
      Maximian was succeeded by eighteen years of discord and
      confusion. The empire was afflicted by five civil wars; and the
      remainder of the time was not so much a state of tranquillity as
      a suspension of arms between several hostile monarchs, who,
      viewing each other with an eye of fear and hatred, strove to
      increase their respective forces at the expense of their
      subjects.

      As soon as Diocletian and Maximian had resigned the purple, their
      station, according to the rules of the new constitution, was
      filled by the two Cæsars, Constantius and Galerius, who
      immediately assumed the title of Augustus. 1

      1 (return) [ M. de Montesquieu (Considerations sur la Grandeur et
      La Decadence des Romains, c. 17) supposes, on the authority of
      Orosius and Eusebius, that, on this occasion, the empire, for the
      first time, was really divided into two parts. It is difficult,
      however, to discover in what respect the plan of Galerius
      differed from that of Diocletian.]

      The honors of seniority and precedence were allowed to the former
      of those princes, and he continued under a new appellation to
      administer his ancient department of Gaul, Spain, and Britain.

      The government of those ample provinces was sufficient to
      exercise his talents and to satisfy his ambition. Clemency,
      temperance, and moderation, distinguished the amiable character
      of Constantius, and his fortunate subjects had frequently
      occasion to compare the virtues of their sovereign with the
      passions of Maximian, and even with the arts of Diocletian. 2
      Instead of imitating their eastern pride and magnificence,
      Constantius preserved the modesty of a Roman prince. He declared,
      with unaffected sincerity, that his most valued treasure was in
      the hearts of his people, and that, whenever the dignity of the
      throne, or the danger of the state, required any extraordinary
      supply, he could depend with confidence on their gratitude and
      liberality. 3 The provincials of Gaul, Spain, and Britain,
      sensible of his worth, and of their own happiness, reflected with
      anxiety on the declining health of the emperor Constantius, and
      the tender age of his numerous family, the issue of his second
      marriage with the daughter of Maximian.

      2 (return) [ Hic non modo amabilis, sed etiam venerabilis Gallis
      fuit; præcipuc quod Diocletiani suspectam prudentiam, et
      Maximiani sanguinariam violentiam imperio ejus evaserant. Eutrop.
      Breviar. x. i.]

      3 (return) [ Divitiis Provincialium (mel. provinciarum) ac
      privatorum studens, fisci commoda non admodum affectans;
      ducensque melius publicas opes a privatis haberi, quam intra unum
      claustrum reservari. Id. ibid. He carried this maxim so far, that
      whenever he gave an entertainment, he was obliged to borrow a
      service of plate.]

      The stern temper of Galerius was cast in a very different mould;
      and while he commanded the esteem of his subjects, he seldom
      condescended to solicit their affections. His fame in arms, and,
      above all, the success of the Persian war, had elated his haughty
      mind, which was naturally impatient of a superior, or even of an
      equal. If it were possible to rely on the partial testimony of an
      injudicious writer, we might ascribe the abdication of Diocletian
      to the menaces of Galerius, and relate the particulars of a
      _private_ conversation between the two princes, in which the
      former discovered as much pusillanimity as the latter displayed
      ingratitude and arrogance. 4 But these obscure anecdotes are
      sufficiently refuted by an impartial view of the character and
      conduct of Diocletian. Whatever might otherwise have been his
      intentions, if he had apprehended any danger from the violence of
      Galerius, his good sense would have instructed him to prevent the
      ignominious contest; and as he had held the sceptre with glory,
      he would have resigned it without disgrace.

      4 (return) [ Lactantius de Mort. Persecutor. c. 18. Were the
      particulars of this conference more consistent with truth and
      decency, we might still ask how they came to the knowledge of an
      obscure rhetorician. But there are many historians who put us in
      mind of the admirable saying of the great Conde to Cardinal de
      Retz: “Ces coquins nous font parlor et agir, comme ils auroient
      fait eux-memes a notre place.” * Note: This attack upon
      Lactantius is unfounded. Lactantius was so far from having been
      an obscure rhetorician, that he had taught rhetoric publicly, and
      with the greatest success, first in Africa, and afterwards in
      Nicomedia. His reputation obtained him the esteem of Constantine,
      who invited him to his court, and intrusted to him the education
      of his son Crispus. The facts which he relates took place during
      his own time; he cannot be accused of dishonesty or imposture.
      Satis me vixisse arbitrabor et officium hominis implesse si labor
      meus aliquos homines, ab erroribus iberatos, ad iter coeleste
      direxerit. De Opif. Dei, cap. 20. The eloquence of Lactantius has
      caused him to be called the Christian Cicero. Annon Gent.—G.
      ——Yet no unprejudiced person can read this coarse and particular
      private conversation of the two emperors, without assenting to
      the justice of Gibbon’s severe sentence. But the authorship of
      the treatise is by no means certain. The fame of Lactantius for
      eloquence as well as for truth, would suffer no loss if it should
      be adjudged to some more “obscure rhetorician.” Manso, in his
      Leben Constantins des Grossen, concurs on this point with Gibbon
      Beylage, iv. —M.]

      After the elevation of Constantius and Galerius to the rank of
      _Augusti_, two new _Cæsars_ were required to supply their place,
      and to complete the system of the Imperial government. Diocletian
      was sincerely desirous of withdrawing himself from the world; he
      considered Galerius, who had married his daughter, as the firmest
      support of his family and of the empire; and he consented,
      without reluctance, that his successor should assume the merit as
      well as the envy of the important nomination. It was fixed
      without consulting the interest or inclination of the princes of
      the West. Each of them had a son who was arrived at the age of
      manhood, and who might have been deemed the most natural
      candidates for the vacant honor. But the impotent resentment of
      Maximian was no longer to be dreaded; and the moderate
      Constantius, though he might despise the dangers, was humanely
      apprehensive of the calamities, of civil war. The two persons
      whom Galerius promoted to the rank of Cæsar were much better
      suited to serve the views of his ambition; and their principal
      recommendation seems to have consisted in the want of merit or
      personal consequence. The first of these was Daza, or, as he was
      afterwards called, Maximin, whose mother was the sister of
      Galerius. The unexperienced youth still betrayed, by his manners
      and language, his rustic education, when, to his own
      astonishment, as well as that of the world, he was invested by
      Diocletian with the purple, exalted to the dignity of Cæsar, and
      intrusted with the sovereign command of Egypt and Syria. 5 At the
      same time, Severus, a faithful servant, addicted to pleasure, but
      not incapable of business, was sent to Milan, to receive, from
      the reluctant hands of Maximian, the Cæsarian ornaments, and the
      possession of Italy and Africa. According to the forms of the
      constitution, Severus acknowledged the supremacy of the western
      emperor; but he was absolutely devoted to the commands of his
      benefactor Galerius, who, reserving to himself the intermediate
      countries from the confines of Italy to those of Syria, firmly
      established his power over three fourths of the monarchy. In the
      full confidence that the approaching death of Constantius would
      leave him sole master of the Roman world, we are assured that he
      had arranged in his mind a long succession of future princes, and
      that he meditated his own retreat from public life, after he
      should have accomplished a glorious reign of about twenty years.
      6 7

      5 (return) [ Sublatus nuper a pecoribus et silvis (says
      Lactantius de M. P. c. 19) statim Scutarius, continuo Protector,
      mox Tribunus, postridie Cæsar, accepit Orientem. Aurelius Victor
      is too liberal in giving him the whole portion of Diocletian.]

      6 (return) [ His diligence and fidelity are acknowledged even by
      Lactantius, de M. P. c. 18.]

      7 (return) [ These schemes, however, rest only on the very
      doubtful authority of Lactantius de M. P. c. 20.]

      But within less than eighteen months, two unexpected revolutions
      overturned the ambitious schemes of Galerius. The hopes of
      uniting the western provinces to his empire were disappointed by
      the elevation of Constantine, whilst Italy and Africa were lost
      by the successful revolt of Maxentius.

      I. The fame of Constantine has rendered posterity attentive to
      the most minute circumstances of his life and actions. The place
      of his birth, as well as the condition of his mother Helena, have
      been the subject, not only of literary, but of national disputes.
      Notwithstanding the recent tradition, which assigns for her
      father a British king, 8 we are obliged to confess, that Helena
      was the daughter of an innkeeper; but at the same time, we may
      defend the legality of her marriage, against those who have
      represented her as the concubine of Constantius. 9 The great
      Constantine was most probably born at Naissus, in Dacia; 10 and
      it is not surprising that, in a family and province distinguished
      only by the profession of arms, the youth should discover very
      little inclination to improve his mind by the acquisition of
      knowledge. 11 He was about eighteen years of age when his father
      was promoted to the rank of Cæsar; but that fortunate event was
      attended with his mother’s divorce; and the splendor of an
      Imperial alliance reduced the son of Helena to a state of
      disgrace and humiliation. Instead of following Constantius in the
      West, he remained in the service of Diocletian, signalized his
      valor in the wars of Egypt and Persia, and gradually rose to the
      honorable station of a tribune of the first order. The figure of
      Constantine was tall and majestic; he was dexterous in all his
      exercises, intrepid in war, affable in peace; in his whole
      conduct, the active spirit of youth was tempered by habitual
      prudence; and while his mind was engrossed by ambition, he
      appeared cold and insensible to the allurements of pleasure. The
      favor of the people and soldiers, who had named him as a worthy
      candidate for the rank of Cæsar, served only to exasperate the
      jealousy of Galerius; and though prudence might restrain him from
      exercising any open violence, an absolute monarch is seldom at a
      loss how to execute a sure and secret revenge. 12 Every hour
      increased the danger of Constantine, and the anxiety of his
      father, who, by repeated letters, expressed the warmest desire of
      embracing his son. For some time the policy of Galerius supplied
      him with delays and excuses; but it was impossible long to refuse
      so natural a request of his associate, without maintaining his
      refusal by arms. The permission of the journey was reluctantly
      granted, and whatever precautions the emperor might have taken to
      intercept a return, the consequences of which he, with so much
      reason, apprehended, they were effectually disappointed by the
      incredible diligence of Constantine. 13 Leaving the palace of
      Nicomedia in the night, he travelled post through Bithynia,
      Thrace, Dacia, Pannonia, Italy, and Gaul, and, amidst the joyful
      acclamations of the people, reached the port of Boulogne in the
      very moment when his father was preparing to embark for Britain.
      14

      8 (return) [ This tradition, unknown to the contemporaries of
      Constantine was invented in the darkness of monestaries, was
      embellished by Jeffrey of Monmouth, and the writers of the xiith
      century, has been defended by our antiquarians of the last age,
      and is seriously related in the ponderous History of England,
      compiled by Mr. Carte, (vol. i. p. 147.) He transports, however,
      the kingdom of Coil, the imaginary father of Helena, from Essex
      to the wall of Antoninus.]

      9 (return) [ Eutropius (x. 2) expresses, in a few words, the real
      truth, and the occasion of the error “ex obscuriori matrimonio
      ejus filius.” Zosimus (l. ii. p. 78) eagerly seized the most
      unfavorable report, and is followed by Orosius, (vii. 25,) whose
      authority is oddly enough overlooked by the indefatigable, but
      partial Tillemont. By insisting on the divorce of Helena,
      Diocletian acknowledged her marriage.]

      10 (return) [ There are three opinions with regard to the place
      of Constantine’s birth. 1. Our English antiquarians were used to
      dwell with rapture on the words of his panegyrist, “Britannias
      illic oriendo nobiles fecisti.” But this celebrated passage may
      be referred with as much propriety to the accession, as to the
      nativity of Constantine. 2. Some of the modern Greeks have
      ascribed the honor of his birth to Drepanum, a town on the Gulf
      of Nicomedia, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p. 174,) which Constantine
      dignified with the name of Helenopolis, and Justinian adorned
      with many splendid buildings, (Procop. de Edificiis, v. 2.) It is
      indeed probable enough, that Helena’s father kept an inn at
      Drepanum, and that Constantius might lodge there when he returned
      from a Persian embassy, in the reign of Aurelian. But in the
      wandering life of a soldier, the place of his marriage, and the
      places where his children are born, have very little connection
      with each other. 3. The claim of Naissus is supported by the
      anonymous writer, published at the end of Ammianus, p. 710, and
      who in general copied very good materials; and it is confirmed by
      Julius Firmicus, (de Astrologia, l. i. c. 4,) who flourished
      under the reign of Constantine himself. Some objections have been
      raised against the integrity of the text, and the application of
      the passage of Firmicus but the former is established by the best
      Mss., and the latter is very ably defended by Lipsius de
      Magnitudine Romana, l. iv. c. 11, et Supplement.]

      11 (return) [ Literis minus instructus. Anonym. ad Ammian. p.
      710.]

      12 (return) [ Galerius, or perhaps his own courage, exposed him
      to single combat with a Sarmatian, (Anonym. p. 710,) and with a
      monstrous lion. See Praxagoras apud Photium, p. 63. Praxagoras,
      an Athenian philosopher, had written a life of Constantine in two
      books, which are now lost. He was a contemporary.]

      13 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 78, 79. Lactantius de M. P. c.
      24. The former tells a very foolish story, that Constantine
      caused all the post-horses which he had used to be hamstrung.
      Such a bloody execution, without preventing a pursuit, would have
      scattered suspicions, and might have stopped his journey. * Note:
      Zosimus is not the only writer who tells this story. The younger
      Victor confirms it. Ad frustrandos insequentes, publica jumenta,
      quaqua iter ageret, interficiens. Aurelius Victor de Cæsar says
      the same thing, G. as also the Anonymus Valesii.— M. ——Manso,
      (Leben Constantins,) p. 18, observes that the story has been
      exaggerated; he took this precaution during the first stage of
      his journey.—M.]

      14 (return) [ Anonym. p. 710. Panegyr. Veter. vii. 4. But
      Zosimus, l. ii. p. 79, Eusebius de Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 21,
      and Lactantius de M. P. c. 24. suppose, with less accuracy, that
      he found his father on his death-bed.]

      The British expedition, and an easy victory over the barbarians
      of Caledonia, were the last exploits of the reign of Constantius.
      He ended his life in the Imperial palace of York, fifteen months
      after he had received the title of Augustus, and almost fourteen
      years and a half after he had been promoted to the rank of Cæsar.
      His death was immediately succeeded by the elevation of
      Constantine. The ideas of inheritance and succession are so very
      familiar, that the generality of mankind consider them as founded
      not only in reason but in nature itself. Our imagination readily
      transfers the same principles from private property to public
      dominion: and whenever a virtuous father leaves behind him a son
      whose merit seems to justify the esteem, or even the hopes, of
      the people, the joint influence of prejudice and of affection
      operates with irresistible weight. The flower of the western
      armies had followed Constantius into Britain, and the national
      troops were reënforced by a numerous body of Alemanni, who obeyed
      the orders of Crocus, one of their hereditary chieftains. 15 The
      opinion of their own importance, and the assurance that Britain,
      Gaul, and Spain would acquiesce in their nomination, were
      diligently inculcated to the legions by the adherents of
      Constantine. The soldiers were asked, whether they could hesitate
      a moment between the honor of placing at their head the worthy
      son of their beloved emperor, and the ignominy of tamely
      expecting the arrival of some obscure stranger, on whom it might
      please the sovereign of Asia to bestow the armies and provinces
      of the West. It was insinuated to them, that gratitude and
      liberality held a distinguished place among the virtues of
      Constantine; nor did that artful prince show himself to the
      troops, till they were prepared to salute him with the names of
      Augustus and Emperor. The throne was the object of his desires;
      and had he been less actuated by ambition, it was his only means
      of safety. He was well acquainted with the character and
      sentiments of Galerius, and sufficiently apprised, that if he
      wished to live he must determine to reign. The decent and even
      obstinate resistance which he chose to affect, 16 was contrived
      to justify his usurpation; nor did he yield to the acclamations
      of the army, till he had provided the proper materials for a
      letter, which he immediately despatched to the emperor of the
      East. Constantine informed him of the melancholy event of his
      father’s death, modestly asserted his natural claim to the
      succession, and respectfully lamented, that the affectionate
      violence of his troops had not permitted him to solicit the
      Imperial purple in the regular and constitutional manner. The
      first emotions of Galerius were those of surprise,
      disappointment, and rage; and as he could seldom restrain his
      passions, he loudly threatened, that he would commit to the
      flames both the letter and the messenger. But his resentment
      insensibly subsided; and when he recollected the doubtful chance
      of war, when he had weighed the character and strength of his
      adversary, he consented to embrace the honorable accommodation
      which the prudence of Constantine had left open to him. Without
      either condemning or ratifying the choice of the British army,
      Galerius accepted the son of his deceased colleague as the
      sovereign of the provinces beyond the Alps; but he gave him only
      the title of Cæsar, and the fourth rank among the Roman princes,
      whilst he conferred the vacant place of Augustus on his favorite
      Severus. The apparent harmony of the empire was still preserved,
      and Constantine, who already possessed the substance, expected,
      without impatience, an opportunity of obtaining the honors, of
      supreme power. 17

      15 (return) [ Cunctis qui aderant, annitentibus, sed præcipue
      Croco (alii Eroco) [Erich?] Alamannorum Rege, auxilii gratia
      Constantium comitato, imperium capit. Victor Junior, c. 41. This
      is perhaps the first instance of a barbarian king, who assisted
      the Roman arms with an independent body of his own subjects. The
      practice grew familiar and at last became fatal.]

      16 (return) [ His panegyrist Eumenius (vii. 8) ventures to affirm
      in the presence of Constantine, that he put spurs to his horse,
      and tried, but in vain, to escape from the hands of his
      soldiers.]

      17 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 25. Eumenius (vii. 8.) gives
      a rhetorical turn to the whole transaction.]

      The children of Constantius by his second marriage were six in
      number, three of either sex, and whose Imperial descent might
      have solicited a preference over the meaner extraction of the son
      of Helena. But Constantine was in the thirty-second year of his
      age, in the full vigor both of mind and body, at the time when
      the eldest of his brothers could not possibly be more than
      thirteen years old. His claim of superior merit had been allowed
      and ratified by the dying emperor. 18 In his last moments
      Constantius bequeathed to his eldest son the care of the safety
      as well as greatness of the family; conjuring him to assume both
      the authority and the sentiments of a father with regard to the
      children of Theodora. Their liberal education, advantageous
      marriages, the secure dignity of their lives, and the first
      honors of the state with which they were invested, attest the
      fraternal affection of Constantine; and as those princes
      possessed a mild and grateful disposition, they submitted without
      reluctance to the superiority of his genius and fortune. 19

      18 (return) [ The choice of Constantine, by his dying father,
      which is warranted by reason, and insinuated by Eumenius, seems
      to be confirmed by the most unexceptionable authority, the
      concurring evidence of Lactantius (de M. P. c. 24) and of
      Libanius, (Oratio i.,) of Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c.
      18, 21) and of Julian, (Oratio i)]

      19 (return) [ Of the three sisters of Constantine, Constantia
      married the emperor Licinius, Anastasia the Cæsar Bassianus, and
      Eutropia the consul Nepotianus. The three brothers were,
      Dalmatius, Julius Constantius, and Annibalianus, of whom we shall
      have occasion to speak hereafter.]

      II. The ambitious spirit of Galerius was scarcely reconciled to
      the disappointment of his views upon the Gallic provinces, before
      the unexpected loss of Italy wounded his pride as well as power
      in a still more sensible part. The long absence of the emperors
      had filled Rome with discontent and indignation; and the people
      gradually discovered, that the preference given to Nicomedia and
      Milan was not to be ascribed to the particular inclination of
      Diocletian, but to the permanent form of government which he had
      instituted. It was in vain that, a few months after his
      abdication, his successors dedicated, under his name, those
      magnificent baths, whose ruins still supply the ground as well as
      the materials for so many churches and convents. 20 The
      tranquility of those elegant recesses of ease and luxury was
      disturbed by the impatient murmurs of the Romans, and a report
      was insensibly circulated, that the sums expended in erecting
      those buildings would soon be required at their hands. About that
      time the avarice of Galerius, or perhaps the exigencies of the
      state, had induced him to make a very strict and rigorous
      inquisition into the property of his subjects, for the purpose of
      a general taxation, both on their lands and on their persons. A
      very minute survey appears to have been taken of their real
      estates; and wherever there was the slightest suspicion of
      concealment, torture was very freely employed to obtain a sincere
      declaration of their personal wealth. 21 The privileges which had
      exalted Italy above the rank of the provinces were no longer
      regarded: 211 and the officers of the revenue already began to
      number the Roman people, and to settle the proportion of the new
      taxes. Even when the spirit of freedom had been utterly
      extinguished, the tamest subjects have sometimes ventured to
      resist an unprecedented invasion of their property; but on this
      occasion the injury was aggravated by the insult, and the sense
      of private interest was quickened by that of national honor. The
      conquest of Macedonia, as we have already observed, had delivered
      the Roman people from the weight of personal taxes.

      Though they had experienced every form of despotism, they had now
      enjoyed that exemption near five hundred years; nor could they
      patiently brook the insolence of an Illyrian peasant, who, from
      his distant residence in Asia, presumed to number Rome among the
      tributary cities of his empire. The rising fury of the people was
      encouraged by the authority, or at least the connivance, of the
      senate; and the feeble remains of the Prætorian guards, who had
      reason to apprehend their own dissolution, embraced so honorable
      a pretence, and declared their readiness to draw their swords in
      the service of their oppressed country. It was the wish, and it
      soon became the hope, of every citizen, that after expelling from
      Italy their foreign tyrants, they should elect a prince who, by
      the place of his residence, and by his maxims of government,
      might once more deserve the title of Roman emperor. The name, as
      well as the situation, of Maxentius determined in his favor the
      popular enthusiasm.

      20 (return) [ See Gruter. Inscrip. p. 178. The six princes are
      all mentioned, Diocletian and Maximian as the senior Augusti, and
      fathers of the emperors. They jointly dedicate, for the use of
      their own Romans, this magnificent edifice. The architects have
      delineated the ruins of these Thermoe, and the antiquarians,
      particularly Donatus and Nardini, have ascertained the ground
      which they covered. One of the great rooms is now the Carthusian
      church; and even one of the porter’s lodges is sufficient to form
      another church, which belongs to the Feuillans.]

      21 (return) [ See Lactantius de M. P. c. 26, 31. ]

      211 (return) [ Saviguy, in his memoir on Roman taxation, (Mem.
      Berl. Academ. 1822, 1823, p. 5,) dates from this period the
      abolition of the Jus Italicum. He quotes a remarkable passage of
      Aurelius Victor. Hinc denique parti Italiæ invec tum tributorum
      ingens malum. Aur. Vict. c. 39. It was a necessary consequence of
      the division of the empire: it became impossible to maintain a
      second court and executive, and leave so large and fruitful a
      part of the territory exempt from contribution.—M.]

      Maxentius was the son of the emperor Maximian, and he had married
      the daughter of Galerius. His birth and alliance seemed to offer
      him the fairest promise of succeeding to the empire; but his
      vices and incapacity procured him the same exclusion from the
      dignity of Cæsar, which Constantine had deserved by a dangerous
      superiority of merit. The policy of Galerius preferred such
      associates as would never disgrace the choice, nor dispute the
      commands, of their benefactor. An obscure stranger was therefore
      raised to the throne of Italy, and the son of the late emperor of
      the West was left to enjoy the luxury of a private fortune in a
      villa a few miles distant from the capital. The gloomy passions
      of his soul, shame, vexation, and rage, were inflamed by envy on
      the news of Constantine’s success; but the hopes of Maxentius
      revived with the public discontent, and he was easily persuaded
      to unite his personal injury and pretensions with the cause of
      the Roman people. Two Prætorian tribunes and a commissary of
      provisions undertook the management of the conspiracy; and as
      every order of men was actuated by the same spirit, the immediate
      event was neither doubtful nor difficult. The præfect of the
      city, and a few magistrates, who maintained their fidelity to
      Severus, were massacred by the guards; and Maxentius, invested
      with the Imperial ornaments, was acknowledged by the applauding
      senate and people as the protector of the Roman freedom and
      dignity. It is uncertain whether Maximian was previously
      acquainted with the conspiracy; but as soon as the standard of
      rebellion was erected at Rome, the old emperor broke from the
      retirement where the authority of Diocletian had condemned him to
      pass a life of melancholy and solitude, and concealed his
      returning ambition under the disguise of paternal tenderness. At
      the request of his son and of the senate, he condescended to
      reassume the purple. His ancient dignity, his experience, and his
      fame in arms, added strength as well as reputation to the party
      of Maxentius. 22

      22 (return) [ The sixth Panegyric represents the conduct of
      Maximian in the most favorable light, and the ambiguous
      expression of Aurelius Victor, “retractante diu,” may signify
      either that he contrived, or that he opposed, the conspiracy. See
      Zosimus, l. ii. p. 79, and Lactantius de M. P. c. 26.]

      According to the advice, or rather the orders, of his colleague,
      the emperor Severus immediately hastened to Rome, in the full
      confidence, that, by his unexpected celerity, he should easily
      suppress the tumult of an unwarlike populace, commanded by a
      licentious youth. But he found on his arrival the gates of the
      city shut against him, the walls filled with men and arms, an
      experienced general at the head of the rebels, and his own troops
      without spirit or affection. A large body of Moors deserted to
      the enemy, allured by the promise of a large donative; and, if it
      be true that they had been levied by Maximian in his African war,
      preferring the natural feelings of gratitude to the artificial
      ties of allegiance. Anulinus, the Prætorian præfect, declared
      himself in favor of Maxentius, and drew after him the most
      considerable part of the troops, accustomed to obey his commands.

      Rome, according to the expression of an orator, recalled her
      armies; and the unfortunate Severus, destitute of force and of
      counsel, retired, or rather fled, with precipitation, to Ravenna.

      Here he might for some time have been safe. The fortifications of
      Ravenna were able to resist the attempts, and the morasses that
      surrounded the town were sufficient to prevent the approach, of
      the Italian army. The sea, which Severus commanded with a
      powerful fleet, secured him an inexhaustible supply of
      provisions, and gave a free entrance to the legions, which, on
      the return of spring, would advance to his assistance from
      Illyricum and the East. Maximian, who conducted the siege in
      person, was soon convinced that he might waste his time and his
      army in the fruitless enterprise, and that he had nothing to hope
      either from force or famine. With an art more suitable to the
      character of Diocletian than to his own, he directed his attack,
      not so much against the walls of Ravenna, as against the mind of
      Severus. The treachery which he had experienced disposed that
      unhappy prince to distrust the most sincere of his friends and
      adherents. The emissaries of Maximian easily persuaded his
      credulity, that a conspiracy was formed to betray the town, and
      prevailed upon his fears not to expose himself to the discretion
      of an irritated conqueror, but to accept the faith of an
      honorable capitulation. He was at first received with humanity
      and treated with respect. Maximian conducted the captive emperor
      to Rome, and gave him the most solemn assurances that he had
      secured his life by the resignation of the purple. But Severus
      could obtain only an easy death and an Imperial funeral. When the
      sentence was signified to him, the manner of executing it was
      left to his own choice; he preferred the favorite mode of the
      ancients, that of opening his veins; and as soon as he expired,
      his body was carried to the sepulchre which had been constructed
      for the family of Gallienus. 23

      23 (return) [ The circumstances of this war, and the death of
      Severus, are very doubtfully and variously told in our ancient
      fragments, (see Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i.
      p. 555.) I have endeavored to extract from them a consistent and
      probable narration. * Note: Manso justly observes that two
      totally different narratives might be formed, almost upon equal
      authority. Beylage, iv.—M.]




      Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
      Empire.—Part II.

      Though the characters of Constantine and Maxentius had very
      little affinity with each other, their situation and interest
      were the same; and prudence seemed to require that they should
      unite their forces against the common enemy. Notwithstanding the
      superiority of his age and dignity, the indefatigable Maximian
      passed the Alps, and, courting a personal interview with the
      sovereign of Gaul, carried with him his daughter Fausta as the
      pledge of the new alliance. The marriage was celebrated at Arles
      with every circumstance of magnificence; and the ancient
      colleague of Diocletian, who again asserted his claim to the
      Western empire, conferred on his son-in-law and ally the title of
      Augustus. By consenting to receive that honor from Maximian,
      Constantine seemed to embrace the cause of Rome and of the
      senate; but his professions were ambiguous, and his assistance
      slow and ineffectual. He considered with attention the
      approaching contest between the masters of Italy and the emperor
      of the East, and was prepared to consult his own safety or
      ambition in the event of the war. 24

      24 (return) [ The sixth Panegyric was pronounced to celebrate the
      elevation of Constantine; but the prudent orator avoids the
      mention either of Galerius or of Maxentius. He introduces only
      one slight allusion to the actual troubles, and to the majesty of
      Rome. * Note: Compare Manso, Beylage, iv. p. 302. Gibbon’s
      account is at least as probable as that of his critic.—M.]

      The importance of the occasion called for the presence and
      abilities of Galerius. At the head of a powerful army, collected
      from Illyricum and the East, he entered Italy, resolved to
      revenge the death of Severus, and to chastise the rebellious
      Romans; or, as he expressed his intentions, in the furious
      language of a barbarian, to extirpate the senate, and to destroy
      the people by the sword. But the skill of Maximian had concerted
      a prudent system of defence. The invader found every place
      hostile, fortified, and inaccessible; and though he forced his
      way as far as Narni, within sixty miles of Rome, his dominion in
      Italy was confined to the narrow limits of his camp. Sensible of
      the increasing difficulties of his enterprise, the haughty
      Galerius made the first advances towards a reconciliation, and
      despatched two of his most considerable officers to tempt the
      Roman princes by the offer of a conference, and the declaration
      of his paternal regard for Maxentius, who might obtain much more
      from his liberality than he could hope from the doubtful chance
      of war. 25 The offers of Galerius were rejected with firmness,
      his perfidious friendship refused with contempt, and it was not
      long before he discovered, that, unless he provided for his
      safety by a timely retreat, he had some reason to apprehend the
      fate of Severus. The wealth which the Romans defended against his
      rapacious tyranny, they freely contributed for his destruction.
      The name of Maximian, the popular arts of his son, the secret
      distribution of large sums, and the promise of still more liberal
      rewards, checked the ardor and corrupted the fidelity of the
      Illyrian legions; and when Galerius at length gave the signal of
      the retreat, it was with some difficulty that he could prevail on
      his veterans not to desert a banner which had so often conducted
      them to victory and honor. A contemporary writer assigns two
      other causes for the failure of the expedition; but they are both
      of such a nature, that a cautious historian will scarcely venture
      to adopt them. We are told that Galerius, who had formed a very
      imperfect notion of the greatness of Rome by the cities of the
      East with which he was acquainted, found his forces inadequate to
      the siege of that immense capital.

      But the extent of a city serves only to render it more accessible
      to the enemy: Rome had long since been accustomed to submit on
      the approach of a conqueror; nor could the temporary enthusiasm
      of the people have long contended against the discipline and
      valor of the legions. We are likewise informed that the legions
      themselves were struck with horror and remorse, and that those
      pious sons of the republic refused to violate the sanctity of
      their venerable parent. 26 But when we recollect with how much
      ease, in the more ancient civil wars, the zeal of party and the
      habits of military obedience had converted the native citizens of
      Rome into her most implacable enemies, we shall be inclined to
      distrust this extreme delicacy of strangers and barbarians, who
      had never beheld Italy till they entered it in a hostile manner.
      Had they not been restrained by motives of a more interested
      nature, they would probably have answered Galerius in the words
      of Cæsar’s veterans: “If our general wishes to lead us to the
      banks of the Tyber, we are prepared to trace out his camp.
      Whatsoever walls he has determined to level with the ground, our
      hands are ready to work the engines: nor shall we hesitate,
      should the name of the devoted city be Rome itself.” These are
      indeed the expressions of a poet; but of a poet who has been
      distinguished, and even censured, for his strict adherence to the
      truth of history. 27

      25 (return) [ With regard to this negotiation, see the fragments
      of an anonymous historian, published by Valesius at the end of
      his edition of Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 711. These fragments have
      furnished with several curious, and, as it should seem, authentic
      anecdotes.]

      26 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. The former of these
      reasons is probably taken from Virgil’s Shepherd: “Illam * * *
      ego huic notra similem, Meliboee, putavi,” &c. Lactantius
      delights in these poetical illusions.]

      27 (return)
      [ Castra super Tusci si ponere Tybridis undas; (_jubeas_)
      Hesperios audax veniam metator in agros.
      Tu quoscunque voles in planum effundere muros,
      His aries actus disperget saxa lacertis;
      Illa licet penitus tolli quam jusseris urbem
      Roma sit.
      Lucan. Pharsal. i. 381.]

      The legions of Galerius exhibited a very melancholy proof of
      their disposition, by the ravages which they committed in their
      retreat. They murdered, they ravished, they plundered, they drove
      away the flocks and herds of the Italians; they burnt the
      villages through which they passed, and they endeavored to
      destroy the country which it had not been in their power to
      subdue. During the whole march, Maxentius hung on their rear, but
      he very prudently declined a general engagement with those brave
      and desperate veterans. His father had undertaken a second
      journey into Gaul, with the hope of persuading Constantine, who
      had assembled an army on the frontier, to join in the pursuit,
      and to complete the victory. But the actions of Constantine were
      guided by reason, and not by resentment. He persisted in the wise
      resolution of maintaining a balance of power in the divided
      empire, and he no longer hated Galerius, when that aspiring
      prince had ceased to be an object of terror. 28

      28 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 27. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. The
      latter, that Constantine, in his interview with Maximian, had
      promised to declare war against Galerius.]

      The mind of Galerius was the most susceptible of the sterner
      passions, but it was not, however, incapable of a sincere and
      lasting friendship. Licinius, whose manners as well as character
      were not unlike his own, seems to have engaged both his affection
      and esteem. Their intimacy had commenced in the happier period
      perhaps of their youth and obscurity. It had been cemented by the
      freedom and dangers of a military life; they had advanced almost
      by equal steps through the successive honors of the service; and
      as soon as Galerius was invested with the Imperial dignity, he
      seems to have conceived the design of raising his companion to
      the same rank with himself. During the short period of his
      prosperity, he considered the rank of Cæsar as unworthy of the
      age and merit of Licinius, and rather chose to reserve for him
      the place of Constantius, and the empire of the West. While the
      emperor was employed in the Italian war, he intrusted his friend
      with the defence of the Danube; and immediately after his return
      from that unfortunate expedition, he invested Licinius with the
      vacant purple of Severus, resigning to his immediate command the
      provinces of Illyricum. 29 The news of his promotion was no
      sooner carried into the East, than Maximin, who governed, or
      rather oppressed, the countries of Egypt and Syria, betrayed his
      envy and discontent, disdained the inferior name of Cæsar, and,
      notwithstanding the prayers as well as arguments of Galerius,
      exacted, almost by violence, the equal title of Augustus. 30 For
      the first, and indeed for the last time, the Roman world was
      administered by six emperors. In the West, Constantine and
      Maxentius affected to reverence their father Maximian. In the
      East, Licinius and Maximin honored with more real consideration
      their benefactor Galerius. The opposition of interest, and the
      memory of a recent war, divided the empire into two great hostile
      powers; but their mutual fears produced an apparent tranquillity,
      and even a feigned reconciliation, till the death of the elder
      princes, of Maximian, and more particularly of Galerius, gave a
      new direction to the views and passions of their surviving
      associates.

      29 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. part
      i. p. 559) has proved that Licinius, without passing through the
      intermediate rank of Cæsar, was declared Augustus, the 11th of
      November, A. D. 307, after the return of Galerius from Italy.]

      30 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 32. When Galerius declared
      Licinius Augustus with himself, he tried to satisfy his younger
      associates, by inventing for Constantine and Maximin (not
      Maxentius; see Baluze, p. 81) the new title of sons of the
      Augusti. But when Maximin acquainted him that he had been saluted
      Augustus by the army, Galerius was obliged to acknowledge him as
      well as Constantine, as equal associates in the Imperial
      dignity.]

      When Maximian had reluctantly abdicated the empire, the venal
      orators of the times applauded his philosophic moderation. When
      his ambition excited, or at least encouraged, a civil war, they
      returned thanks to his generous patriotism, and gently censured
      that love of ease and retirement which had withdrawn him from the
      public service. 31 But it was impossible that minds like those of
      Maximian and his son could long possess in harmony an undivided
      power. Maxentius considered himself as the legal sovereign of
      Italy, elected by the Roman senate and people; nor would he
      endure the control of his father, who arrogantly declared that by
      _his_ name and abilities the rash youth had been established on
      the throne. The cause was solemnly pleaded before the Prætorian
      guards; and those troops, who dreaded the severity of the old
      emperor, espoused the party of Maxentius. 32 The life and freedom
      of Maximian were, however, respected, and he retired from Italy
      into Illyricum, affecting to lament his past conduct, and
      secretly contriving new mischiefs. But Galerius, who was well
      acquainted with his character, soon obliged him to leave his
      dominions, and the last refuge of the disappointed Maximian was
      the court of his son-in-law Constantine. 33 He was received with
      respect by that artful prince, and with the appearance of filial
      tenderness by the empress Fausta. That he might remove every
      suspicion, he resigned the Imperial purple a second time, 34
      professing himself at length convinced of the vanity of greatness
      and ambition. Had he persevered in this resolution, he might have
      ended his life with less dignity, indeed, than in his first
      retirement, yet, however, with comfort and reputation. But the
      near prospect of a throne brought back to his remembrance the
      state from whence he was fallen, and he resolved, by a desperate
      effort, either to reign or to perish. An incursion of the Franks
      had summoned Constantine, with a part of his army, to the banks
      of the Rhine; the remainder of the troops were stationed in the
      southern provinces of Gaul, which lay exposed to the enterprises
      of the Italian emperor, and a considerable treasure was deposited
      in the city of Arles. Maximian either craftily invented, or
      easily credited, a vain report of the death of Constantine.
      Without hesitation he ascended the throne, seized the treasure,
      and scattering it with his accustomed profusion among the
      soldiers, endeavored to awake in their minds the memory of his
      ancient dignity and exploits. Before he could establish his
      authority, or finish the negotiation which he appears to have
      entered into with his son Maxentius, the celerity of Constantine
      defeated all his hopes. On the first news of his perfidy and
      ingratitude, that prince returned by rapid marches from the Rhine
      to the Saone, embarked on the last-mentioned river at Chalons,
      and, at Lyons trusting himself to the rapidity of the Rhone,
      arrived at the gates of Arles with a military force which it was
      impossible for Maximian to resist, and which scarcely permitted
      him to take refuge in the neighboring city of Marseilles. The
      narrow neck of land which joined that place to the continent was
      fortified against the besiegers, whilst the sea was open, either
      for the escape of Maximian, or for the succor of Maxentius, if
      the latter should choose to disguise his invasion of Gaul under
      the honorable pretence of defending a distressed, or, as he might
      allege, an injured father. Apprehensive of the fatal consequences
      of delay, Constantine gave orders for an immediate assault; but
      the scaling-ladders were found too short for the height of the
      walls, and Marseilles might have sustained as long a siege as it
      formerly did against the arms of Cæsar, if the garrison,
      conscious either of their fault or of their danger, had not
      purchased their pardon by delivering up the city and the person
      of Maximian. A secret but irrevocable sentence of death was
      pronounced against the usurper; he obtained only the same favor
      which he had indulged to Severus, and it was published to the
      world, that, oppressed by the remorse of his repeated crimes, he
      strangled himself with his own hands. After he had lost the
      assistance, and disdained the moderate counsels, of Diocletian,
      the second period of his active life was a series of public
      calamities and personal mortifications, which were terminated, in
      about three years, by an ignominious death. He deserved his fate;
      but we should find more reason to applaud the humanity of
      Constantine, if he had spared an old man, the benefactor of his
      father, and the father of his wife. During the whole of this
      melancholy transaction, it appears that Fausta sacrificed the
      sentiments of nature to her conjugal duties. 35

      31 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. vi. 9. Audi doloris nostri
      liberam vocem, &c. The whole passage is imagined with artful
      flattery, and expressed with an easy flow of eloquence.]

      32 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 28. Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. A
      report was spread, that Maxentius was the son of some obscure
      Syrian, and had been substituted by the wife of Maximian as her
      own child. See Aurelius Victor, Anonym. Valesian, and Panegyr.
      Vet. ix. 3, 4.]

      33 (return) [ Ab urbe pulsum, ab Italia fugatum, ab Illyrico
      repudiatum, provinciis, tuis copiis, tuo palatio recepisti.
      Eumen. in Panegyr Vet. vii. 14.]

      34 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 29. Yet, after the
      resignation of the purple, Constantine still continued to
      Maximian the pomp and honors of the Imperial dignity; and on all
      public occasions gave the right hand place to his father-in-law.
      Panegyr. Vet. viii. 15.]

      35 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 82. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. vii.
      16—21. The latter of these has undoubtedly represented the whole
      affair in the most favorable light for his sovereign. Yet even
      from this partial narrative we may conclude, that the repeated
      clemency of Constantine, and the reiterated treasons of Maximian,
      as they are described by Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 29, 30,) and
      copied by the moderns, are destitute of any historical
      foundation. Note: Yet some pagan authors relate and confirm them.
      Aurelius Victor speaking of Maximin, says, cumque specie officii,
      dolis compositis, Constantinum generum tentaret acerbe, jure
      tamen interierat. Aur. Vict. de Cæsar l. p. 623. Eutropius also
      says, inde ad Gallias profectus est (Maximianus) composito
      tamquam a filio esset expulsus, ut Constantino genero jun
      geretur: moliens tamen Constantinum, reperta occasione,
      interficere, dedit justissimo exitu. Eutrop. x. p. 661. (Anon.
      Gent.)—G. —— These writers hardly confirm more than Gibbon
      admits; he denies the repeated clemency of Constantine, and the
      reiterated treasons of Maximian Compare Manso, p. 302.—M.]

      The last years of Galerius were less shameful and unfortunate;
      and though he had filled with more glory the subordinate station
      of Cæsar than the superior rank of Augustus, he preserved, till
      the moment of his death, the first place among the princes of the
      Roman world. He survived his retreat from Italy about four years;
      and wisely relinquishing his views of universal empire, he
      devoted the remainder of his life to the enjoyment of pleasure,
      and to the execution of some works of public utility, among which
      we may distinguish the discharging into the Danube the
      superfluous waters of the Lake Pelso, and the cutting down the
      immense forests that encompassed it; an operation worthy of a
      monarch, since it gave an extensive country to the agriculture of
      his Pannonian subjects. 36 His death was occasioned by a very
      painful and lingering disorder. His body, swelled by an
      intemperate course of life to an unwieldy corpulence, was covered
      with ulcers, and devoured by innumerable swarms of those insects
      which have given their name to a most loathsome disease; 37 but
      as Galerius had offended a very zealous and powerful party among
      his subjects, his sufferings, instead of exciting their
      compassion, have been celebrated as the visible effects of divine
      justice. 38 He had no sooner expired in his palace of Nicomedia,
      than the two emperors who were indebted for their purple to his
      favors, began to collect their forces, with the intention either
      of disputing, or of dividing, the dominions which he had left
      without a master. They were persuaded, however, to desist from
      the former design, and to agree in the latter. The provinces of
      Asia fell to the share of Maximin, and those of Europe augmented
      the portion of Licinius. The Hellespont and the Thracian
      Bosphorus formed their mutual boundary, and the banks of those
      narrow seas, which flowed in the midst of the Roman world, were
      covered with soldiers, with arms, and with fortifications. The
      deaths of Maximian and of Galerius reduced the number of emperors
      to four. The sense of their true interest soon connected Licinius
      and Constantine; a secret alliance was concluded between Maximin
      and Maxentius, and their unhappy subjects expected with terror
      the bloody consequences of their inevitable dissensions, which
      were no longer restrained by the fear or the respect which they
      had entertained for Galerius. 39

      36 (return) [ Aurelius Victor, c. 40. But that lake was situated
      on the upper Pannonia, near the borders of Noricum; and the
      province of Valeria (a name which the wife of Galerius gave to
      the drained country) undoubtedly lay between the Drave and the
      Danube, (Sextus Rufus, c. 9.) I should therefore suspect that
      Victor has confounded the Lake Pelso with the Volocean marshes,
      or, as they are now called, the Lake Sabaton. It is placed in the
      heart of Valeria, and its present extent is not less than twelve
      Hungarian miles (about seventy English) in length, and two in
      breadth. See Severini Pannonia, l. i. c. 9.]

      37 (return) [ Lactantius (de M. P. c. 33) and Eusebius (l. viii.
      c. 16) describe the symptoms and progress of his disorder with
      singular accuracy and apparent pleasure.]

      38 (return) [ If any (like the late Dr. Jortin, Remarks on
      Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 307—356) still delight in
      recording the wonderful deaths of the persecutors, I would
      recommend to their perusal an admirable passage of Grotius (Hist.
      l. vii. p. 332) concerning the last illness of Philip II. of
      Spain.]

      39 (return) [ See Eusebius, l. ix. 6, 10. Lactantius de M. P. c.
      36. Zosimus is less exact, and evidently confounds Maximian with
      Maximin.]

      Among so many crimes and misfortunes, occasioned by the passions
      of the Roman princes, there is some pleasure in discovering a
      single action which may be ascribed to their virtue. In the sixth
      year of his reign, Constantine visited the city of Autun, and
      generously remitted the arrears of tribute, reducing at the same
      time the proportion of their assessment from twenty-five to
      eighteen thousand heads, subject to the real and personal
      capitation. 40 Yet even this indulgence affords the most
      unquestionable proof of the public misery. This tax was so
      extremely oppressive, either in itself or in the mode of
      collecting it, that whilst the revenue was increased by
      extortion, it was diminished by despair: a considerable part of
      the territory of Autun was left uncultivated; and great numbers
      of the provincials rather chose to live as exiles and outlaws,
      than to support the weight of civil society. It is but too
      probable, that the bountiful emperor relieved, by a partial act
      of liberality, one among the many evils which he had caused by
      his general maxims of administration. But even those maxims were
      less the effect of choice than of necessity. And if we except the
      death of Maximian, the reign of Constantine in Gaul seems to have
      been the most innocent and even virtuous period of his life.

      The provinces were protected by his presence from the inroads of
      the barbarians, who either dreaded or experienced his active
      valor. After a signal victory over the Franks and Alemanni,
      several of their princes were exposed by his order to the wild
      beasts in the amphitheatre of Treves, and the people seem to have
      enjoyed the spectacle, without discovering, in such a treatment
      of royal captives, any thing that was repugnant to the laws of
      nations or of humanity. 41

      40 (return) [ See the viiith Panegyr., in which Eumenius
      displays, in the presence of Constantine, the misery and the
      gratitude of the city of Autun.]

      41 (return) [Eutropius, x. 3. Panegyr. Veter. vii. 10, 11, 12. A
      great number of the French youth were likewise exposed to the
      same cruel and ignominious death Yet the panegyric assumes
      something of an apologetic tone. Te vero Constantine,
      quantumlibet oderint hoses, dum perhorrescant. Hæc est enim vera
      virtus, ut non ament et quiescant. The orator appeals to the
      ancient ideal of the republic.—M.]

      The virtues of Constantine were rendered more illustrious by the
      vices of Maxentius. Whilst the Gallic provinces enjoyed as much
      happiness as the condition of the times was capable of receiving,
      Italy and Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant, as
      contemptible as he was odious. The zeal of flattery and faction
      has indeed too frequently sacrificed the reputation of the
      vanquished to the glory of their successful rivals; but even
      those writers who have revealed, with the most freedom and
      pleasure, the faults of Constantine, unanimously confess that
      Maxentius was cruel, rapacious, and profligate. 42 He had the
      good fortune to suppress a slight rebellion in Africa. The
      governor and a few adherents had been guilty; the province
      suffered for their crime. The flourishing cities of Cirtha and
      Carthage, and the whole extent of that fertile country, were
      wasted by fire and sword. The abuse of victory was followed by
      the abuse of law and justice. A formidable army of sycophants and
      delators invaded Africa; the rich and the noble were easily
      convicted of a connection with the rebels; and those among them
      who experienced the emperor’s clemency, were only punished by the
      confiscation of their estates. 43 So signal a victory was
      celebrated by a magnificent triumph, and Maxentius exposed to the
      eyes of the people the spoils and captives of a Roman province.
      The state of the capital was no less deserving of compassion than
      that of Africa. The wealth of Rome supplied an inexhaustible fund
      for his vain and prodigal expenses, and the ministers of his
      revenue were skilled in the arts of rapine. It was under his
      reign that the method of exacting a _free gift_ from the senators
      was first invented; and as the sum was insensibly increased, the
      pretences of levying it, a victory, a birth, a marriage, or an
      imperial consulship, were proportionably multiplied. 44 Maxentius
      had imbibed the same implacable aversion to the senate, which had
      characterized most of the former tyrants of Rome; nor was it
      possible for his ungrateful temper to forgive the generous
      fidelity which had raised him to the throne, and supported him
      against all his enemies. The lives of the senators were exposed
      to his jealous suspicions, the dishonor of their wives and
      daughters heightened the gratification of his sensual passions.
      45 It may be presumed that an Imperial lover was seldom reduced
      to sigh in vain; but whenever persuasion proved ineffectual, he
      had recourse to violence; and there remains _one_ memorable
      example of a noble matron, who preserved her chastity by a
      voluntary death. The soldiers were the only order of men whom he
      appeared to respect, or studied to please. He filled Rome and
      Italy with armed troops, connived at their tumults, suffered them
      with impunity to plunder, and even to massacre, the defenceless
      people; 46 and indulging them in the same licentiousness which
      their emperor enjoyed, Maxentius often bestowed on his military
      favorites the splendid villa, or the beautiful wife, of a
      senator. A prince of such a character, alike incapable of
      governing, either in peace or in war, might purchase the support,
      but he could never obtain the esteem, of the army. Yet his pride
      was equal to his other vices. Whilst he passed his indolent life
      either within the walls of his palace, or in the neighboring
      gardens of Sallust, he was repeatedly heard to declare, that _he
      alone_ was emperor, and that the other princes were no more than
      his lieutenants, on whom he had devolved the defence of the
      frontier provinces, that he might enjoy without interruption the
      elegant luxury of the capital. Rome, which had so long regretted
      the absence, lamented, during the six years of his reign, the
      presence of her sovereign. 47

      42 (return) [ Julian excludes Maxentius from the banquet of the
      Cæsars with abhorrence and contempt; and Zosimus (l. ii. p. 85)
      accuses him of every kind of cruelty and profligacy.]

      43 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 83—85. Aurelius Victor.]

      44 (return) [ The passage of Aurelius Victor should be read in
      the following manner: Primus instituto pessimo, munerum specie,
      Patres Oratores que pecuniam conferre prodigenti sibi cogeret.]

      45 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. Euseb. Hist Eccles. viii. 14,
      et in Vit. Constant i. 33, 34. Rufinus, c. 17. The virtuous
      matron who stabbed herself to escape the violence of Maxentius,
      was a Christian, wife to the præfect of the city, and her name
      was Sophronia. It still remains a question among the casuists,
      whether, on such occasions, suicide is justifiable.]

      46 (return) [ Prætorianis cædem vulgi quondam annueret, is the
      vague expression of Aurelius Victor. See more particular, though
      somewhat different, accounts of a tumult and massacre which
      happened at Rome, in Eusebius, (l. viii. c. 14,) and in Zosimus,
      (l. ii. p. 84.)]

      47 (return) [ See, in the Panegyrics, (ix. 14,) a lively
      description of the indolence and vain pride of Maxentius. In
      another place the orator observes that the riches which Rome had
      accumulated in a period of 1060 years, were lavished by the
      tyrant on his mercenary bands; redemptis ad civile latrocinium
      manibus in gesserat.]

      Though Constantine might view the conduct of Maxentius with
      abhorrence, and the situation of the Romans with compassion, we
      have no reason to presume that he would have taken up arms to
      punish the one or to relieve the other. But the tyrant of Italy
      rashly ventured to provoke a formidable enemy, whose ambition had
      been hitherto restrained by considerations of prudence, rather
      than by principles of justice. 48 After the death of Maximian,
      his titles, according to the established custom, had been erased,
      and his statues thrown down with ignominy. His son, who had
      persecuted and deserted him when alive, effected to display the
      most pious regard for his memory, and gave orders that a similar
      treatment should be immediately inflicted on all the statues that
      had been erected in Italy and Africa to the honor of Constantine.

      That wise prince, who sincerely wished to decline a war, with the
      difficulty and importance of which he was sufficiently
      acquainted, at first dissembled the insult, and sought for
      redress by the milder expedient of negotiation, till he was
      convinced that the hostile and ambitious designs of the Italian
      emperor made it necessary for him to arm in his own defence.
      Maxentius, who openly avowed his pretensions to the whole
      monarchy of the West, had already prepared a very considerable
      force to invade the Gallic provinces on the side of Rhætia; and
      though he could not expect any assistance from Licinius, he was
      flattered with the hope that the legions of Illyricum, allured by
      his presents and promises, would desert the standard of that
      prince, and unanimously declare themselves his soldiers and
      subjects. 49 Constantine no longer hesitated. He had deliberated
      with caution, he acted with vigor. He gave a private audience to
      the ambassadors, who, in the name of the senate and people,
      conjured him to deliver Rome from a detested tyrant; and without
      regarding the timid remonstrances of his council, he resolved to
      prevent the enemy, and to carry the war into the heart of Italy.
      50

      48 (return) [ After the victory of Constantine, it was
      universally allowed, that the motive of delivering the republic
      from a detested tyrant, would, at any time, have justified his
      expedition into Italy. Euseb in Vi’. Constantin. l. i. c. 26.
      Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.]

      49 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 84, 85. Nazarius in Panegyr. x.
      7—13.]

      50 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2. Omnibus fere tuis
      Comitibus et Ducibus non solum tacite mussantibus, sed etiam
      aperte timentibus; contra consilia hominum, contra Haruspicum
      monita, ipse per temet liberandæ arbis tempus venisse sentires.
      The embassy of the Romans is mentioned only by Zonaras, (l.
      xiii.,) and by Cedrenus, (in Compend. Hist. p. 370;) but those
      modern Greeks had the opportunity of consulting many writers
      which have since been lost, among which we may reckon the life of
      Constantine by Praxagoras. Photius (p. 63) has made a short
      extract from that historical work.]

      The enterprise was as full of danger as of glory; and the
      unsuccessful event of two former invasions was sufficient to
      inspire the most serious apprehensions. The veteran troops, who
      revered the name of Maximian, had embraced in both those wars the
      party of his son, and were now restrained by a sense of honor, as
      well as of interest, from entertaining an idea of a second
      desertion. Maxentius, who considered the Prætorian guards as the
      firmest defence of his throne, had increased them to their
      ancient establishment; and they composed, including the rest of
      the Italians who were enlisted into his service, a formidable
      body of fourscore thousand men. Forty thousand Moors and
      Carthaginians had been raised since the reduction of Africa. Even
      Sicily furnished its proportion of troops; and the armies of
      Maxentius amounted to one hundred and seventy thousand foot and
      eighteen thousand horse. The wealth of Italy supplied the
      expenses of the war; and the adjacent provinces were exhausted,
      to form immense magazines of corn and every other kind of
      provisions.

      The whole force of Constantine consisted of ninety thousand foot
      and eight thousand horse; 51 and as the defence of the Rhine
      required an extraordinary attention during the absence of the
      emperor, it was not in his power to employ above half his troops
      in the Italian expedition, unless he sacrificed the public safety
      to his private quarrel. 52 At the head of about forty thousand
      soldiers he marched to encounter an enemy whose numbers were at
      least four times superior to his own. But the armies of Rome,
      placed at a secure distance from danger, were enervated by
      indulgence and luxury. Habituated to the baths and theatres of
      Rome, they took the field with reluctance, and were chiefly
      composed of veterans who had almost forgotten, or of new levies
      who had never acquired, the use of arms and the practice of war.
      The hardy legions of Gaul had long defended the frontiers of the
      empire against the barbarians of the North; and in the
      performance of that laborious service, their valor was exercised
      and their discipline confirmed. There appeared the same
      difference between the leaders as between the armies. Caprice or
      flattery had tempted Maxentius with the hopes of conquest; but
      these aspiring hopes soon gave way to the habits of pleasure and
      the consciousness of his inexperience. The intrepid mind of
      Constantine had been trained from his earliest youth to war, to
      action, and to military command.

      51 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 86) has given us this curious
      account of the forces on both sides. He makes no mention of any
      naval armaments, though we are assured (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 25)
      that the war was carried on by sea as well as by land; and that
      the fleet of Constantine took possession of Sardinia, Corsica,
      and the ports of Italy.]

      52 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 3. It is not surprising that the
      orator should diminish the numbers with which his sovereign
      achieved the conquest of Italy; but it appears somewhat singular
      that he should esteem the tyrant’s army at no more than 100,000
      men.]




      Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
      Empire.—Part III.

      When Hannibal marched from Gaul into Italy, he was obliged, first
      to discover, and then to open, a way over mountains, and through
      savage nations, that had never yielded a passage to a regular
      army. 53 The Alps were then guarded by nature, they are now
      fortified by art. Citadels, constructed with no less skill than
      labor and expense, command every avenue into the plain, and on
      that side render Italy almost inaccessible to the enemies of the
      king of Sardinia. 54 But in the course of the intermediate
      period, the generals, who have attempted the passage, have seldom
      experienced any difficulty or resistance. In the age of
      Constantine, the peasants of the mountains were civilized and
      obedient subjects; the country was plentifully stocked with
      provisions, and the stupendous highways, which the Romans had
      carried over the Alps, opened several communications between Gaul
      and Italy. 55 Constantine preferred the road of the Cottian Alps,
      or, as it is now called, of Mount Cenis, and led his troops with
      such active diligence, that he descended into the plain of
      Piedmont before the court of Maxentius had received any certain
      intelligence of his departure from the banks of the Rhine. The
      city of Susa, however, which is situated at the foot of Mount
      Cenis, was surrounded with walls, and provided with a garrison
      sufficiently numerous to check the progress of an invader; but
      the impatience of Constantine’s troops disdained the tedious
      forms of a siege. The same day that they appeared before Susa,
      they applied fire to the gates, and ladders to the walls; and
      mounting to the assault amidst a shower of stones and arrows,
      they entered the place sword in hand, and cut in pieces the
      greatest part of the garrison. The flames were extinguished by
      the care of Constantine, and the remains of Susa preserved from
      total destruction. About forty miles from thence, a more severe
      contest awaited him. A numerous army of Italians was assembled
      under the lieutenants of Maxentius, in the plains of Turin. Its
      principal strength consisted in a species of heavy cavalry, which
      the Romans, since the decline of their discipline, had borrowed
      from the nations of the East. The horses, as well as the men,
      were clothed in complete armor, the joints of which were artfully
      adapted to the motions of their bodies. The aspect of this
      cavalry was formidable, their weight almost irresistible; and as,
      on this occasion, their generals had drawn them up in a compact
      column or wedge, with a sharp point, and with spreading flanks,
      they flattered themselves that they could easily break and
      trample down the army of Constantine. They might, perhaps, have
      succeeded in their design, had not their experienced adversary
      embraced the same method of defence, which in similar
      circumstances had been practised by Aurelian. The skilful
      evolutions of Constantine divided and baffled this massy column
      of cavalry. The troops of Maxentius fled in confusion towards
      Turin; and as the gates of the city were shut against them, very
      few escaped the sword of the victorious pursuers. By this
      important service, Turin deserved to experience the clemency and
      even favor of the conqueror. He made his entry into the Imperial
      palace of Milan, and almost all the cities of Italy between the
      Alps and the Po not only acknowledged the power, but embraced
      with zeal the party, of Constantine. 56

      53 (return) [ The three principal passages of the Alps between
      Gaul and Italy, are those of Mount St. Bernard, Mount Cenis, and
      Mount Genevre. Tradition, and a resemblance of names, (Alpes
      Penninoe,) had assigned the first of these for the march of
      Hannibal, (see Simler de Alpibus.) The Chevalier de Folard
      (Polyp. tom. iv.) and M. d’Anville have led him over Mount
      Genevre. But notwithstanding the authority of an experienced
      officer and a learned geographer, the pretensions of Mount Cenis
      are supported in a specious, not to say a convincing, manner, by
      M. Grosley. Observations sur l’Italie, tom. i. p. 40, &c. ——The
      dissertation of Messrs. Cramer and Wickham has clearly shown that
      the Little St. Bernard must claim the honor of Hannibal’s
      passage. Mr. Long (London, 1831) has added some sensible
      corrections re Hannibal’s march to the Alps.—M]

      54 (return) [ La Brunette near Suse, Demont, Exiles,
      Fenestrelles, Coni, &c.]

      55 (return) [ See Ammian. Marcellin. xv. 10. His description of
      the roads over the Alps is clear, lively, and accurate.]

      56 (return) [ Zosimus as well as Eusebius hasten from the passage
      of the Alps to the decisive action near Rome. We must apply to
      the two Panegyrics for the intermediate actions of Constantine.]

      From Milan to Rome, the Æmilian and Flaminian highways offered an
      easy march of about four hundred miles; but though Constantine
      was impatient to encounter the tyrant, he prudently directed his
      operations against another army of Italians, who, by their
      strength and position, might either oppose his progress, or, in
      case of a misfortune, might intercept his retreat. Ruricius
      Pompeianus, a general distinguished by his valor and ability, had
      under his command the city of Verona, and all the troops that
      were stationed in the province of Venetia. As soon as he was
      informed that Constantine was advancing towards him, he detached
      a large body of cavalry, which was defeated in an engagement near
      Brescia, and pursued by the Gallic legions as far as the gates of
      Verona. The necessity, the importance, and the difficulties of
      the siege of Verona, immediately presented themselves to the
      sagacious mind of Constantine. 57 The city was accessible only by
      a narrow peninsula towards the west, as the other three sides
      were surrounded by the Adige, a rapid river, which covered the
      province of Venetia, from whence the besieged derived an
      inexhaustible supply of men and provisions. It was not without
      great difficulty, and after several fruitless attempts, that
      Constantine found means to pass the river at some distance above
      the city, and in a place where the torrent was less violent. He
      then encompassed Verona with strong lines, pushed his attacks
      with prudent vigor, and repelled a desperate sally of Pompeianus.
      That intrepid general, when he had used every means of defence
      that the strength of the place or that of the garrison could
      afford, secretly escaped from Verona, anxious not for his own,
      but for the public safety. With indefatigable diligence he soon
      collected an army sufficient either to meet Constantine in the
      field, or to attack him if he obstinately remained within his
      lines. The emperor, attentive to the motions, and informed of the
      approach of so formidable an enemy, left a part of his legions to
      continue the operations of the siege, whilst, at the head of
      those troops on whose valor and fidelity he more particularly
      depended, he advanced in person to engage the general of
      Maxentius. The army of Gaul was drawn up in two lines, according
      to the usual practice of war; but their experienced leader,
      perceiving that the numbers of the Italians far exceeded his own,
      suddenly changed his disposition, and, reducing the second,
      extended the front of his first line to a just proportion with
      that of the enemy. Such evolutions, which only veteran troops can
      execute without confusion in a moment of danger, commonly prove
      decisive; but as this engagement began towards the close of the
      day, and was contested with great obstinacy during the whole
      night, there was less room for the conduct of the generals than
      for the courage of the soldiers. The return of light displayed
      the victory of Constantine, and a field of carnage covered with
      many thousands of the vanquished Italians. Their general,
      Pompeianus, was found among the slain; Verona immediately
      surrendered at discretion, and the garrison was made prisoners of
      war. 58 When the officers of the victorious army congratulated
      their master on this important success, they ventured to add some
      respectful complaints, of such a nature, however, as the most
      jealous monarchs will listen to without displeasure. They
      represented to Constantine, that, not contented with all the
      duties of a commander, he had exposed his own person with an
      excess of valor which almost degenerated into rashness; and they
      conjured him for the future to pay more regard to the
      preservation of a life in which the safety of Rome and of the
      empire was involved. 59

      57 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei has examined the siege and
      battle of Verona with that degree of attention and accuracy which
      was due to a memorable action that happened in his native
      country. The fortifications of that city, constructed by
      Gallienus, were less extensive than the modern walls, and the
      amphitheatre was not included within their circumference. See
      Verona Illustrata, part i. p. 142 150.]

      58 (return) [ They wanted chains for so great a multitude of
      captives; and the whole council was at a loss; but the sagacious
      conqueror imagined the happy expedient of converting into fetters
      the swords of the vanquished. Panegyr. Vet. ix. 11.]

      59 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 11.]

      While Constantine signalized his conduct and valor in the field,
      the sovereign of Italy appeared insensible of the calamities and
      danger of a civil war which reigned in the heart of his
      dominions. Pleasure was still the only business of Maxentius.
      Concealing, or at least attempting to conceal, from the public
      knowledge the misfortunes of his arms, 60 he indulged himself in
      a vain confidence which deferred the remedies of the approaching
      evil, without deferring the evil itself. 61 The rapid progress of
      Constantine 62 was scarcely sufficient to awaken him from his
      fatal security; he flattered himself, that his well-known
      liberality, and the majesty of the Roman name, which had already
      delivered him from two invasions, would dissipate with the same
      facility the rebellious army of Gaul. The officers of experience
      and ability, who had served under the banners of Maximian, were
      at length compelled to inform his effeminate son of the imminent
      danger to which he was reduced; and, with a freedom that at once
      surprised and convinced him, to urge the necessity of preventing
      his ruin by a vigorous exertion of his remaining power. The
      resources of Maxentius, both of men and money, were still
      considerable. The Prætorian guards felt how strongly their own
      interest and safety were connected with his cause; and a third
      army was soon collected, more numerous than those which had been
      lost in the battles of Turin and Verona. It was far from the
      intention of the emperor to lead his troops in person. A stranger
      to the exercises of war, he trembled at the apprehension of so
      dangerous a contest; and as fear is commonly superstitious, he
      listened with melancholy attention to the rumors of omens and
      presages which seemed to menace his life and empire. Shame at
      length supplied the place of courage, and forced him to take the
      field. He was unable to sustain the contempt of the Roman people.
      The circus resounded with their indignant clamors, and they
      tumultuously besieged the gates of the palace, reproaching the
      pusillanimity of their indolent sovereign, and celebrating the
      heroic spirit of Constantine. 63 Before Maxentius left Rome, he
      consulted the Sibylline books. The guardians of these ancient
      oracles were as well versed in the arts of this world as they
      were ignorant of the secrets of fate; and they returned him a
      very prudent answer, which might adapt itself to the event, and
      secure their reputation, whatever should be the chance of arms.
      64

      60 (return) [ Literas calamitatum suarum indices supprimebat.
      Panegyr Vet. ix. 15.]

      61 (return) [ Remedia malorum potius quam mala differebat, is the
      fine censure which Tacitus passes on the supine indolence of
      Vitellius.]

      62 (return) [ The Marquis Maffei has made it extremely probable
      that Constantine was still at Verona, the 1st of September, A.D.
      312, and that the memorable æra of the indications was dated from
      his conquest of the Cisalpine Gaul.]

      63 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. xi. 16. Lactantius de M. P. c.
      44.]

      64 (return) [ Illo die hostem Romanorum esse periturum. The
      vanquished became of course the enemy of Rome.]

      The celerity of Constantine’s march has been compared to the
      rapid conquest of Italy by the first of the Cæsars; nor is the
      flattering parallel repugnant to the truth of history, since no
      more than fifty-eight days elapsed between the surrender of
      Verona and the final decision of the war. Constantine had always
      apprehended that the tyrant would consult the dictates of fear,
      and perhaps of prudence; and that, instead of risking his last
      hopes in a general engagement, he would shut himself up within
      the walls of Rome. His ample magazines secured him against the
      danger of famine; and as the situation of Constantine admitted
      not of delay, he might have been reduced to the sad necessity of
      destroying with fire and sword the Imperial city, the noblest
      reward of his victory, and the deliverance of which had been the
      motive, or rather indeed the pretence, of the civil war. 65 It
      was with equal surprise and pleasure, that on his arrival at a
      place called Saxa Rubra, about nine miles from Rome, 66 he
      discovered the army of Maxentius prepared to give him battle. 67
      Their long front filled a very spacious plain, and their deep
      array reached to the banks of the Tyber, which covered their
      rear, and forbade their retreat. We are informed, and we may
      believe, that Constantine disposed his troops with consummate
      skill, and that he chose for himself the post of honor and
      danger. Distinguished by the splendor of his arms, he charged in
      person the cavalry of his rival; and his irresistible attack
      determined the fortune of the day. The cavalry of Maxentius was
      principally composed either of unwieldy cuirassiers, or of light
      Moors and Numidians. They yielded to the vigor of the Gallic
      horse, which possessed more activity than the one, more firmness
      than the other. The defeat of the two wings left the infantry
      without any protection on its flanks, and the undisciplined
      Italians fled without reluctance from the standard of a tyrant
      whom they had always hated, and whom they no longer feared. The
      Prætorians, conscious that their offences were beyond the reach
      of mercy, were animated by revenge and despair. Notwithstanding
      their repeated efforts, those brave veterans were unable to
      recover the victory: they obtained, however, an honorable death;
      and it was observed that their bodies covered the same ground
      which had been occupied by their ranks. 68 The confusion then
      became general, and the dismayed troops of Maxentius, pursued by
      an implacable enemy, rushed by thousands into the deep and rapid
      stream of the Tyber. The emperor himself attempted to escape back
      into the city over the Milvian bridge; but the crowds which
      pressed together through that narrow passage forced him into the
      river, where he was immediately drowned by the weight of his
      armor. 69 His body, which had sunk very deep into the mud, was
      found with some difficulty the next day. The sight of his head,
      when it was exposed to the eyes of the people, convinced them of
      their deliverance, and admonished them to receive with
      acclamations of loyalty and gratitude the fortunate Constantine,
      who thus achieved by his valor and ability the most splendid
      enterprise of his life. 70

      65 (return) [ See Panegyr. Vet. ix. 16, x. 27. The former of
      these orators magnifies the hoards of corn, which Maxentius had
      collected from Africa and the Islands. And yet, if there is any
      truth in the scarcity mentioned by Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin.
      l. i. c. 36,) the Imperial granaries must have been open only to
      the soldiers.]

      66 (return) [ Maxentius... tandem urbe in Saxa Rubra, millia
      ferme novem ægerrime progressus. Aurelius Victor. See Cellarius
      Geograph. Antiq. tom. i. p. 463. Saxa Rubra was in the
      neighborhood of the Cremera, a trifling rivulet, illustrated by
      the valor and glorious death of the three hundred Fabii.]

      67 (return) [ The post which Maxentius had taken, with the Tyber
      in his rear is very clearly described by the two Panegyrists, ix.
      16, x. 28.]

      68 (return) [ Exceptis latrocinii illius primis auctoribus, qui
      desperata venia ocum quem pugnæ sumpserant texere corporibus.
      Panegyr. Vet 17.]

      69 (return) [ A very idle rumor soon prevailed, that Maxentius,
      who had not taken any precaution for his own retreat, had
      contrived a very artful snare to destroy the army of the
      pursuers; but that the wooden bridge, which was to have been
      loosened on the approach of Constantine, unluckily broke down
      under the weight of the flying Italians. M. de Tillemont (Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. part i. p. 576) very seriously examines
      whether, in contradiction to common sense, the testimony of
      Eusebius and Zosimus ought to prevail over the silence of
      Lactantius, Nazarius, and the anonymous, but contemporary orator,
      who composed the ninth Panegyric. * Note: Manso (Beylage, vi.)
      examines the question, and adduces two manifest allusions to the
      bridge, from the Life of Constantine by Praxagoras, and from
      Libanius. Is it not very probable that such a bridge was thrown
      over the river to facilitate the advance, and to secure the
      retreat, of the army of Maxentius? In case of defeat, orders were
      given for destroying it, in order to check the pursuit: it broke
      down accidentally, or in the confusion was destroyed, as has not
      unfrequently been the case, before the proper time.—M.]

      70 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 86-88, and the two Panegyrics,
      the former of which was pronounced a few months afterwards,
      afford the clearest notion of this great battle. Lactantius,
      Eusebius, and even the Epitomes, supply several useful hints.]

      In the use of victory, Constantine neither deserved the praise of
      clemency, nor incurred the censure of immoderate rigor. 71 He
      inflicted the same treatment to which a defeat would have exposed
      his own person and family, put to death the two sons of the
      tyrant, and carefully extirpated his whole race. The most
      distinguished adherents of Maxentius must have expected to share
      his fate, as they had shared his prosperity and his crimes; but
      when the Roman people loudly demanded a greater number of
      victims, the conqueror resisted, with firmness and humanity,
      those servile clamors, which were dictated by flattery as well as
      by resentment. Informers were punished and discouraged; the
      innocent, who had suffered under the late tyranny, were recalled
      from exile, and restored to their estates. A general act of
      oblivion quieted the minds and settled the property of the
      people, both in Italy and in Africa. 72 The first time that
      Constantine honored the senate with his presence, he
      recapitulated his own services and exploits in a modest oration,
      assured that illustrious order of his sincere regard, and
      promised to reëstablish its ancient dignity and privileges. The
      grateful senate repaid these unmeaning professions by the empty
      titles of honor, which it was yet in their power to bestow; and
      without presuming to ratify the authority of Constantine, they
      passed a decree to assign him the first rank among the three
      _Augusti_ who governed the Roman world. 73 Games and festivals
      were instituted to preserve the fame of his victory, and several
      edifices, raised at the expense of Maxentius, were dedicated to
      the honor of his successful rival. The triumphal arch of
      Constantine still remains a melancholy proof of the decline of
      the arts, and a singular testimony of the meanest vanity. As it
      was not possible to find in the capital of the empire a sculptor
      who was capable of adorning that public monument, the arch of
      Trajan, without any respect either for his memory or for the
      rules of propriety, was stripped of its most elegant figures. The
      difference of times and persons, of actions and characters, was
      totally disregarded. The Parthian captives appear prostrate at
      the feet of a prince who never carried his arms beyond the
      Euphrates; and curious antiquarians can still discover the head
      of Trajan on the trophies of Constantine. The new ornaments which
      it was necessary to introduce between the vacancies of ancient
      sculpture are executed in the rudest and most unskilful manner.
      74

      71 (return) [ Zosimus, the enemy of Constantine, allows (l. ii.
      p. 88) that only a few of the friends of Maxentius were put to
      death; but we may remark the expressive passage of Nazarius,
      (Panegyr. Vet. x. 6.) Omnibus qui labefactari statum ejus
      poterant cum stirpe deletis. The other orator (Panegyr. Vet. ix.
      20, 21) contents himself with observing, that Constantine, when
      he entered Rome, did not imitate the cruel massacres of Cinna, of
      Marius, or of Sylla. * Note: This may refer to the son or sons of
      Maxentius.—M.]

      72 (return) [ See the two Panegyrics, and the laws of this and
      the ensuing year, in the Theodosian Code.]

      73 (return) [ Panegyr. Vet. ix. 20. Lactantius de M. P. c. 44.
      Maximin, who was confessedly the eldest Cæsar, claimed, with some
      show of reason, the first rank among the Augusti.]

      74 (return) [ Adhuc cuncta opera quæ magnifice construxerat,
      urbis fanum atque basilicam, Flavii meritis patres sacravere.
      Aurelius Victor. With regard to the theft of Trajan’s trophies,
      consult Flaminius Vacca, apud Montfaucon, Diarium Italicum, p.
      250, and l’Antiquite Expliquee of the latter, tom. iv. p. 171.]

      The final abolition of the Prætorian guards was a measure of
      prudence as well as of revenge. Those haughty troops, whose
      numbers and privileges had been restored, and even augmented, by
      Maxentius, were forever suppressed by Constantine. Their
      fortified camp was destroyed, and the few Prætorians who had
      escaped the fury of the sword were dispersed among the legions,
      and banished to the frontiers of the empire, where they might be
      serviceable without again becoming dangerous. 75 By suppressing
      the troops which were usually stationed in Rome, Constantine gave
      the fatal blow to the dignity of the senate and people, and the
      disarmed capital was exposed without protection to the insults or
      neglect of its distant master. We may observe, that in this last
      effort to preserve their expiring freedom, the Romans, from the
      apprehension of a tribute, had raised Maxentius to the throne. He
      exacted that tribute from the senate under the name of a free
      gift. They implored the assistance of Constantine. He vanquished
      the tyrant, and converted the free gift into a perpetual tax. The
      senators, according to the declaration which was required of
      their property, were divided into several classes. The most
      opulent paid annually eight pounds of gold, the next class paid
      four, the last two, and those whose poverty might have claimed an
      exemption, were assessed, however, at seven pieces of gold.
      Besides the regular members of the senate, their sons, their
      descendants, and even their relations, enjoyed the vain
      privileges, and supported the heavy burdens, of the senatorial
      order; nor will it any longer excite our surprise, that
      Constantine should be attentive to increase the number of persons
      who were included under so useful a description. 76 After the
      defeat of Maxentius, the victorious emperor passed no more than
      two or three months in Rome, which he visited twice during the
      remainder of his life, to celebrate the solemn festivals of the
      tenth and of the twentieth years of his reign. Constantine was
      almost perpetually in motion, to exercise the legions, or to
      inspect the state of the provinces. Treves, Milan, Aquileia,
      Sirmium, Naissus, and Thessalonica, were the occasional places of
      his residence, till he founded a new Rome on the confines of
      Europe and Asia. 77

      75 (return) [ Prætoriæ legiones ac subsidia factionibus aptiora
      quam urbi Romæ, sublata penitus; simul arma atque usus indumenti
      militaris Aurelius Victor. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 89) mentions this
      fact as an historian, and it is very pompously celebrated in the
      ninth Panegyric.]

      76 (return) [ Ex omnibus provinciis optimates viros Curiæ tuæ
      pigneraveris ut Senatus dignitas.... ex totius Orbis flore
      consisteret. Nazarius in Panegyr. Vet x. 35. The word
      pigneraveris might almost seem maliciously chosen. Concerning the
      senatorial tax, see Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115, the second title of
      the sixth book of the Theodosian Code, with Godefroy’s
      Commentary, and Memoires de l’Academic des Inscriptions, tom.
      xxviii. p. 726.]

      77 (return) [ From the Theodosian Code, we may now begin to trace
      the motions of the emperors; but the dates both of time and place
      have frequently been altered by the carelessness of
      transcribers.]

      Before Constantine marched into Italy, he had secured the
      friendship, or at least the neutrality, of Licinius, the Illyrian
      emperor. He had promised his sister Constantia in marriage to
      that prince; but the celebration of the nuptials was deferred
      till after the conclusion of the war, and the interview of the
      two emperors at Milan, which was appointed for that purpose,
      appeared to cement the union of their families and interests. 78
      In the midst of the public festivity they were suddenly obliged
      to take leave of each other. An inroad of the Franks summoned
      Constantine to the Rhine, and the hostile approach of the
      sovereign of Asia demanded the immediate presence of Licinius.
      Maximin had been the secret ally of Maxentius, and without being
      discouraged by his fate, he resolved to try the fortune of a
      civil war. He moved out of Syria, towards the frontiers of
      Bithynia, in the depth of winter. The season was severe and
      tempestuous; great numbers of men as well as horses perished in
      the snow; and as the roads were broken up by incessant rains, he
      was obliged to leave behind him a considerable part of the heavy
      baggage, which was unable to follow the rapidity of his forced
      marches. By this extraordinary effort of diligence, he arrived
      with a harassed but formidable army, on the banks of the Thracian
      Bosphorus before the lieutenants of Licinius were apprised of his
      hostile intentions. Byzantium surrendered to the power of
      Maximin, after a siege of eleven days. He was detained some days
      under the walls of Heraclea; and he had no sooner taken
      possession of that city than he was alarmed by the intelligence
      that Licinius had pitched his camp at the distance of only
      eighteen miles. After a fruitless negotiation, in which the two
      princes attempted to seduce the fidelity of each other’s
      adherents, they had recourse to arms. The emperor of the East
      commanded a disciplined and veteran army of above seventy
      thousand men; and Licinius, who had collected about thirty
      thousand Illyrians, was at first oppressed by the superiority of
      numbers. His military skill, and the firmness of his troops,
      restored the day, and obtained a decisive victory. The incredible
      speed which Maximin exerted in his flight is much more celebrated
      than his prowess in the battle. Twenty-four hours afterwards he
      was seen, pale, trembling, and without his Imperial ornaments, at
      Nicomedia, one hundred and sixty miles from the place of his
      defeat. The wealth of Asia was yet unexhausted; and though the
      flower of his veterans had fallen in the late action, he had
      still power, if he could obtain time, to draw very numerous
      levies from Syria and Egypt. But he survived his misfortune only
      three or four months. His death, which happened at Tarsus, was
      variously ascribed to despair, to poison, and to the divine
      justice. As Maximin was alike destitute of abilities and of
      virtue, he was lamented neither by the people nor by the
      soldiers. The provinces of the East, delivered from the terrors
      of civil war, cheerfully acknowledged the authority of Licinius.
      79

      78 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 89) observes, that before the
      war the sister of Constantine had been betrothed to Licinius.
      According to the younger Victor, Diocletian was invited to the
      nuptials; but having ventured to plead his age and infirmities,
      he received a second letter, filled with reproaches for his
      supposed partiality to the cause of Maxentius and Maximin.]

      79 (return) [ Zosimus mentions the defeat and death of Maximin as
      ordinary events; but Lactantius expatiates on them, (de M. P. c.
      45-50,) ascribing them to the miraculous interposition of Heaven.
      Licinius at that time was one of the protectors of the church.]

      The vanquished emperor left behind him two children, a boy of
      about eight, and a girl of about seven, years old. Their
      inoffensive age might have excited compassion; but the compassion
      of Licinius was a very feeble resource, nor did it restrain him
      from _extinguishing_ the name and memory of his adversary. The
      death of Severianus will admit of less excuse, as it was dictated
      neither by revenge nor by policy. The conqueror had never
      received any injury from the father of that unhappy youth, and
      the short and obscure reign of Severus, in a distant part of the
      empire, was already forgotten. But the execution of Candidianus
      was an act of the blackest cruelty and ingratitude. He was the
      natural son of Galerius, the friend and benefactor of Licinius.
      The prudent father had judged him too young to sustain the weight
      of a diadem; but he hoped that, under the protection of princes
      who were indebted to his favor for the Imperial purple,
      Candidianus might pass a secure and honorable life. He was now
      advancing towards the twentieth year of his age, and the royalty
      of his birth, though unsupported either by merit or ambition, was
      sufficient to exasperate the jealous mind of Licinius. 80 To
      these innocent and illustrious victims of his tyranny, we must
      add the wife and daughter of the emperor Diocletian. When that
      prince conferred on Galerius the title of Cæsar, he had given him
      in marriage his daughter Valeria, whose melancholy adventures
      might furnish a very singular subject for tragedy. She had
      fulfilled and even surpassed the duties of a wife. As she had not
      any children herself, she condescended to adopt the illegitimate
      son of her husband, and invariably displayed towards the unhappy
      Candidianus the tenderness and anxiety of a real mother. After
      the death of Galerius, her ample possessions provoked the
      avarice, and her personal attractions excited the desires, of his
      successor, Maximin. 81 He had a wife still alive; but divorce was
      permitted by the Roman law, and the fierce passions of the tyrant
      demanded an immediate gratification. The answer of Valeria was
      such as became the daughter and widow of emperors; but it was
      tempered by the prudence which her defenceless condition
      compelled her to observe. She represented to the persons whom
      Maximin had employed on this occasion, “that even if honor could
      permit a woman of her character and dignity to entertain a
      thought of second nuptials, decency at least must forbid her to
      listen to his addresses at a time when the ashes of her husband
      and his benefactor were still warm, and while the sorrows of her
      mind were still expressed by her mourning garments. She ventured
      to declare, that she could place very little confidence in the
      professions of a man whose cruel inconstancy was capable of
      repudiating a faithful and affectionate wife.” 82 On this
      repulse, the love of Maximin was converted into fury; and as
      witnesses and judges were always at his disposal, it was easy for
      him to cover his fury with an appearance of legal proceedings,
      and to assault the reputation as well as the happiness of
      Valeria. Her estates were confiscated, her eunuchs and domestics
      devoted to the most inhuman tortures; and several innocent and
      respectable matrons, who were honored with her friendship,
      suffered death, on a false accusation of adultery. The empress
      herself, together with her mother Prisca, was condemned to exile;
      and as they were ignominiously hurried from place to place before
      they were confined to a sequestered village in the deserts of
      Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to the provinces of
      the East, which, during thirty years, had respected their august
      dignity. Diocletian made several ineffectual efforts to alleviate
      the misfortunes of his daughter; and, as the last return that he
      expected for the Imperial purple, which he had conferred upon
      Maximin, he entreated that Valeria might be permitted to share
      his retirement of Salona, and to close the eyes of her afflicted
      father. 83 He entreated; but as he could no longer threaten, his
      prayers were received with coldness and disdain; and the pride of
      Maximin was gratified, in treating Diocletian as a suppliant, and
      his daughter as a criminal. The death of Maximin seemed to assure
      the empresses of a favorable alteration in their fortune. The
      public disorders relaxed the vigilance of their guard, and they
      easily found means to escape from the place of their exile, and
      to repair, though with some precaution, and in disguise, to the
      court of Licinius. His behavior, in the first days of his reign,
      and the honorable reception which he gave to young Candidianus,
      inspired Valeria with a secret satisfaction, both on her own
      account and on that of her adopted son. But these grateful
      prospects were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment; and the
      bloody executions which stained the palace of Nicomedia
      sufficiently convinced her that the throne of Maximin was filled
      by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her
      safety by a hasty flight, and, still accompanied by her mother
      Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months 84 through the
      provinces, concealed in the disguise of plebeian habits. They
      were at length discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of
      their death was already pronounced, they were immediately
      beheaded, and their bodies thrown into the sea. The people gazed
      on the melancholy spectacle; but their grief and indignation were
      suppressed by the terrors of a military guard. Such was the
      unworthy fate of the wife and daughter of Diocletian. We lament
      their misfortunes, we cannot discover their crimes; and whatever
      idea we may justly entertain of the cruelty of Licinius, it
      remains a matter of surprise that he was not contented with some
      more secret and decent method of revenge. 85

      80 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 50. Aurelius Victor touches
      on the different conduct of Licinius, and of Constantine, in the
      use of victory.]

      81 (return) [ The sensual appetites of Maximin were gratified at
      the expense of his subjects. His eunuchs, who forced away wives
      and virgins, examined their naked charms with anxious curiosity,
      lest any part of their body should be found unworthy of the royal
      embraces. Coyness and disdain were considered as treason, and the
      obstinate fair one was condemned to be drowned. A custom was
      gradually introduced, that no person should marry a wife without
      the permission of the emperor, “ut ipse in omnibus nuptiis
      prægustator esset.” Lactantius de M. P. c. 38.]

      82 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 39.]

      83 (return) [ Diocletian at last sent cognatum suum, quendam
      militarem æ potentem virum, to intercede in favor of his
      daughter, (Lactantius de M. P. c. 41.) We are not sufficiently
      acquainted with the history of these times to point out the
      person who was employed.]

      84 (return) [ Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim
      mensibus plebeio cultu pervagata. Lactantius de M. P. c. 51.
      There is some doubt whether we should compute the fifteen months
      from the moment of her exile, or from that of her escape. The
      expression of parvagata seems to denote the latter; but in that
      case we must suppose that the treatise of Lactantius was written
      after the first civil war between Licinius and Constantine. See
      Cuper, p. 254.]

      85 (return) [ Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit.
      Lactantius de M. P. c. 51. He relates the misfortunes of the
      innocent wife and daughter of Discletian with a very natural
      mixture of pity and exultation.]

      The Roman world was now divided between Constantine and Licinius,
      the former of whom was master of the West, and the latter of the
      East. It might perhaps have been expected that the conquerors,
      fatigued with civil war, and connected by a private as well as
      public alliance, would have renounced, or at least would have
      suspended, any further designs of ambition. And yet a year had
      scarcely elapsed after the death of Maximin, before the
      victorious emperors turned their arms against each other. The
      genius, the success, and the aspiring temper of Constantine, may
      seem to mark him out as the aggressor; but the perfidious
      character of Licinius justifies the most unfavorable suspicions,
      and by the faint light which history reflects on this
      transaction, 86 we may discover a conspiracy fomented by his arts
      against the authority of his colleague. Constantine had lately
      given his sister Anastasia in marriage to Bassianus, a man of a
      considerable family and fortune, and had elevated his new kinsman
      to the rank of Cæsar. According to the system of government
      instituted by Diocletian, Italy, and perhaps Africa, were
      designed for his department in the empire. But the performance of
      the promised favor was either attended with so much delay, or
      accompanied with so many unequal conditions, that the fidelity of
      Bassianus was alienated rather than secured by the honorable
      distinction which he had obtained. His nomination had been
      ratified by the consent of Licinius; and that artful prince, by
      the means of his emissaries, soon contrived to enter into a
      secret and dangerous correspondence with the new Cæsar, to
      irritate his discontents, and to urge him to the rash enterprise
      of extorting by violence what he might in vain solicit from the
      justice of Constantine. But the vigilant emperor discovered the
      conspiracy before it was ripe for execution; and after solemnly
      renouncing the alliance of Bassianus, despoiled him of the
      purple, and inflicted the deserved punishment on his treason and
      ingratitude. The haughty refusal of Licinius, when he was
      required to deliver up the criminals who had taken refuge in his
      dominions, confirmed the suspicions already entertained of his
      perfidy; and the indignities offered at Æmona, on the frontiers
      of Italy, to the statues of Constantine, became the signal of
      discord between the two princes. 87

      86 (return) [ The curious reader, who consults the Valesian
      fragment, p. 713, will probably accuse me of giving a bold and
      licentious paraphrase; but if he considers it with attention, he
      will acknowledge that my interpretation is probable and
      consistent.]

      87 (return) [ The situation of Æmona, or, as it is now called,
      Laybach, in Carniola, (D’Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
      187,) may suggest a conjecture. As it lay to the north-east of
      the Julian Alps, that important territory became a natural object
      of dispute between the sovereigns of Italy and of Illyricum.]

      The first battle was fought near Cibalis, a city of Pannonia,
      situated on the River Save, about fifty miles above Sirmium. 88
      From the inconsiderable forces which in this important contest
      two such powerful monarchs brought into the field, it may be
      inferred that the one was suddenly provoked, and that the other
      was unexpectedly surprised. The emperor of the West had only
      twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five
      and thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however,
      compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken
      post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep
      hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily
      expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued
      his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions
      of Illyricum rallied under the standard of a leader who had been
      trained to arms in the school of Probus and Diocletian. The
      missile weapons on both sides were soon exhausted; the two
      armies, with equal valor, rushed to a closer engagement of swords
      and spears, and the doubtful contest had already lasted from the
      dawn of the day to a late hour of the evening, when the right
      wing, which Constantine led in person, made a vigorous and
      decisive charge. The judicious retreat of Licinius saved the
      remainder of his troops from a total defeat; but when he computed
      his loss, which amounted to more than twenty thousand men, he
      thought it unsafe to pass the night in the presence of an active
      and victorious enemy. Abandoning his camp and magazines, he
      marched away with secrecy and diligence at the head of the
      greatest part of his cavalry, and was soon removed beyond the
      danger of a pursuit. His diligence preserved his wife, his son,
      and his treasures, which he had deposited at Sirmium. Licinius
      passed through that city, and breaking down the bridge on the
      Save, hastened to collect a new army in Dacia and Thrace. In his
      flight he bestowed the precarious title of Cæsar on Valens, his
      general of the Illyrian frontier. 89

      88 (return) [ Cibalis or Cibalæ (whose name is still preserved in
      the obscure ruins of Swilei) was situated about fifty miles from
      Sirmium, the capital of Illyricum, and about one hundred from
      Taurunum, or Belgrade, and the conflux of the Danube and the
      Save. The Roman garrisons and cities on those rivers are finely
      illustrated by M. d’Anville in a memoir inserted in l’Academie
      des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii.]

      89 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 90, 91) gives a very particular
      account of this battle; but the descriptions of Zosimus are
      rhetorical rather than military]




      Chapter XIV: Six Emperors At The Same Time, Reunion Of The
      Empire.—Part IV.

      The plain of Mardia in Thrace was the theatre of a second battle
      no less obstinate and bloody than the former. The troops on both
      sides displayed the same valor and discipline; and the victory
      was once more decided by the superior abilities of Constantine,
      who directed a body of five thousand men to gain an advantageous
      height, from whence, during the heat of the action, they attacked
      the rear of the enemy, and made a very considerable slaughter.
      The troops of Licinius, however, presenting a double front, still
      maintained their ground, till the approach of night put an end to
      the combat, and secured their retreat towards the mountains of
      Macedonia. 90 The loss of two battles, and of his bravest
      veterans, reduced the fierce spirit of Licinius to sue for peace.
      His ambassador Mistrianus was admitted to the audience of
      Constantine: he expatiated on the common topics of moderation and
      humanity, which are so familiar to the eloquence of the
      vanquished; represented in the most insinuating language, that
      the event of the war was still doubtful, whilst its inevitable
      calamities were alike pernicious to both the contending parties;
      and declared that he was authorized to propose a lasting and
      honorable peace in the name of the _two_ emperors his masters.
      Constantine received the mention of Valens with indignation and
      contempt. “It was not for such a purpose,” he sternly replied,
      “that we have advanced from the shores of the western ocean in an
      uninterrupted course of combats and victories, that, after
      rejecting an ungrateful kinsman, we should accept for our
      colleague a contemptible slave. The abdication of Valens is the
      first article of the treaty.” 91 It was necessary to accept this
      humiliating condition; and the unhappy Valens, after a reign of a
      few days, was deprived of the purple and of his life. As soon as
      this obstacle was removed, the tranquillity of the Roman world
      was easily restored. The successive defeats of Licinius had
      ruined his forces, but they had displayed his courage and
      abilities. His situation was almost desperate, but the efforts of
      despair are sometimes formidable, and the good sense of
      Constantine preferred a great and certain advantage to a third
      trial of the chance of arms. He consented to leave his rival, or,
      as he again styled Licinius, his friend and brother, in the
      possession of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; but the
      provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece,
      were yielded to the Western empire, and the dominions of
      Constantine now extended from the confines of Caledonia to the
      extremity of Peloponnesus. It was stipulated by the same treaty,
      that three royal youths, the sons of emperors, should be called
      to the hopes of the succession. Crispus and the young Constantine
      were soon afterwards declared Cæsars in the West, while the
      younger Licinius was invested with the same dignity in the East.
      In this double proportion of honors, the conqueror asserted the
      superiority of his arms and power. 92

      90 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 92, 93. Anonym. Valesian. p.
      713. The Epitomes furnish some circumstances; but they frequently
      confound the two wars between Licinius and Constantine.]

      91 (return) [ Petrus Patricius in Excerpt. Legat. p. 27. If it
      should be thought that signifies more properly a son-in-law, we
      might conjecture that Constantine, assuming the name as well as
      the duties of a father, had adopted his younger brothers and
      sisters, the children of Theodora. But in the best authors
      sometimes signifies a husband, sometimes a father-in-law, and
      sometimes a kinsman in general. See Spanheim, Observat. ad
      Julian. Orat. i. p. 72.]

      92 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93. Anonym. Valesian. p. 713.
      Eutropius, x. v. Aurelius Victor, Euseb. in Chron. Sozomen, l. i.
      c. 2. Four of these writers affirm that the promotion of the
      Cæsars was an article of the treaty. It is, however, certain,
      that the younger Constantine and Licinius were not yet born; and
      it is highly probable that the promotion was made the 1st of
      March, A. D. 317. The treaty had probably stipulated that the two
      Cæsars might be created by the western, and one only by the
      eastern emperor; but each of them reserved to himself the choice
      of the persons.]

      The reconciliation of Constantine and Licinius, though it was
      imbittered by resentment and jealousy, by the remembrance of
      recent injuries, and by the apprehension of future dangers,
      maintained, however, above eight years, the tranquility of the
      Roman world. As a very regular series of the Imperial laws
      commences about this period, it would not be difficult to
      transcribe the civil regulations which employed the leisure of
      Constantine. But the most important of his institutions are
      intimately connected with the new system of policy and religion,
      which was not perfectly established till the last and peaceful
      years of his reign. There are many of his laws, which, as far as
      they concern the rights and property of individuals, and the
      practice of the bar, are more properly referred to the private
      than to the public jurisprudence of the empire; and he published
      many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, that they would
      ill deserve the notice of a general history. Two laws, however,
      may be selected from the crowd; the one for its importance, the
      other for its singularity; the former for its remarkable
      benevolence, the latter for its excessive severity. 1. The horrid
      practice, so familiar to the ancients, of exposing or murdering
      their new-born infants, was become every day more frequent in the
      provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of
      distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the
      intolerant burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel
      prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their
      insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of
      mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it
      an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the
      impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to
      support. The humanity of Constantine, moved, perhaps, by some
      recent and extraordinary instances of despair, engaged him to
      address an edict to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of
      Africa, directing immediate and sufficient relief to be given to
      those parents who should produce before the magistrates the
      children whom their own poverty would not allow them to educate.
      But the promise was too liberal, and the provision too vague, to
      effect any general or permanent benefit. 93 The law, though it
      may merit some praise, served rather to display than to alleviate
      the public distress. It still remains an authentic monument to
      contradict and confound those venal orators, who were too well
      satisfied with their own situation to discover either vice or
      misery under the government of a generous sovereign. 94 2. The
      laws of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little
      indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since
      the description of that crime was applied not only to the brutal
      violence which compelled, but even to the gentle seduction which
      might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five,
      to leave the house of her parents. “The successful ravisher was
      punished with death;” and as if simple death was inadequate to
      the enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in
      pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin’s
      declaration, that she had been carried away with her own consent,
      instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The
      duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the
      guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature
      prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a
      subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were
      themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves,
      whether male or female, who were convicted of having been
      accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death
      by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity
      of melted lead. As the crime was of a public kind, the accusation
      was permitted even to strangers.9401

      9401 (return) [ This explanation appears to me little probable.
      Godefroy has made a much more happy conjecture, supported by all
      the historical circumstances which relate to this edict. It was
      published the 12th of May, A. D. 315. at Naissus in Pannonia, the
      birthplace of Constantine. The 8th of October, in that year,
      Constantine gained the victory of Cibalis over Licinius. He was
      yet uncertain as to the fate of the war: the Christians, no
      doubt, whom he favored, had prophesied his victory. Lactantius,
      then preceptor of Crispus, had just written his work upon
      Christianity, (his Divine Institutes;) he had dedicated it to
      Constantine. In this book he had inveighed with great force
      against infanticide, and the exposure of infants, (l. vi. c. 20.)
      Is it not probable that Constantine had read this work, that he
      had conversed on the subject with Lactantius, that he was moved,
      among other things, by the passage to which I have referred, and
      in the first transport of his enthusiasm, he published the edict
      in question? The whole of the edict bears the character of
      precipitation, of excitement, (entrainement,) rather than of
      deliberate reflection—the extent of the promises, the
      indefiniteness of the means, of the conditions, and of the time
      during which the parents might have a right to the succor of the
      state. Is there not reason to believe that the humanity of
      Constantine was excited by the influence of Lactantius, by that
      of the principles of Christianity, and of the Christians
      themselves, already in high esteem with the emperor, rather than
      by some “extraordinary instances of despair”? * * * See
      Hegewisch, Essai Hist. sur les Finances Romaines. The edict for
      Africa was not published till 322: of that we may say in truth
      that its origin was in the misery of the times. Africa had
      suffered much from the cruelty of Maxentius. Constantine says
      expressly, that he had learned that parents, under the pressure
      of distress, were there selling their children. This decree is
      more distinct, more maturely deliberated than the former; the
      succor which was to be given to the parents, and the source from
      which it was to be derived, are determined. (Code Theod. l. xi.
      tit. 27, c 2.) If the direct utility of these laws may not have
      been very extensive, they had at least the great and happy effect
      of establishing a decisive opposition between the principles of
      the government and those which, at this time, had prevailed among
      the subjects of the empire.—G.]

      The commencement of the action was not limited to any term of
      years, and the consequences of the sentence were extended to the
      innocent offspring of such an irregular union. 95 But whenever
      the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor
      of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of
      mankind. The most odious parts of this edict were softened or
      repealed in the subsequent reigns; 96 and even Constantine
      himself very frequently alleviated, by partial acts of mercy, the
      stern temper of his general institutions. Such, indeed, was the
      singular humor of that emperor, who showed himself as indulgent,
      and even remiss, in the execution of his laws, as he was severe,
      and even cruel, in the enacting of them. It is scarcely possible
      to observe a more decisive symptom of weakness, either in the
      character of the prince, or in the constitution of the
      government. 97

      93 (return) [ Codex Theodosian. l. xi. tit. 27, tom. iv. p. 188,
      with Godefroy’s observations. See likewise l. v. tit. 7, 8.]

      94 (return) [ Omnia foris placita, domi prospera, annonæ
      ubertate, fructuum copia, &c. Panegyr. Vet. x. 38. This oration
      of Nazarius was pronounced on the day of the Quinquennalia of the
      Cæsars, the 1st of March, A. D. 321.]

      95 (return) [ See the edict of Constantine, addressed to the
      Roman people, in the Theodosian Code, l. ix. tit. 24, tom. iii.
      p. 189.]

      96 (return) [ His son very fairly assigns the true reason of the
      repeal: “Na sub specie atrocioris judicii aliqua in ulciscendo
      crimine dilatio næ ceretur.” Cod. Theod. tom. iii. p. 193]

      97 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vita Constant. l. iii. c. 1) chooses
      to affirm, that in the reign of this hero, the sword of justice
      hung idle in the hands of the magistrates. Eusebius himself, (l.
      iv. c. 29, 54,) and the Theodosian Code, will inform us that this
      excessive lenity was not owing to the want either of atrocious
      criminals or of penal laws.]

      The civil administration was sometimes interrupted by the
      military defence of the empire. Crispus, a youth of the most
      amiable character, who had received with the title of Cæsar the
      command of the Rhine, distinguished his conduct, as well as
      valor, in several victories over the Franks and Alemanni, and
      taught the barbarians of that frontier to dread the eldest son of
      Constantine, and the grandson of Constantius. 98 The emperor
      himself had assumed the more difficult and important province of
      the Danube. The Goths, who in the time of Claudius and Aurelian
      had felt the weight of the Roman arms, respected the power of the
      empire, even in the midst of its intestine divisions. But the
      strength of that warlike nation was now restored by a peace of
      near fifty years; a new generation had arisen, who no longer
      remembered the misfortunes of ancient days; the Sarmatians of the
      Lake Mæotis followed the Gothic standard either as subjects or as
      allies, and their united force was poured upon the countries of
      Illyricum. Campona, Margus, and Benonia, 982 appear to have been
      the scenes of several memorable sieges and battles; 99 and though
      Constantine encountered a very obstinate resistance, he prevailed
      at length in the contest, and the Goths were compelled to
      purchased an ignominious retreat, by restoring the booty and
      prisoners which they had taken. Nor was this advantage sufficient
      to satisfy the indignation of the emperor. He resolved to
      chastise as well as to repulse the insolent barbarians who had
      dared to invade the territories of Rome. At the head of his
      legions he passed the Danube, after repairing the bridge which
      had been constructed by Trajan, penetrated into the strongest
      recesses of Dacia, 100 and when he had inflicted a severe
      revenge, condescended to give peace to the suppliant Goths, on
      condition that, as often as they were required, they should
      supply his armies with a body of forty thousand soldiers. 101
      Exploits like these were no doubt honorable to Constantine, and
      beneficial to the state; but it may surely be questioned, whether
      they can justify the exaggerated assertion of Eusebius, that ALL
      SCYTHIA, as far as the extremity of the North, divided as it was
      into so many names and nations of the most various and savage
      manners, had been added by his victorious arms to the Roman
      empire. 102

      98 (return) [ Nazarius in Panegyr. Vet. x. The victory of Crispus
      over the Alemanni is expressed on some medals. * Note: Other
      medals are extant, the legends of which commemorate the success
      of Constantine over the Sarmatians and other barbarous nations,
      Sarmatia Devicta. Victoria Gothica. Debellatori Gentium
      Barbarorum. Exuperator Omnium Gentium. St. Martin, note on Le
      Beau, i. 148.—M.]

      982 (return) [ Campona, Old Buda in Hungary; Margus, Benonia,
      Widdin, in Mæsia—G and M.]

      99 (return) [ See Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93, 94; though the narrative
      of that historian is neither clear nor consistent. The Panegyric
      of Optatianus (c. 23) mentions the alliance of the Sarmatians
      with the Carpi and Getæ, and points out the several fields of
      battle. It is supposed that the Sarmatian games, celebrated in
      the month of November, derived their origin from the success of
      this war.]

      100 (return) [ In the Cæsars of Julian, (p. 329. Commentaire de
      Spanheim, p. 252.) Constantine boasts, that he had recovered the
      province (Dacia) which Trajan had subdued. But it is insinuated
      by Silenus, that the conquests of Constantine were like the
      gardens of Adonis, which fade and wither almost the moment they
      appear.]

      101 (return) [ Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 21. I know not
      whether we may entirely depend on his authority. Such an alliance
      has a very recent air, and scarcely is suited to the maxims of
      the beginning of the fourth century.]

      102 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 8. This
      passage, however, is taken from a general declamation on the
      greatness of Constantine, and not from any particular account of
      the Gothic war.]

      In this exalted state of glory, it was impossible that
      Constantine should any longer endure a partner in the empire.
      Confiding in the superiority of his genius and military power, he
      determined, without any previous injury, to exert them for the
      destruction of Licinius, whose advanced age and unpopular vices
      seemed to offer a very easy conquest. 103 But the old emperor,
      awakened by the approaching danger, deceived the expectations of
      his friends, as well as of his enemies. Calling forth that spirit
      and those abilities by which he had deserved the friendship of
      Galerius and the Imperial purple, he prepared himself for the
      contest, collected the forces of the East, and soon filled the
      plains of Hadrianople with his troops, and the straits of the
      Hellespont with his fleet. The army consisted of one hundred and
      fifty thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse; and as the
      cavalry was drawn, for the most part, from Phrygia and
      Cappadocia, we may conceive a more favorable opinion of the
      beauty of the horses, than of the courage and dexterity of their
      riders. The fleet was composed of three hundred and fifty galleys
      of three ranks of oars. A hundred and thirty of these were
      furnished by Egypt and the adjacent coast of Africa. A hundred
      and ten sailed from the ports of Phœnicia and the isle of Cyprus;
      and the maritime countries of Bithynia, Ionia, and Caria were
      likewise obliged to provide a hundred and ten galleys. The troops
      of Constantine were ordered to a rendezvous at Thessalonica; they
      amounted to above a hundred and twenty thousand horse and foot.
      104 Their emperor was satisfied with their martial appearance,
      and his army contained more soldiers, though fewer men, than that
      of his eastern competitor. The legions of Constantine were levied
      in the warlike provinces of Europe; action had confirmed their
      discipline, victory had elevated their hopes, and there were
      among them a great number of veterans, who, after seventeen
      glorious campaigns under the same leader, prepared themselves to
      deserve an honorable dismission by a last effort of their valor.
      105 But the naval preparations of Constantine were in every
      respect much inferior to those of Licinius. The maritime cities
      of Greece sent their respective quotas of men and ships to the
      celebrated harbor of Piræus, and their united forces consisted of
      no more than two hundred small vessels—a very feeble armament, if
      it is compared with those formidable fleets which were equipped
      and maintained by the republic of Athens during the Peloponnesian
      war. 106 Since Italy was no longer the seat of government, the
      naval establishments of Misenum and Ravenna had been gradually
      neglected; and as the shipping and mariners of the empire were
      supported by commerce rather than by war, it was natural that
      they should the most abound in the industrious provinces of Egypt
      and Asia. It is only surprising that the eastern emperor, who
      possessed so great a superiority at sea, should have neglected
      the opportunity of carrying an offensive war into the centre of
      his rival’s dominions.

      103 (return) [ Constantinus tamen, vir ingens, et omnia efficere
      nitens quæ animo præparasset, simul principatum totius urbis
      affectans, Licinio bellum intulit. Eutropius, x. 5. Zosimus, l.
      ii. p 89. The reasons which they have assigned for the first
      civil war, may, with more propriety, be applied to the second.]

      104 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 94, 95.]

      105 (return) [ Constantine was very attentive to the privileges
      and comforts of his fellow-veterans, (Conveterani,) as he now
      began to style them. See the Theodosian Code, l. vii. tit. 10,
      tom. ii. p. 419, 429.]

      106 (return) [ Whilst the Athenians maintained the empire of the
      sea, their fleet consisted of three, and afterwards of four,
      hundred galleys of three ranks of oars, all completely equipped
      and ready for immediate service. The arsenal in the port of
      Piræus had cost the republic a thousand talents, about two
      hundred and sixteen thousand pounds. See Thucydides de Bel.
      Pelopon. l. ii. c. 13, and Meursius de Fortuna Attica, c. 19.]

      Instead of embracing such an active resolution, which might have
      changed the whole face of the war, the prudent Licinius expected
      the approach of his rival in a camp near Hadrianople, which he
      had fortified with an anxious care that betrayed his apprehension
      of the event. Constantine directed his march from Thessalonica
      towards that part of Thrace, till he found himself stopped by the
      broad and rapid stream of the Hebrus, and discovered the numerous
      army of Licinius, which filled the steep ascent of the hill, from
      the river to the city of Hadrianople. Many days were spent in
      doubtful and distant skirmishes; but at length the obstacles of
      the passage and of the attack were removed by the intrepid
      conduct of Constantine. In this place we might relate a wonderful
      exploit of Constantine, which, though it can scarcely be
      paralleled either in poetry or romance, is celebrated, not by a
      venal orator devoted to his fortune, but by an historian, the
      partial enemy of his fame. We are assured that the valiant
      emperor threw himself into the River Hebrus, accompanied only by
      _twelve_ horsemen, and that by the effort or terror of his
      invincible arm, he broke, slaughtered, and put to flight a host
      of a hundred and fifty thousand men. The credulity of Zosimus
      prevailed so strongly over his passion, that among the events of
      the memorable battle of Hadrianople, he seems to have selected
      and embellished, not the most important, but the most marvellous.
      The valor and danger of Constantine are attested by a slight
      wound which he received in the thigh; but it may be discovered
      even from an imperfect narration, and perhaps a corrupted text,
      that the victory was obtained no less by the conduct of the
      general than by the courage of the hero; that a body of five
      thousand archers marched round to occupy a thick wood in the rear
      of the enemy, whose attention was diverted by the construction of
      a bridge, and that Licinius, perplexed by so many artful
      evolutions, was reluctantly drawn from his advantageous post to
      combat on equal ground on the plain. The contest was no longer
      equal. His confused multitude of new levies was easily vanquished
      by the experienced veterans of the West. Thirty-four thousand men
      are reported to have been slain. The fortified camp of Licinius
      was taken by assault the evening of the battle; the greater part
      of the fugitives, who had retired to the mountains, surrendered
      themselves the next day to the discretion of the conqueror; and
      his rival, who could no longer keep the field, confined himself
      within the walls of Byzantium. 107

      107 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 95, 96. This great battle is
      described in the Valesian fragment, (p. 714,) in a clear though
      concise manner. “Licinius vero circum Hadrianopolin maximo
      exercitu latera ardui montis impleverat; illuc toto agmine
      Constantinus inflexit. Cum bellum terra marique traheretur,
      quamvis per arduum suis nitentibus, attamen disciplina militari
      et felicitate, Constantinus Licinu confusum et sine ordine
      agentem vicit exercitum; leviter femore sau ciatus.”]

      The siege of Byzantium, which was immediately undertaken by
      Constantine, was attended with great labor and uncertainty. In
      the late civil wars, the fortifications of that place, so justly
      considered as the key of Europe and Asia, had been repaired and
      strengthened; and as long as Licinius remained master of the sea,
      the garrison was much less exposed to the danger of famine than
      the army of the besiegers. The naval commanders of Constantine
      were summoned to his camp, and received his positive orders to
      force the passage of the Hellespont, as the fleet of Licinius,
      instead of seeking and destroying their feeble enemy, continued
      inactive in those narrow straits, where its superiority of
      numbers was of little use or advantage. Crispus, the emperor’s
      eldest son, was intrusted with the execution of this daring
      enterprise, which he performed with so much courage and success,
      that he deserved the esteem, and most probably excited the
      jealousy, of his father. The engagement lasted two days; and in
      the evening of the first, the contending fleets, after a
      considerable and mutual loss, retired into their respective
      harbors of Europe and Asia. The second day, about noon, a strong
      south wind 108 sprang up, which carried the vessels of Crispus
      against the enemy; and as the casual advantage was improved by
      his skilful intrepidity, he soon obtained a complete victory. A
      hundred and thirty vessels were destroyed, five thousand men were
      slain, and Amandus, the admiral of the Asiatic fleet, escaped
      with the utmost difficulty to the shores of Chalcedon. As soon as
      the Hellespont was open, a plentiful convoy of provisions flowed
      into the camp of Constantine, who had already advanced the
      operations of the siege. He constructed artificial mounds of
      earth of an equal height with the ramparts of Byzantium. The
      lofty towers which were erected on that foundation galled the
      besieged with large stones and darts from the military engines,
      and the battering rams had shaken the walls in several places. If
      Licinius persisted much longer in the defence, he exposed himself
      to be involved in the ruin of the place. Before he was
      surrounded, he prudently removed his person and treasures to
      Chalcedon in Asia; and as he was always desirous of associating
      companions to the hopes and dangers of his fortune, he now
      bestowed the title of Cæsar on Martinianus, who exercised one of
      the most important offices of the empire. 109

      108 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 97, 98. The current always sets
      out of the Hellespont; and when it is assisted by a north wind,
      no vessel can attempt the passage. A south wind renders the force
      of the current almost imperceptible. See Tournefort’s Voyage au
      Levant, Let. xi.]

      109 (return) [ Aurelius Victor. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 93. According
      to the latter, Martinianus was Magister Officiorum, (he uses the
      Latin appellation in Greek.) Some medals seem to intimate, that
      during his short reign he received the title of Augustus.]

      Such were still the resources, and such the abilities, of
      Licinius, that, after so many successive defeats, he collected in
      Bithynia a new army of fifty or sixty thousand men, while the
      activity of Constantine was employed in the siege of Byzantium.
      The vigilant emperor did not, however, neglect the last struggles
      of his antagonist. A considerable part of his victorious army was
      transported over the Bosphorus in small vessels, and the decisive
      engagement was fought soon after their landing on the heights of
      Chrysopolis, or, as it is now called, of Scutari. The troops of
      Licinius, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and worse
      disciplined, made head against their conquerors with fruitless
      but desperate valor, till a total defeat, and a slaughter of five
      and twenty thousand men, irretrievably determined the fate of
      their leader. 110 He retired to Nicomedia, rather with the view
      of gaining some time for negotiation, than with the hope of any
      effectual defence. Constantia, his wife, and the sister of
      Constantine, interceded with her brother in favor of her husband,
      and obtained from his policy, rather than from his compassion, a
      solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that after the sacrifice of
      Martinianus, and the resignation of the purple, Licinius himself
      should be permitted to pass the remainder of this life in peace
      and affluence. The behavior of Constantia, and her relation to
      the contending parties, naturally recalls the remembrance of that
      virtuous matron who was the sister of Augustus, and the wife of
      Antony. But the temper of mankind was altered, and it was no
      longer esteemed infamous for a Roman to survive his honor and
      independence. Licinius solicited and accepted the pardon of his
      offences, laid himself and his purple at the feet of his _lord_
      and _master_, was raised from the ground with insulting pity, was
      admitted the same day to the Imperial banquet, and soon
      afterwards was sent away to Thessalonica, which had been chosen
      for the place of his confinement. 111 His confinement was soon
      terminated by death, and it is doubtful whether a tumult of the
      soldiers, or a decree of the senate, was suggested as the motive
      for his execution. According to the rules of tyranny, he was
      accused of forming a conspiracy, and of holding a treasonable
      correspondence with the barbarians; but as he was never
      convicted, either by his own conduct or by any legal evidence, we
      may perhaps be allowed, from his weakness, to presume his
      innocence. 112 The memory of Licinius was branded with infamy,
      his statues were thrown down, and by a hasty edict, of such
      mischievous tendency that it was almost immediately corrected,
      all his laws, and all the judicial proceedings of his reign, were
      at once abolished. 113 By this victory of Constantine, the Roman
      world was again united under the authority of one emperor,
      thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and
      provinces with his associate Maximian.

      110 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vita Constantin. I. ii. c. 16, 17)
      ascribes this decisive victory to the pious prayers of the
      emperor. The Valesian fragment (p. 714) mentions a body of Gothic
      auxiliaries, under their chief Aliquaca, who adhered to the party
      of Licinius.]

      111 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 102. Victor Junior in Epitome.
      Anonym. Valesian. p. 714.]

      112 (return) [ Contra religionem sacramenti Thessalonicæ privatus
      occisus est. Eutropius, x. 6; and his evidence is confirmed by
      Jerome (in Chronic.) as well as by Zosimus, l. ii. p. 102. The
      Valesian writer is the only one who mentions the soldiers, and it
      is Zonaras alone who calls in the assistance of the senate.
      Eusebius prudently slides over this delicate transaction. But
      Sozomen, a century afterwards, ventures to assert the treasonable
      practices of Licinius.]

      113 (return) [ See the Theodosian Code, l. xv. tit. 15, tom. v. p
      404, 405. These edicts of Constantine betray a degree of passion
      and precipitation very unbecoming the character of a lawgiver.]

      The successive steps of the elevation of Constantine, from his
      first assuming the purple at York, to the resignation of
      Licinius, at Nicomedia, have been related with some minuteness
      and precision, not only as the events are in themselves both
      interesting and important, but still more, as they contributed to
      the decline of the empire by the expense of blood and treasure,
      and by the perpetual increase, as well of the taxes, as of the
      military establishment. The foundation of Constantinople, and the
      establishment of the Christian religion, were the immediate and
      memorable consequences of this revolution.




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

     The Progress Of The Christian Religion, And The Sentiments,
     Manners, Numbers, And Condition Of The Primitive Christians. 101

      101 (return) [ In spite of my resolution, Lardner led me to look
      through the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Gibbon. I
      could not lay them down without finishing them. The causes
      assigned, in the fifteenth chapter, for the diffusion of
      Christianity, must, no doubt, have contributed to it materially;
      but I doubt whether he saw them all. Perhaps those which he
      enumerates are among the most obvious. They might all be safely
      adopted by a Christian writer, with some change in the language
      and manner. Mackintosh see Life, i. p. 244.—M.]

      A candid but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment
      of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the
      history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by
      open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble
      religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up
      in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and
      finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins
      of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to
      the period or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a
      revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is
      still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished
      portion of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By
      the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely
      diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by
      the means of their colonies has been firmly established from
      Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients.

      But this inquiry, however useful or entertaining, is attended
      with two peculiar difficulties. The scanty and suspicious
      materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel
      the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church. The
      great law of impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the
      imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the
      gospel; and, to a careless observer, _their_ faults may seem to
      cast a shade on the faith which they professed. But the scandal
      of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of the
      Infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only _by
      whom_, but likewise _to whom_, the Divine Revelation was given.
      The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing
      Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native
      purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He
      must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption,
      which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak
      and degenerate race of beings. 102

      102 (return) [ The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair
      impression produced by these two memorable chapters, consists in
      confounding together, in one undistinguishable mass, the origin
      and apostolic propagation of the Christian religion with its
      later progress. The main question, the divine origin of the
      religion, is dexterously eluded or speciously conceded; his plan
      enables him to commence his account, in most parts, below the
      apostolic times; and it is only by the strength of the dark
      coloring with which he has brought out the failings and the
      follies of succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and suspicion
      is thrown back on the primitive period of Christianity. Divest
      this whole passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the
      subsequent one of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a
      Christian history, written in the most Christian spirit of
      candor.—M.]

      Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the
      Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the
      established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious
      but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the
      convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling
      providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom
      find so favorable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of
      Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the
      human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as
      instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted,
      though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the
      first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of
      the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most
      effectually favored and assisted by the five following causes:

      I. The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the
      intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the
      Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial
      spirit, which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles
      from embracing the law of Moses.1023

      II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional
      circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that
      important truth. III. The miraculous powers ascribed to the
      primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals of the
      Christians.

      V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which
      gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart
      of the Roman empire.

      1023 (return) [Though we are thus far agreed with respect to the
      inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet as to the
      principle from which it was derived, we are, toto cœlo, divided
      in opinion. You deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer
      it to a more adequate and a more obvious source, a full
      persuasion of the truth of Christianity. Watson. Letters Gibbon,
      i. 9.—M.]

      I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient
      world, and the facility with which the most different and even
      hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other’s
      superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common
      intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who, under the Assyrian and
      Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most
      despised portion of their slaves, 1 emerged from obscurity under
      the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a
      surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they
      soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. 2 The
      sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites
      and unsocial manners seemed to mark them out as a distinct
      species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised,
      their implacable habits to the rest of human kind. 3 Neither the
      violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of
      the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to
      associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mythology of
      the Greeks. 4 According to the maxims of universal toleration,
      the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. 5 The
      polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices
      should be offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem;
      6 whilst the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have
      paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have
      been an object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren.

      But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease
      the jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and
      scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily
      introduced themselves into a Roman province. 7 The mad attempt of
      Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem was
      defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded
      death much less than such an idolatrous profanation. 8 Their
      attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of
      foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was
      contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and
      sometimes with the fury, of a torrent. This facility has not
      always prevented intolerance, which seems inherent in the
      religious spirit, when armed with authority. The separation of
      the ecclesiastical and civil power, appears to be the only means
      of at once maintaining religion and tolerance: but this is a very
      modern notion. The passions, which mingle themselves with
      opinions, made the Pagans very often intolerant and persecutors;
      witness the Persians, the Egyptians even the Greeks and Romans.

      1st. The Persians.—Cambyses, conqueror of the Egyptians,
      condemned to death the magistrates of Memphis, because they had
      offered divine honors to their god. Apis: he caused the god to be
      brought before him, struck him with his dagger, commanded the
      priests to be scourged, and ordered a general massacre of all the
      Egyptians who should be found celebrating the festival of the
      statues of the gods to be burnt. Not content with this
      intolerance, he sent an army to reduce the Ammonians to slavery,
      and to set on fire the temple in which Jupiter delivered his
      oracles. See Herod. iii. 25—29, 37. Xerxes, during his invasion
      of Greece, acted on the same principles: l c destroyed all the
      temples of Greece and Ionia, except that of Ephesus. See Paus. l.
      vii. p. 533, and x. p. 887.

      Strabo, l. xiv. b. 941. 2d. The Egyptians.—They thought
      themselves defiled when they had drunk from the same cup or eaten
      at the same table with a man of a different belief from their
      own. “He who has voluntarily killed any sacred animal is punished
      with death; but if any one, even involuntarily, has killed a cat
      or an ibis, he cannot escape the extreme penalty: the people drag
      him away, treat him in the most cruel manner, sometimes without
      waiting for a judicial sentence. * * * Even at the time when King
      Ptolemy was not yet the acknowledged friend of the Roman people,
      while the multitude were paying court with all possible attention
      to the strangers who came from Italy * * a Roman having killed a
      cat, the people rushed to his house, and neither the entreaties
      of the nobles, whom the king sent to them, nor the terror of the
      Roman name, were sufficiently powerful to rescue the man from
      punishment, though he had committed the crime involuntarily.”
      Diod. Sic. i 83. Juvenal, in his 13th Satire, describes the
      sanguinary conflict between the inhabitants of Ombos and of
      Tentyra, from religious animosity. The fury was carried so far,
      that the conquerors tore and devoured the quivering limbs of the
      conquered.

      Ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra, summus utrinque Inde furor vulgo,
      quod numina vicinorum Odit uterque locus; quum solos credat
      habendos Esse Deos quos ipse colit. Sat. xv. v. 85.

      3d. The Greeks.—“Let us not here,” says the Abbé Guénée, “refer
      to the cities of Peloponnesus and their severity against atheism;
      the Ephesians prosecuting Heraclitus for impiety; the Greeks
      armed one against the other by religious zeal, in the
      Amphictyonic war. Let us say nothing either of the frightful
      cruelties inflicted by three successors of Alexander upon the
      Jews, to force them to abandon their religion, nor of Antiochus
      expelling the philosophers from his states. Let us not seek our
      proofs of intolerance so far off. Athens, the polite and learned
      Athens, will supply us with sufficient examples. Every citizen
      made a public and solemn vow to conform to the religion of his
      country, to defend it, and to cause it to be respected. An
      express law severely punished all discourses against the gods,
      and a rigid decree ordered the denunciation of all who should
      deny their existence. * * * The practice was in unison with the
      severity of the law. The proceedings commenced against
      Protagoras; a price set upon the head of Diagoras; the danger of
      Alcibiades; Aristotle obliged to fly; Stilpo banished; Anaxagoras
      hardly escaping death; Pericles himself, after all his services
      to his country, and all the glory he had acquired, compelled to
      appear before the tribunals and make his defence; * * a priestess
      executed for having introduced strange gods; Socrates condemned
      and drinking the hemlock, because he was accused of not
      recognizing those of his country, &c.; these facts attest too
      loudly, to be called in question, the religious intolerance of
      the most humane and enlightened people in Greece.” Lettres de
      quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 221. (Compare Bentley on
      Freethinking, from which much of this is derived.)—M.

      4th. The Romans.—The laws of Rome were not less express and
      severe. The intolerance of foreign religions reaches, with the
      Romans, as high as the laws of the twelve tables; the
      prohibitions were afterwards renewed at different times.
      Intolerance did not discontinue under the emperors; witness the
      counsel of Mæcenas to Augustus. This counsel is so remarkable,
      that I think it right to insert it entire. “Honor the gods
      yourself,” says Mæcenas to Augustus, “in every way according to
      the usage of your ancestors, and compel others to worship them.
      Hate and punish those who introduce strange gods, not only for
      the sake of the gods, (he who despises them will respect no one,)
      but because those who introduce new gods engage a multitude of
      persons in foreign laws and customs. From hence arise unions
      bound by oaths and confederacies, and associations, things
      dangerous to a monarchy.” Dion Cass. l. ii. c. 36. (But, though
      some may differ from it, see Gibbon’s just observation on this
      passage in Dion Cassius, ch. xvi. note 117; impugned, indeed, by
      M. Guizot, note in loc.)—M.

      Even the laws which the philosophers of Athens and of Rome wrote
      for their imaginary republics are intolerant. Plato does not
      leave to his citizens freedom of religious worship; and Cicero
      expressly prohibits them from having other gods than those of the
      state. Lettres de quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 226.—G.

      According to M. Guizot’s just remarks, religious intolerance will
      always ally itself with the passions of man, however different
      those passions may be. In the instances quoted above, with the
      Persians it was the pride of despotism; to conquer the gods of a
      country was the last mark of subjugation. With the Egyptians, it
      was the gross Fetichism of the superstitious populace, and the
      local jealousy of neighboring towns. In Greece, persecution was
      in general connected with political party; in Rome, with the
      stern supremacy of the law and the interests of the state. Gibbon
      has been mistaken in attributing to the tolerant spirit of
      Paganism that which arose out of the peculiar circumstances of
      the times. 1st. The decay of the old Polytheism, through the
      progress of reason and intelligence, and the prevalence of
      philosophical opinions among the higher orders.

      2d. The Roman character, in which the political always
      predominated over the religious party. The Romans were contented
      with having bowed the world to a uniformity of subjection to
      their power, and cared not for establishing the (to them) less
      important uniformity of religion.—M.

      1 (return) [ Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque, et Persas Oriens fuit,
      despectissima pars servientium. Tacit. Hist. v. 8. Herodotus, who
      visited Asia whilst it obeyed the last of those empires, slightly
      mentions the Syrians of Palestine, who, according to their own
      confession, had received from Egypt the rite of circumcision. See
      l. ii. c. 104.]

      2 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. xl. Dion Cassius, l. xxxvii. p.
      121. Tacit Hist. v. 1—9. Justin xxxvi. 2, 3.]

      3 (return) [ Tradidit arcano quæcunque volumine Moses, Non
      monstrare vias cadem nisi sacra colenti, Quæsitum ad fontem solos
      deducere verpas. The letter of this law is not to be found in the
      present volume of Moses. But the wise, the humane Maimonides
      openly teaches that if an idolater fall into the water, a Jew
      ought not to save him from instant death. See Basnage, Histoire
      des Juifs, l. vi. c. 28. * Note: It is diametrically opposed to
      its spirit and to its letter, see, among other passages, Deut. v.
      18. 19, (God) “loveth the stranger in giving him food and
      raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger: for ye were strangers
      in the land of Egypt.” Comp. Lev. xxiii. 25. Juvenal is a
      satirist, whose strong expressions can hardly be received as
      historic evidence; and he wrote after the horrible cruelties of
      the Romans, which, during and after the war, might give some
      cause for the complete isolation of the Jew from the rest of the
      world. The Jew was a bigot, but his religion was not the only
      source of his bigotry. After how many centuries of mutual wrong
      and hatred, which had still further estranged the Jew from
      mankind, did Maimonides write?—M.]

      4 (return) [ A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort
      of occasional conformity, derived from Herod, by whose example
      and authority they had been seduced, the name of Herodians. But
      their numbers were so inconsiderable, and their duration so
      short, that Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice.
      See Prideaux’s Connection, vol. ii. p. 285. * Note: The Herodians
      were probably more of a political party than a religious sect,
      though Gibbon is most likely right as to their occasional
      conformity. See Hist. of the Jews, ii. 108.—M.]

      5 (return) [ Cicero pro Flacco, c. 28. * Note: The edicts of
      Julius Cæsar, and of some of the cities in Asia Minor (Krebs.
      Decret. pro Judæis,) in favor of the nation in general, or of the
      Asiatic Jews, speak a different language.—M.]

      6 (return) [ Philo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a
      perpetual sacrifice. Yet he approved of the neglect which his
      grandson Caius expressed towards the temple of Jerusalem. See
      Sueton. in August. c. 93, and Casaubon’s notes on that passage.]

      7 (return) [ See, in particular, Joseph. Antiquitat. xvii. 6,
      xviii. 3; and de Bell. Judiac. i. 33, and ii. 9, edit. Havercamp.
      * Note: This was during the government of Pontius Pilate. (Hist.
      of Jews, ii. 156.) Probably in part to avoid this collision, the
      Roman governor, in general, resided at Cæsarea.—M.]

      8 (return) [ Jussi a Caio Cæsare, effigiem ejus in templo locare,
      arma potius sumpsere. Tacit. Hist. v. 9. Philo and Josephus gave
      a very circumstantial, but a very rhetorical, account of this
      transaction, which exceedingly perplexed the governor of Syria.
      At the first mention of this idolatrous proposal, King Agrippa
      fainted away; and did not recover his senses until the third day.
      (Hist. of Jews, ii. 181, &c.)]

      This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so
      ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character,
      since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious
      history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous
      attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews
      who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising,
      if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their
      forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai,
      when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were
      suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when
      temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences
      of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into
      rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King,
      placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and
      imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents
      of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phœnicia. 9 As the protection
      of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race,
      their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity.

      The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless
      indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of
      every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the
      Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry;
      and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind,
      that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more
      ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to
      the evidence of their own senses. 10

      9 (return) [ For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian
      deities, it may be observed, that Milton has comprised in one
      hundred and thirty very beautiful lines the two large and learned
      syntagmas which Selden had composed on that abstruse subject.]

      10 (return) [ “How long will this people provoke me? and how long
      will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have
      shown among them?” (Numbers xiv. 11.) It would be easy, but it
      would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the Deity from
      the whole tenor of the Mosaic history. Note: Among a rude and
      barbarous people, religious impressions are easily made, and are
      as soon effaced. The ignorance which multiplies imaginary
      wonders, would weaken and destroy the effect of real miracle. At
      the period of the Jewish history, referred to in the passage from
      Numbers, their fears predominated over their faith,—the fears of
      an unwarlike people, just rescued from debasing slavery, and
      commanded to attack a fierce, a well-armed, a gigantic, and a far
      more numerous race, the inhabitants of Canaan. As to the frequent
      apostasy of the Jews, their religion was beyond their state of
      civilization. Nor is it uncommon for a people to cling with
      passionate attachment to that of which, at first, they could not
      appreciate the value. Patriotism and national pride will contend,
      even to death, for political rights which have been forced upon a
      reluctant people. The Christian may at least retort, with
      justice, that the great sign of his religion, the resurrection of
      Jesus, was most ardently believed, and most resolutely asserted,
      by the eye witnesses of the fact.—M.]

      The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was
      never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the
      number of proselytes was never much superior to that of
      apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the
      distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single
      family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the
      sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a
      system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as
      it were the national God of Israel; and with the most jealous
      care separated his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The
      conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many
      wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the
      victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility
      with all their neighbors. They had been commanded to extirpate
      some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the
      divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of humanity.

      With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any
      marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them
      into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost
      always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the
      tenth generation. The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the
      faith of Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law,
      nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a
      voluntary duty.

      In the admission of new citizens that unsocial people was
      actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the
      generous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were
      flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the
      covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of
      their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of
      the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their
      knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the
      God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more
      indebted to the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the active
      zeal of his own missionaries. 11 The religion of Moses seems to
      be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single
      nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order,
      that every male, three times in the year, should present himself
      before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the
      Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits
      of the promised land. 12 That obstacle was indeed removed by the
      destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable
      part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and
      the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an
      empty sanctuary, 13 were at a loss to discover what could be the
      object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was
      destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices.

      Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their
      lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the
      society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor
      on those parts of the law which it was in their power to
      practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a
      variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many
      objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose
      habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The
      painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable
      of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.
      14

      11 (return) [ All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been
      very ably by Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 6, 7.]

      12 (return) [ See Exod. xxiv. 23, Deut. xvi. 16, the
      commentators, and a very sensible note in the Universal History,
      vol. i. p. 603, edit. fol.]

      13 (return) [ When Pompey, using or abusing the right of
      conquest, entered into the Holy of Holies, it was observed with
      amazement, “Nulli intus Deum effigie, vacuam sedem et inania
      arcana.” Tacit. Hist. v. 9. It was a popular saying, with regard
      to the Jews, “Nil præter nubes et coeli numen adorant.”]

      14 (return) [ A second kind of circumcision was inflicted on a
      Samaritan or Egyptian proselyte. The sullen indifference of the
      Talmudists, with respect to the conversion of strangers, may be
      seen in Basnage Histoire des Juifs, l. xi. c. 6.]

      Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the
      world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered
      from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth
      of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in
      the new as in the ancient system; and whatever was now revealed
      to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being
      was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious
      doctrine. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was
      admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of
      Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted
      series of predictions had announced and prepared the
      long-expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the
      gross apprehensions of the Jews, had been more frequently
      represented under the character of a King and Conqueror, than
      under that of a Prophet, a Martyr, and the Son of God. By his
      expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were
      at once consummated and abolished. The ceremonial law, which
      consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and
      spiritual worship equally adapted to all climates, as well as to
      every condition of mankind; and to the initiation of blood was
      substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of
      divine favor, instead of being partially confined to the
      posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and
      the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to
      the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from
      earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his
      happiness, or even gratify that secret pride which, under the
      semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart,
      was still reserved for the members of the Christian church; but
      at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited,
      to accept the glorious distinction, which was not only proffered
      as a favor, but imposed as an obligation. It became the most
      sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and
      relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to
      warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a
      criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but
      all-powerful Deity.




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

      The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue
      was a work, however, of some time and of some difficulty. The
      Jewish converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the
      Messiah foretold by their ancient oracles, respected him as a
      prophetic teacher of virtue and religion; but they obstinately
      adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and were desirous
      of imposing them on the Gentiles, who continually augmented the
      number of believers. These Judaizing Christians seem to have
      argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine origin of
      the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections of its great
      Author. They affirmed, that if the Being, who is the same through
      all eternity, had designed to abolish those sacred rites which
      had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them
      would have been no less clear and solemn than their first
      promulgation: _that_, instead of those frequent declarations,
      which either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic
      religion, it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme
      intended to last only to the coming of the Messiah, who should
      instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship:
      15 _that_ the Messiah himself, and his disciples who conversed
      with him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the
      most minute observances of the Mosaic law, 16 would have
      published to the world the abolition of those useless and
      obsolete ceremonies, without suffering Christianity to remain
      during so many years obscurely confounded among the sects of the
      Jewish church. Arguments like these appear to have been used in
      the defence of the expiring cause of the Mosaic law; but the
      industry of our learned divines has abundantly explained the
      ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous
      conduct of the apostolic teachers. It was proper gradually to
      unfold the system of the gospel, and to pronounce, with the
      utmost caution and tenderness, a sentence of condemnation so
      repugnant to the inclination and prejudices of the believing
      Jews.

      15 (return) [ These arguments were urged with great ingenuity by
      the Jew Orobio, and refuted with equal ingenuity and candor by
      the Christian Limborch. See the Amica Collatio, (it well deserves
      that name,) or account of the dispute between them.]

      16 (return) [ Jesus... circumcisus erat; cibis utebatur Judaicis;
      vestitu simili; purgatos scabie mittebat ad sacerdotes; Paschata
      et alios dies festos religiose observabat: Si quos sanavit
      sabbatho, ostendit non tantum ex lege, sed et exceptis
      sententiis, talia opera sabbatho non interdicta. Grotius de
      Veritate Religionis Christianæ, l. v. c. 7. A little afterwards,
      (c. 12,) he expatiates on the condescension of the apostles.]

      The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof of
      the necessity of those precautions, and of the deep impression
      which the Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries.
      The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews;
      and the congregation over which they presided united the law of
      Moses with the doctrine of Christ. 17 It was natural that the
      primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days
      after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years
      under the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received
      as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very
      frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent,
      and relieved her distresses by a liberal contribution of alms.
      But when numerous and opulent societies were established in the
      great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus,
      Corinth, and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to
      all the Christian colonies insensibly diminished. 18b The Jewish
      converts, or, as they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who
      had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves
      overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes, that from all the
      various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of
      Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of their
      peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of the
      Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous
      brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly
      solicited for their own practice. The ruin of the temple of the
      city, and of the public religion of the Jews, was severely felt
      by the Nazarenes; as in their manners, though not in their faith,
      they maintained so intimate a connection with their impious
      countrymen, whose misfortunes were attributed by the Pagans to
      the contempt, and more justly ascribed by the Christians to the
      wrath, of the Supreme Deity. The Nazarenes retired from the ruins
      of Jerusalem 18 to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan,
      where that ancient church languished above sixty years in
      solitude and obscurity. 19 They still enjoyed the comfort of
      making frequent and devout visits to the _Holy City_, and the
      hope of being one day restored to those seats which both nature
      and religion taught them to love as well as to revere. But at
      length, under the reign of Hadrian, the desperate fanaticism of
      the Jews filled up the measure of their calamities; and the
      Romans, exasperated by their repeated rebellions, exercised the
      rights of victory with unusual rigor. The emperor founded, under
      the name of Ælia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, 20 to
      which he gave the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the
      severest penalties against any of the Jewish people who should
      dare to approach its precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a
      Roman cohort to enforce the execution of his orders. The
      Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common
      proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion
      assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. They elected
      Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of the Gentiles,
      and most probably a native either of Italy or of some of the
      Latin provinces. At his persuasion, the most considerable part of
      the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of
      which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of
      their habits and prejudices, they purchased a free admission into
      the colony of Hadrian, and more firmly cemented their union with
      the Catholic church. 21

      17 (return) [ Pæne omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione
      credebant Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. See Eusebius, Hist.
      Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 5.]

      18b (return) [Footnote 18b: Mosheim de Rebus Christianis ante
      Constantinum Magnum, page 153. In this masterly performance,
      which I shall often have occasion to quote he enters much more
      fully into the state of the primitive church than he has an
      opportunity of doing in his General History.]

      18 (return) [ This is incorrect: all the traditions concur in
      placing the abandonment of the city by the Christians, not only
      before it was in ruins, but before the seige had commenced.
      Euseb. loc. cit., and Le Clerc.—M.]

      19 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iii. c. 5. Le Clerc, Hist. Ecclesiast.
      p. 605. During this occasional absence, the bishop and church of
      Pella still retained the title of Jerusalem. In the same manner,
      the Roman pontiffs resided seventy years at Avignon; and the
      patriarchs of Alexandria have long since transferred their
      episcopal seat to Cairo.]

      20 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxix. The exile of the Jewish
      nation from Jerusalem is attested by Aristo of Pella, (apud
      Euseb. l. iv. c. 6,) and is mentioned by several ecclesiastical
      writers; though some of them too hastily extend this interdiction
      to the whole country of Palestine.]

      21 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 6. Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31.
      By comparing their unsatisfactory accounts, Mosheim (p. 327, &c.)
      has drawn out a very distinct representation of the circumstances
      and motives of this revolution.]

      When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been
      restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were
      imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to
      accompany their Latin bishop. They still preserved their former
      habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent
      to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of
      Berœa, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in Syria. 22 The name
      of Nazarenes was deemed too honorable for those Christian Jews,
      and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their
      understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous
      epithet of Ebionites. 23 In a few years after the return of the
      church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy,
      whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah,
      but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could
      possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr
      inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and
      though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he
      ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect Christian, if
      he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without
      pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when
      Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he
      confessed that there were very many among the orthodox
      Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing brethren from
      the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them
      in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social
      life. 24 The more rigorous opinion prevailed, as it was natural
      to expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of separation was
      fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The
      unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates,
      and from the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to
      assume a more decided character; and although some traces of that
      obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century,
      they insensibly melted away, either into the church or the
      synagogue. 25

      22 (return) [ Le Clerc (Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477, 535) seems to
      have collected from Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and other
      writers, all the principal circumstances that relate to the
      Nazarenes or Ebionites. The nature of their opinions soon divided
      them into a stricter and a milder sect; and there is some reason
      to conjecture, that the family of Jesus Christ remained members,
      at least, of the latter and more moderate party.]

      23 (return) [ Some writers have been pleased to create an Ebion,
      the imaginary author of their sect and name. But we can more
      safely rely on the learned Eusebius than on the vehement
      Tertullian, or the credulous Epiphanius. According to Le Clerc,
      the Hebrew word Ebjonim may be translated into Latin by that of
      Pauperes. See Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477. * Note: The opinion of Le
      Clerc is generally admitted; but Neander has suggested some good
      reasons for supposing that this term only applied to poverty of
      condition. The obscure history of their tenets and divisions, is
      clearly and rationally traced in his History of the Church, vol.
      i. part ii. p. 612, &c., Germ. edit.—M.]

      24 (return) [ See the very curious Dialogue of Justin Martyr with
      the Jew Tryphon. The conference between them was held at Ephesus,
      in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and about twenty years after the
      return of the church of Pella to Jerusalem. For this date consult
      the accurate note of Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom.
      ii. p. 511. * Note: Justin Martyr makes an important distinction,
      which Gibbon has neglected to notice. * * * There were some who
      were not content with observing the Mosaic law themselves, but
      enforced the same observance, as necessary to salvation, upon the
      heathen converts, and refused all social intercourse with them if
      they did not conform to the law. Justin Martyr himself freely
      admits those who kept the law themselves to Christian communion,
      though he acknowledges that some, not the Church, thought
      otherwise; of the other party, he himself thought less favorably.
      The former by some are considered the Nazarenes the atter the
      Ebionites—G and M.]

      25 (return) [ Of all the systems of Christianity, that of
      Abyssinia is the only one which still adheres to the Mosaic
      rites. (Geddes’s Church History of Æthiopia, and Dissertations de
      La Grand sur la Relation du P. Lobo.) The eunuch of the queen
      Candace might suggest some suspicious; but as we are assured
      (Socrates, i. 19. Sozomen, ii. 24. Ludolphus, p. 281) that the
      Æthiopians were not converted till the fourth century, it is more
      reasonable to believe that they respected the sabbath, and
      distinguished the forbidden meats, in imitation of the Jews, who,
      in a very early period, were seated on both sides of the Red Sea.
      Circumcision had been practised by the most ancient Æthiopians,
      from motives of health and cleanliness, which seem to be
      explained in the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains,
      tom. ii. p. 117.]

      While the orthodox church preserved a just medium between
      excessive veneration and improper contempt for the law of Moses,
      the various heretics deviated into equal but opposite extremes of
      error and extravagance. From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish
      religion, the Ebionites had concluded that it could never be
      abolished. From its supposed imperfections, the Gnostics as
      hastily inferred that it never was instituted by the wisdom of
      the Deity. There are some objections against the authority of
      Moses and the prophets, which too readily present themselves to
      the sceptical mind; though they can only be derived from our
      ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an
      adequate judgment of the divine economy. These objections were
      eagerly embraced and as petulantly urged by the vain science of
      the Gnostics. 26 As those heretics were, for the most part,
      averse to the pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the
      polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the
      seraglio of Solomon. The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the
      extirpation of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss how
      to reconcile with the common notions of humanity and justice. 261
      But when they recollected the sanguinary list of murders, of
      executions, and of massacres, which stain almost every page of
      the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of
      Palestine had exercised as much compassion towards their
      idolatrous enemies, as they had ever shown to their friends or
      countrymen. 27 Passing from the sectaries of the law to the law
      itself, they asserted that it was impossible that a religion
      which consisted only of bloody sacrifices and trifling
      ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as punishments were all of
      a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue,
      or restrain the impetuosity of passion. The Mosaic account of the
      creation and fall of man was treated with profane derision by the
      Gnostics, who would not listen with patience to the repose of the
      Deity after six days’ labor, to the rib of Adam, the garden of
      Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking serpent,
      the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against
      human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors. 28
      The God of Israel was impiously represented by the Gnostics as a
      being liable to passion and to error, capricious in his favor,
      implacable in his resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious
      worship, and confining his partial providence to a single people,
      and to this transitory life. In such a character they could
      discover none of the features of the wise and omnipotent Father
      of the universe. 29 They allowed that the religion of the Jews
      was somewhat less criminal than the idolatry of the Gentiles; but
      it was their fundamental doctrine that the Christ whom they
      adored as the first and brightest emanation of the Deity appeared
      upon earth to rescue mankind from their various errors, and to
      reveal a new system of truth and perfection. The most learned of
      the fathers, by a very singular condescension, have imprudently
      admitted the sophistry of the Gnostics. 291 Acknowledging that
      the literal sense is repugnant to every principle of faith as
      well as reason, they deem themselves secure and invulnerable
      behind the ample veil of allegory, which they carefully spread
      over every tender part of the Mosaic dispensation. 30

      26 (return) [ Beausobre, Histoire du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 3, has
      stated their objections, particularly those of Faustus, the
      adversary of Augustin, with the most learned impartiality.]

      261 (return) [ On the “war law” of the Jews, see Hist. of Jews,
      i. 137.—M.]

      27 (return) [ Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in
      promptu: adversus amnes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4.
      Surely Tacitus had seen the Jews with too favorable an eye. The
      perusal of Josephus must have destroyed the antithesis. * Note:
      Few writers have suspected Tacitus of partiality towards the
      Jews. The whole later history of the Jews illustrates as well
      their strong feelings of humanity to their brethren, as their
      hostility to the rest of mankind. The character and the position
      of Josephus with the Roman authorities, must be kept in mind
      during the perusal of his History. Perhaps he has not exaggerated
      the ferocity and fanaticism of the Jews at that time; but
      insurrectionary warfare is not the best school for the humaner
      virtues, and much must be allowed for the grinding tyranny of the
      later Roman governors. See Hist. of Jews, ii. 254.—M.]

      28 (return) [ Dr. Burnet (Archæologia, l. ii. c. 7) has discussed
      the first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and freedom. *
      Note: Dr. Burnet apologized for the levity with which he had
      conducted some of his arguments, by the excuse that he wrote in a
      learned language for scholars alone, not for the vulgar. Whatever
      may be thought of his success in tracing an Eastern allegory in
      the first chapters of Genesis, his other works prove him to have
      been a man of great genius, and of sincere piety.—M]

      29 (return) [ The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the
      Creator, as a Being of a mixed nature between God and the Dæmon.
      Others confounded him with an evil principle. Consult the second
      century of the general history of Mosheim, which gives a very
      distinct, though concise, account of their strange opinions on
      this subject.]

      291 (return) [ The Gnostics, and the historian who has stated
      these plausible objections with so much force as almost to make
      them his own, would have shown a more considerate and not less
      reasonable philosophy, if they had considered the religion of
      Moses with reference to the age in which it was promulgated; if
      they had done justice to its sublime as well as its more
      imperfect views of the divine nature; the humane and civilizing
      provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as those adapted for an
      infant and barbarous people. See Hist of Jews, i. 36, 37, &c.—M.]

      30 (return) [ See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 4.
      Origen and St. Augustin were among the allegorists.]

      It has been remarked with more ingenuity than truth, that the
      virgin purity of the church was never violated by schism or
      heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred
      years after the death of Christ. 31 We may observe with much more
      propriety, that, during that period, the disciples of the Messiah
      were indulged in a freer latitude, both of faith and practice,
      than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages. As the terms of
      communion were insensibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority
      of the prevailing party was exercised with increasing severity,
      many of its most respectable adherents, who were called upon to
      renounce, were provoked to assert their private opinions, to
      pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and openly
      to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the
      church. The Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the
      most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name; and
      that general appellation, which expressed a superiority of
      knowledge, was either assumed by their own pride, or ironically
      bestowed by the envy of their adversaries. They were almost
      without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their
      principal founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egypt,
      where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the
      body to indolent and contemplative devotion. The Gnostics blended
      with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which
      they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion
      of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence of
      two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible
      world. 32 As soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they
      delivered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagination;
      and as the paths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics
      were imperceptibly divided into more than fifty particular sects,
      33 of whom the most celebrated appear to have been the
      Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a still
      later period, the Manichæans. Each of these sects could boast of
      its bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs; 34
      and, instead of the Four Gospels adopted by the church, 341 the
      heretics produced a multitude of histories, in which the actions
      and discourses of Christ and of his apostles were adapted to
      their respective tenets. 35 The success of the Gnostics was rapid
      and extensive. 36 They covered Asia and Egypt, established
      themselves in Rome, and sometimes penetrated into the provinces
      of the West. For the most part they arose in the second century,
      flourished during the third, and were suppressed in the fourth or
      fifth, by the prevalence of more fashionable controversies, and
      by the superior ascendant of the reigning power. Though they
      constantly disturbed the peace, and frequently disgraced the
      name, of religion, they contributed to assist rather than to
      retard the progress of Christianity. The Gentile converts, whose
      strongest objections and prejudices were directed against the law
      of Moses, could find admission into many Christian societies,
      which required not from their untutored mind any belief of an
      antecedent revelation. Their faith was insensibly fortified and
      enlarged, and the church was ultimately benefited by the
      conquests of its most inveterate enemies. 37

      31 (return) [ Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. l. iii. 32, iv. 22. Clemens
      Alexandrin Stromat. vii. 17. * Note: The assertion of Hegesippus
      is not so positive: it is sufficient to read the whole passage in
      Eusebius, to see that the former part is modified by the matter.
      Hegesippus adds, that up to this period the church had remained
      pure and immaculate as a virgin. Those who labored to corrupt the
      doctrines of the gospel worked as yet in obscurity—G]

      32 (return) [ In the account of the Gnostics of the second and
      third centuries, Mosheim is ingenious and candid; Le Clerc dull,
      but exact; Beausobre almost always an apologist; and it is much
      to be feared that the primitive fathers are very frequently
      calumniators. * Note The Histoire du Gnosticisme of M. Matter is
      at once the fairest and most complete account of these sects.—M.]

      33 (return) [ See the catalogues of Irenæus and Epiphanius. It
      must indeed be allowed, that those writers were inclined to
      multiply the number of sects which opposed the unity of the
      church.]

      34 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 15. Sozomen, l. ii. c. 32. See
      in Bayle, in the article of Marcion, a curious detail of a
      dispute on that subject. It should seem that some of the Gnostics
      (the Basilidians) declined, and even refused the honor of
      Martyrdom. Their reasons were singular and abstruse. See Mosheim,
      p. 539.]

      341 (return) [ M. Hahn has restored the Marcionite Gospel with
      great ingenuity. His work is reprinted in Thilo. Codex. Apoc.
      Nov. Test. vol. i.—M.]

      35 (return) [ See a very remarkable passage of Origen, (Proem. ad
      Lucam.) That indefatigable writer, who had consumed his life in
      the study of the Scriptures, relies for their authenticity on the
      inspired authority of the church. It was impossible that the
      Gnostics could receive our present Gospels, many parts of which
      (particularly in the resurrection of Christ) are directly, and as
      it might seem designedly, pointed against their favorite tenets.
      It is therefore somewhat singular that Ignatius (Epist. ad Smyrn.
      Patr. Apostol. tom. ii. p. 34) should choose to employ a vague
      and doubtful tradition, instead of quoting the certain testimony
      of the evangelists. Note: Bishop Pearson has attempted very
      happily to explain this singularity.’ The first Christians were
      acquainted with a number of sayings of Jesus Christ, which are
      not related in our Gospels, and indeed have never been written.
      Why might not St. Ignatius, who had lived with the apostles or
      their disciples, repeat in other words that which St. Luke has
      related, particularly at a time when, being in prison, he could
      have the Gospels at hand? Pearson, Vind Ign. pp. 2, 9 p. 396 in
      tom. ii. Patres Apost. ed. Coteler—G.]

      36 (return) [ Faciunt favos et vespæ; faciunt ecclesias et
      Marcionitæ, is the strong expression of Tertullian, which I am
      obliged to quote from memory. In the time of Epiphanius (advers.
      Hæreses, p. 302) the Marcionites were very numerous in Italy,
      Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia.]

      37 (return) [ Augustin is a memorable instance of this gradual
      progress from reason to faith. He was, during several years,
      engaged in the Manichæar sect.]

      But whatever difference of opinion might subsist between the
      Orthodox, the Ebionites, and the Gnostics, concerning the
      divinity or the obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all
      equally animated by the same exclusive zeal, and by the same
      abhorrence for idolatry, which had distinguished the Jews from
      the other nations of the ancient world. The philosopher, who
      considered the system of polytheism as a composition of human
      fraud and error, could disguise a smile of contempt under the
      mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery,
      or the compliance, would expose him to the resentment of any
      invisible, or, as he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the
      established religions of Paganism were seen by the primitive
      Christians in a much more odious and formidable light. It was the
      universal sentiment both of the church and of heretics, that the
      dæmons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of
      idolatry. 38 Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded from
      the rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were
      still permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to
      seduce the minds, of sinful men. The dæmons soon discovered and
      abused the natural propensity of the human heart towards
      devotion, and artfully withdrawing the adoration of mankind from
      their Creator, they usurped the place and honors of the Supreme
      Deity. By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at
      once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the
      only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope of
      involving the human species in the participation of their guilt
      and misery. It was confessed, or at least it was imagined, that
      they had distributed among themselves the most important
      characters of polytheism, one dæmon assuming the name and
      attributes of Jupiter, another of Æsculapius, a third of Venus,
      and a fourth perhaps of Apollo; 39 and that, by the advantage of
      their long experience and ærial nature, they were enabled to
      execute, with sufficient skill and dignity, the parts which they
      had undertaken. They lurked in the temples, instituted festivals
      and sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced oracles, and were
      frequently allowed to perform miracles. The Christians, who, by
      the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily explain every
      præternatural appearance, were disposed and even desirous to
      admit the most extravagant fictions of the Pagan mythology. But
      the belief of the Christian was accompanied with horror. The most
      trifling mark of respect to the national worship he considered as
      a direct homage yielded to the dæmon, and as an act of rebellion
      against the majesty of God.

      38 (return) [ The unanimous sentiment of the primitive church is
      very clearly explained by Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, by
      Athenagoras, Legat. c. 22. &c., and by Lactantius, Institut.
      Divin. ii. 14—19.]

      39 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) alleges the confession
      of the dæmons themselves as often as they were tormented by the
      Christian exorcists]




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

      In consequence of this opinion, it was the first but arduous duty
      of a Christian to preserve himself pure and undefiled by the
      practice of idolatry. The religion of the nations was not merely
      a speculative doctrine professed in the schools or preached in
      the temples. The innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were
      closely interwoven with every circumstance of business or
      pleasure, of public or of private life, and it seemed impossible
      to escape the observance of them, without, at the same time,
      renouncing the commerce of mankind, and all the offices and
      amusements of society. 40 The important transactions of peace and
      war were prepared or concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which the
      magistrate, the senator, and the soldier, were obliged to preside
      or to participate. 41 The public spectacles were an essential
      part of the cheerful devotion of the Pagans, and the gods were
      supposed to accept, as the most grateful offering, the games that
      the prince and people celebrated in honor of their peculiar
      festivals. 42 The Christians, who with pious horror avoided the
      abomination of the circus or the theatre, found himself
      encompassed with infernal snares in every convivial
      entertainment, as often as his friends, invoking the hospitable
      deities, poured out libations to each other’s happiness. 43 When
      the bride, struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced
      in hymenæal pomp over the threshold of her new habitation, 44 or
      when the sad procession of the dead slowly moved towards the
      funeral pile, 45 the Christian, on these interesting occasions,
      was compelled to desert the persons who were the dearest to him,
      rather than contract the guilt inherent to those impious
      ceremonies. Every art and every trade that was in the least
      concerned in the framing or adorning of idols was polluted by the
      stain of idolatry; 46 a severe sentence, since it devoted to
      eternal misery the far greater part of the community, which is
      employed in the exercise of liberal or mechanic professions. If
      we cast our eyes over the numerous remains of antiquity, we shall
      perceive, that besides the immediate representations of the gods,
      and the holy instruments of their worship, the elegant forms and
      agreeable fictions consecrated by the imagination of the Greeks,
      were introduced as the richest ornaments of the houses, the
      dress, and the furniture of the Pagans. 47 Even the arts of music
      and painting, of eloquence and poetry, flowed from the same
      impure origin. In the style of the fathers, Apollo and the Muses
      were the organs of the infernal spirit; Homer and Virgil were the
      most eminent of his servants; and the beautiful mythology which
      pervades and animates the compositions of their genius, is
      destined to celebrate the glory of the dæmons. Even the common
      language of Greece and Rome abounded with familiar but impious
      expressions, which the imprudent Christian might too carelessly
      utter, or too patiently hear. 48

      40 (return) [ Tertullian has written a most severe treatise
      against idolatry, to caution his brethren against the hourly
      danger of incurring that guilt. Recogita sylvam, et quantæ
      latitant spinæ. De Corona Militis, c. 10.]

      41 (return) [ The Roman senate was always held in a temple or
      consecrated place. (Aulus Gellius, xiv. 7.) Before they entered
      on business, every senator dropped some wine and frankincense on
      the altar. Sueton. in August. c. 35.]

      42 (return) [ See Tertullian, De Spectaculis. This severe
      reformer shows no more indulgence to a tragedy of Euripides, than
      to a combat of gladiators. The dress of the actors particularly
      offends him. By the use of the lofty buskin, they impiously
      strive to add a cubit to their stature. c. 23.]

      43 (return) [ The ancient practice of concluding the
      entertainment with libations, may be found in every classic.
      Socrates and Seneca, in their last moments, made a noble
      application of this custom. Postquam stagnum, calidæ aquæ
      introiit, respergens proximos servorum, addita voce, libare se
      liquorem illum Jovi Liberatori. Tacit. Annal. xv. 64.]

      44 (return) [ See the elegant but idolatrous hymn of Catullus, on
      the nuptials of Manlius and Julia. O Hymen, Hymenæe Io! Quis huic
      Deo compararier ausit?]

      45 (return) [ The ancient funerals (in those of Misenus and
      Pallas) are no less accurately described by Virgil, than they are
      illustrated by his commentator Servius. The pile itself was an
      altar, the flames were fed with the blood of victims, and all the
      assistants were sprinkled with lustral water.]

      46 (return) [ Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 11. * Note: The
      exaggerated and declamatory opinions of Tertullian ought not to
      be taken as the general sentiment of the early Christians. Gibbon
      has too often allowed himself to consider the peculiar notions of
      certain Fathers of the Church as inherent in Christianity. This
      is not accurate.—G.]

      47 (return) [ See every part of Montfaucon’s Antiquities. Even
      the reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an
      idolatrous nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were
      suspended by a stronger passion. Note: All this scrupulous nicety
      is at variance with the decision of St. Paul about meat offered
      to idols, 1, Cor. x. 21— 32.—M.]

      48 (return) [ Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 20, 21, 22. If a
      Pagan friend (on the occasion perhaps of sneezing) used the
      familiar expression of “Jupiter bless you,” the Christian was
      obliged to protest against the divinity of Jupiter.]

      The dangerous temptations which on every side lurked in ambush to
      surprise the unguarded believer, assailed him with redoubled
      violence on the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they
      framed and disposed throughout the year, that superstition always
      wore the appearance of pleasure, and often of virtue. Some of the
      most sacred festivals in the Roman ritual were destined to salute
      the new calends of January with vows of public and private
      felicity; to indulge the pious remembrance of the dead and
      living; to ascertain the inviolable bounds of property; to hail,
      on the return of spring, the genial powers of fecundity; to
      perpetuate the two memorable æras of Rome, the foundation of the
      city and that of the republic; and to restore, during the humane
      license of the Saturnalia, the primitive equality of mankind.
      Some idea may be conceived of the abhorrence of the Christians
      for such impious ceremonies, by the scrupulous delicacy which
      they displayed on a much less alarming occasion. On days of
      general festivity it was the custom of the ancients to adorn
      their doors with lamps and with branches of laurel, and to crown
      their heads with a garland of flowers. This innocent and elegant
      practice might perhaps have been tolerated as a mere civil
      institution. But it most unluckily happened that the doors were
      under the protection of the household gods, that the laurel was
      sacred to the lover of Daphne, and that garlands of flowers,
      though frequently worn as a symbol either of joy or mourning, had
      been dedicated in their first origin to the service of
      superstition. The trembling Christians, who were persuaded in
      this instance to comply with the fashion of their country, and
      the commands of the magistrate, labored under the most gloomy
      apprehensions, from the reproaches of his own conscience, the
      censures of the church, and the denunciations of divine
      vengeance. 49 50

      49 (return) [ Consult the most labored work of Ovid, his
      imperfect Fasti. He finished no more than the first six months of
      the year. The compilation of Macrobius is called the Saturnalia,
      but it is only a small part of the first book that bears any
      relation to the title.]

      50 (return) [ Tertullian has composed a defence, or rather
      panegyric, of the rash action of a Christian soldier, who, by
      throwing away his crown of laurel, had exposed himself and his
      brethren to the most imminent danger. By the mention of the
      emperors, (Severus and Caracalla,) it is evident, notwithstanding
      the wishes of M. de Tillemont, that Tertullian composed his
      treatise De Corona long before he was engaged in the errors of
      the Montanists. See Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iii. p. 384.
      Note: The soldier did not tear off his crown to throw it down
      with contempt; he did not even throw it away; he held it in his
      hand, while others were it on their heads. Solus libero capite,
      ornamento in manu otioso.—G Note: Tertullian does not expressly
      name the two emperors, Severus and Caracalla: he speaks only of
      two emperors, and of a long peace which the church had enjoyed.
      It is generally agreed that Tertullian became a Montanist about
      the year 200: his work, de Corona Militis, appears to have been
      written, at the earliest about the year 202 before the
      persecution of Severus: it may be maintained, then, that it is
      subsequent to the Montanism of the author. See Mosheim, Diss. de
      Apol. Tertull. p. 53. Biblioth. Amsterd. tom. x. part ii. p. 292.
      Cave’s Hist. Lit. p. 92, 93.—G. ——The state of Tertullian’s
      opinions at the particular period is almost an idle question.
      “The fiery African” is not at any time to be considered a fair
      representative of Christianity.—M.]

      Such was the anxious diligence which was required to guard the
      chastity of the gospel from the infectious breath of idolatry.
      The superstitious observances of public or private rites were
      carelessly practised, from education and habit, by the followers
      of the established religion. But as often as they occurred, they
      afforded the Christians an opportunity of declaring and
      confirming their zealous opposition. By these frequent
      protestations their attachment to the faith was continually
      fortified; and in proportion to the increase of zeal, they
      combated with the more ardor and success in the holy war, which
      they had undertaken against the empire of the demons.

      II. The writings of Cicero 51 represent in the most lively colors
      the ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient
      philosophers with regard to the immortality of the soul. When
      they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear of
      death, they inculcate, as an obvious though melancholy position,
      that the fatal stroke of our dissolution releases us from the
      calamities of life; and that those can no longer suffer, who no
      longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of Greece and Rome who
      had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects, a juster
      idea of human nature, though it must be confessed, that in the
      sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their
      imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by
      their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of
      their own mental powers, when they exercised the various
      faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most
      profound speculations, or the most important labors, and when
      they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into
      future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave,
      they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the
      field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they
      entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a
      spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. With this
      favorable prepossession they summoned to their aid the science,
      or rather the language, of Metaphysics. They soon discovered,
      that as none of the properties of matter will apply to the
      operations of the mind, the human soul must consequently be a
      substance distinct from the body, pure, simple, and spiritual,
      incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher degree
      of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal
      prison. From these specious and noble principles, the
      philosophers who trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very
      unjustifiable conclusion, since they asserted, not only the
      future immortality, but the past eternity, of the human soul,
      which they were too apt to consider as a portion of the infinite
      and self-existing spirit, which pervades and sustains the
      universe. 52 A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses and the
      experience of mankind might serve to amuse the leisure of a
      philosophic mind; or, in the silence of solitude, it might
      sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding virtue; but the
      faint impression which had been received in the schools was soon
      obliterated by the commerce and business of active life. We are
      sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished
      in the age of Cicero and of the first Cæsars, with their actions,
      their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their
      conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious
      conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state. At
      the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not
      apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers by exposing that
      doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected
      with contempt by every man of a liberal education and
      understanding. 53

      51 (return) [ In particular, the first book of the Tusculan
      Questions, and the treatise De Senectute, and the Somnium
      Scipionis, contain, in the most beautiful language, every thing
      that Grecian philosophy, on Roman good sense, could possibly
      suggest on this dark but important object.]

      52 (return) [ The preexistence of human souls, so far at least as
      that doctrine is compatible with religion, was adopted by many of
      the Greek and Latin fathers. See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme,
      l. vi. c. 4.]

      53 (return) [ See Cicero pro Cluent. c. 61. Cæsar ap. Sallust. de
      Bell. Catilis n 50. Juvenal. Satir. ii. 149. ——Esse aliquid
      manes, et subterranea regna, —————Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui
      nondum æree lavantæ.]

      Since therefore the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend
      no further than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at
      most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing,
      except a divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence and
      describe the condition, of the invisible country which is
      destined to receive the souls of men after their separation from
      the body. But we may perceive several defects inherent to the
      popular religions of Greece and Rome, which rendered them very
      unequal to so arduous a task. 1. The general system of their
      mythology was unsupported by any solid proofs; and the wisest
      among the Pagans had already disclaimed its usurped authority. 2.
      The description of the infernal regions had been abandoned to the
      fancy of painters and of poets, who peopled them with so many
      phantoms and monsters, who dispensed their rewards and
      punishments with so little equity, that a solemn truth, the most
      congenial to the human heart, was oppressed and disgraced by the
      absurd mixture of the wildest fictions. 54 3. The doctrine of a
      future state was scarcely considered among the devout polytheists
      of Greece and Rome as a fundamental article of faith. The
      providence of the gods, as it related to public communities
      rather than to private individuals, was principally displayed on
      the visible theatre of the present world. The petitions which
      were offered on the altars of Jupiter or Apollo expressed the
      anxiety of their worshippers for temporal happiness, and their
      ignorance or indifference concerning a future life. 55 The
      important truth of the immortality of the soul was inculcated
      with more diligence, as well as success, in India, in Assyria, in
      Egypt, and in Gaul; and since we cannot attribute such a
      difference to the superior knowledge of the barbarians, we must
      ascribe it to the influence of an established priesthood, which
      employed the motives of virtue as the instrument of ambition. 56

      54 (return) [ The xith book of the Odyssey gives a very dreary
      and incoherent account of the infernal shades. Pindar and Virgil
      have embellished the picture; but even those poets, though more
      correct than their great model, are guilty of very strange
      inconsistencies. See Bayle, Responses aux Questions d’un
      Provincial, part iii. c. 22.]

      55 (return) [ See xvith epistle of the first book of Horace, the
      xiiith Satire of Juvenal, and the iid Satire of Persius: these
      popular discourses express the sentiment and language of the
      multitude.]

      56 (return) [ If we confine ourselves to the Gauls, we may
      observe, that they intrusted, not only their lives, but even
      their money, to the security of another world. Vetus ille mos
      Gallorum occurrit (says Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 6, p. 10)
      quos, memoria proditum est pecunias montuas, quæ his apud inferos
      redderentur, dare solitos. The same custom is more darkly
      insinuated by Mela, l. iii. c. 2. It is almost needless to add,
      that the profits of trade hold a just proportion to the credit of
      the merchant, and that the Druids derived from their holy
      profession a character of responsibility, which could scarcely be
      claimed by any other order of men.]

      We might naturally expect that a principle so essential to
      religion, would have been revealed in the clearest terms to the
      chosen people of Palestine, and that it might safely have been
      intrusted to the hereditary priesthood of Aaron. It is incumbent
      on us to adore the mysterious dispensations of Providence, 57
      when we discover that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul
      is omitted in the law of Moses; it is darkly insinuated by the
      prophets; and during the long period which elapsed between the
      Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as
      fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow
      compass of the present life. 58 After Cyrus had permitted the
      exiled nation to return into the promised land, and after Ezra
      had restored the ancient records of their religion, two
      celebrated sects, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, insensibly
      arose at Jerusalem. 59 The former, selected from the more opulent
      and distinguished ranks of society, were strictly attached to the
      literal sense of the Mosaic law, and they piously rejected the
      immortality of the soul, as an opinion that received no
      countenance from the divine book, which they revered as the only
      rule of their faith. To the authority of Scripture the Pharisees
      added that of tradition, and they accepted, under the name of
      traditions, several speculative tenets from the philosophy or
      religion of the eastern nations. The doctrines of fate or
      predestination, of angels and spirits, and of a future state of
      rewards and punishments, were in the number of these new articles
      of belief; and as the Pharisees, by the austerity of their
      manners, had drawn into their party the body of the Jewish
      people, the immortality of the soul became the prevailing
      sentiment of the synagogue, under the reign of the Asmonæan
      princes and pontiffs. The temper of the Jews was incapable of
      contenting itself with such a cold and languid assent as might
      satisfy the mind of a Polytheist; and as soon as they admitted
      the idea of a future state, they embraced it with the zeal which
      has always formed the characteristic of the nation. Their zeal,
      however, added nothing to its evidence, or even probability: and
      it was still necessary that the doctrine of life and immortality,
      which had been dictated by nature, approved by reason, and
      received by superstition, should obtain the sanction of divine
      truth from the authority and example of Christ.

      57 (return) [ The right reverend author of the Divine Legation of
      Moses as signs a very curious reason for the omission, and most
      ingeniously retorts it on the unbelievers. * Note: The hypothesis
      of Warburton concerning this remarkable fact, which, as far as
      the Law of Moses, is unquestionable, made few disciples; and it
      is difficult to suppose that it could be intended by the author
      himself for more than a display of intellectual strength. Modern
      writers have accounted in various ways for the silence of the
      Hebrew legislator on the immortality of the soul. According to
      Michaelis, “Moses wrote as an historian and as a lawgiver; he
      regulated the ecclesiastical discipline, rather than the
      religious belief of his people; and the sanctions of the law
      being temporal, he had no occasion, and as a civil legislator
      could not with propriety, threaten punishments in another world.”
      See Michaelis, Laws of Moses, art. 272, vol. iv. p. 209, Eng.
      Trans.; and Syntagma Commentationum, p. 80, quoted by Guizot. M.
      Guizot adds, the “ingenious conjecture of a philosophic
      theologian,” which approximates to an opinion long entertained by
      the Editor. That writer believes, that in the state of
      civilization at the time of the legislator, this doctrine, become
      popular among the Jews, would necessarily have given birth to a
      multitude of idolatrous superstitions which he wished to prevent.
      His primary object was to establish a firm theocracy, to make his
      people the conservators of the doctrine of the Divine Unity, the
      basis upon which Christianity was hereafter to rest. He carefully
      excluded everything which could obscure or weaken that doctrine.
      Other nations had strangely abused their notions on the
      immortality of the soul; Moses wished to prevent this abuse:
      hence he forbade the Jews from consulting necromancers, (those
      who evoke the spirits of the dead.) Deut. xviii. 11. Those who
      reflect on the state of the Pagans and the Jews, and on the
      facility with which idolatry crept in on every side, will not be
      astonished that Moses has not developed a doctrine of which the
      influence might be more pernicious than useful to his people.
      Orat. Fest. de Vitæ Immort. Spe., &c., auct. Ph. Alb. Stapfer, p.
      12 13, 20. Berne, 1787. ——Moses, as well from the intimations
      scattered in his writings, the passage relating to the
      translation of Enoch, (Gen. v. 24,) the prohibition of
      necromancy, (Michaelis believes him to be the author of the Book
      of Job though this opinion is in general rejected; other learned
      writers consider this Book to be coeval with and known to Moses,)
      as from his long residence in Egypt, and his acquaintance with
      Egyptian wisdom, could not be ignorant of the doctrine of the
      immortality of the soul. But this doctrine if popularly known
      among the Jews, must have been purely Egyptian, and as so,
      intimately connected with the whole religious system of that
      country. It was no doubt moulded up with the tenet of the
      transmigration of the soul, perhaps with notions analogous to the
      emanation system of India in which the human soul was an efflux
      from or indeed a part of, the Deity. The Mosaic religion drew a
      wide and impassable interval between the Creator and created
      human beings: in this it differed from the Egyptian and all the
      Eastern religions. As then the immortality of the soul was thus
      inseparably blended with those foreign religions which were
      altogether to be effaced from the minds of the people, and by no
      means necessary for the establishment of the theocracy, Moses
      maintained silence on this point and a purer notion of it was
      left to be developed at a more favorable period in the history of
      man.—M.]

      58 (return) [ See Le Clerc (Prolegomena ad Hist. Ecclesiast.
      sect. 1, c. 8) His authority seems to carry the greater weight,
      as he has written a learned and judicious commentary on the books
      of the Old Testament.]

      59 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. l. xiii. c. 10. De Bell. Jud.
      ii. 8. According to the most natural interpretation of his words,
      the Sadducees admitted only the Pentateuch; but it has pleased
      some modern critics to add the Prophets to their creed, and to
      suppose that they contented themselves with rejecting the
      traditions of the Pharisees. Dr. Jortin has argued that point in
      his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 103.]

      When the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to mankind on
      condition of adopting the faith, and of observing the precepts,
      of the gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer
      should have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of
      every rank, and of every province in the Roman empire. The
      ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present
      existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the
      doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any
      adequate notion. In the primitive church, the influence of truth
      was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion, which, however it
      may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has not
      been found agreeable to experience. It was universally believed,
      that the end of the world, and the kingdom of heaven, were at
      hand. 591 The near approach of this wonderful event had been
      predicted by the apostles; the tradition of it was preserved by
      their earliest disciples, and those who understood in their
      literal senses the discourse of Christ himself, were obliged to
      expect the second and glorious coming of the Son of Man in the
      clouds, before that generation was totally extinguished, which
      had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and which might still
      be witness of the calamities of the Jews under Vespasian or
      Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us
      not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy and
      revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error was
      permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most
      salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who
      lived in the awful expectation of that moment, when the globe
      itself, and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at
      the appearance of their divine Judge. 60

      591 (return) [ This was, in fact, an integral part of the Jewish
      notion of the Messiah, from which the minds of the apostles
      themselves were but gradually detached. See Bertholdt,
      Christologia Judæorum, concluding chapters—M.]

      60 (return) [ This expectation was countenanced by the
      twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, and by the first epistle of
      St. Paul to the Thessalonians. Erasmus removes the difficulty by
      the help of allegory and metaphor; and the learned Grotius
      ventures to insinuate, that, for wise purposes, the pious
      deception was permitted to take place. * Note: Some modern
      theologians explain it without discovering either allegory or
      deception. They say, that Jesus Christ, after having proclaimed
      the ruin of Jerusalem and of the Temple, speaks of his second
      coming and the sings which were to precede it; but those who
      believed that the moment was near deceived themselves as to the
      sense of two words, an error which still subsists in our versions
      of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, xxiv. 29, 34. In verse
      29, we read, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days
      shall the sun be darkened,” &c. The Greek word signifies all at
      once, suddenly, not immediately; so that it signifies only the
      sudden appearance of the signs which Jesus Christ announces not
      the shortness of the interval which was to separate them from the
      “days of tribulation,” of which he was speaking. The verse 34 is
      this “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till
      all these things shall be fulfilled.” Jesus, speaking to his
      disciples, uses these words, which the translators have rendered
      by this generation, but which means the race, the filiation of my
      disciples; that is, he speaks of a class of men, not of a
      generation. The true sense then, according to these learned men,
      is, In truth I tell you that this race of men, of which you are
      the commencement, shall not pass away till this shall take place;
      that is to say, the succession of Christians shall not cease till
      his coming. See Commentary of M. Paulus on the New Test., edit.
      1802, tom. iii. p. 445,—446.—G. ——Others, as Rosenmuller and
      Kuinoel, in loc., confine this passage to a highly figurative
      description of the ruins of the Jewish city and polity.—M.]




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

      The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was intimately
      connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the
      creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their
      present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to
      the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. 61 By the
      same analogy it was inferred, that this long period of labor and
      contention, which was now almost elapsed, 62 would be succeeded
      by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with
      the triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped
      death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon
      earth till the time appointed for the last and general
      resurrection. So pleasing was this hope to the mind of believers,
      that the _New Jerusalem_, the seat of this blissful kingdom, was
      quickly adorned with all the gayest colors of the imagination. A
      felicity consisting only of pure and spiritual pleasure would
      have appeared too refined for its inhabitants, who were still
      supposed to possess their human nature and senses. A garden of
      Eden, with the amusements of the pastoral life, was no longer
      suited to the advanced state of society which prevailed under the
      Roman empire. A city was therefore erected of gold and precious
      stones, and a supernatural plenty of corn and wine was bestowed
      on the adjacent territory; in the free enjoyment of whose
      spontaneous productions the happy and benevolent people was never
      to be restrained by any jealous laws of exclusive property. 63
      The assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a
      succession of fathers from Justin Martyr, 64 and Irenæus, who
      conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to
      Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. 65
      Though it might not be universally received, it appears to have
      been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers; and it
      seems so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions of
      mankind, that it must have contributed in a very considerable
      degree to the progress of the Christian faith. But when the
      edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support
      was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ’s reign upon earth was at
      first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees
      as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as
      the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism. 66 A mysterious
      prophecy, which still forms a part of the sacred canon, but which
      was thought to favor the exploded sentiment, has very narrowly
      escaped the proscription of the church. 67

      61 (return) [ See Burnet’s Sacred Theory, part iii. c. 5. This
      tradition may be traced as high as the the author of Epistle of
      Barnabas, who wrote in the first century, and who seems to have
      been half a Jew. * Note: In fact it is purely Jewish. See
      Mosheim, De Reb. Christ. ii. 8. Lightfoot’s Works, 8vo. edit.
      vol. iii. p. 37. Bertholdt, Christologia Judæorum ch. 38.—M.]

      62 (return) [ The primitive church of Antioch computed almost
      6000 years from the creation of the world to the birth of Christ.
      Africanus, Lactantius, and the Greek church, have reduced that
      number to 5500, and Eusebius has contented himself with 5200
      years. These calculations were formed on the Septuagint, which
      was universally received during the six first centuries. The
      authority of the vulgate and of the Hebrew text has determined
      the moderns, Protestants as well as Catholics, to prefer a period
      of about 4000 years; though, in the study of profane antiquity,
      they often find themselves straitened by those narrow limits. *
      Note: Most of the more learned modern English Protestants, Dr.
      Hales, Mr. Faber, Dr. Russel, as well as the Continental writers,
      adopt the larger chronology. There is little doubt that the
      narrower system was framed by the Jews of Tiberias; it was
      clearly neither that of St. Paul, nor of Josephus, nor of the
      Samaritan Text. It is greatly to be regretted that the chronology
      of the earlier Scriptures should ever have been made a religious
      question—M.]

      63 (return) [ Most of these pictures were borrowed from a
      misrepresentation of Isaiah, Daniel, and the Apocalypse. One of
      the grossest images may be found in Irenæus, (l. v. p. 455,) the
      disciple of Papias, who had seen the apostle St. John.]

      64 (return) [ See the second dialogue of Justin with Triphon, and
      the seventh book of Lactantius. It is unnecessary to allege all
      the intermediate fathers, as the fact is not disputed. Yet the
      curious reader may consult Daille de Uus Patrum, l. ii. c. 4.]

      65 (return) [ The testimony of Justin of his own faith and that
      of his orthodox brethren, in the doctrine of a Millennium, is
      delivered in the clearest and most solemn manner, (Dialog. cum
      Tryphonte Jud. p. 177, 178, edit. Benedictin.) If in the
      beginning of this important passage there is any thing like an
      inconsistency, we may impute it, as we think proper, either to
      the author or to his transcribers. * Note: The Millenium is
      described in what once stood as the XLIst Article of the English
      Church (see Collier, Eccles. Hist., for Articles of Edw. VI.) as
      “a fable of Jewish dotage.” The whole of these gross and earthly
      images may be traced in the works which treat on the Jewish
      traditions, in Lightfoot, Schoetgen, and Eisenmenger; “Das
      enthdeckte Judenthum” t. ii 809; and briefly in Bertholdt, i. c.
      38, 39.—M.]

      66 (return) [ Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 223,
      tom. ii. p. 366, and Mosheim, p. 720; though the latter of these
      learned divines is not altogether candid on this occasion.]

      67 (return) [ In the council of Laodicea, (about the year 360,)
      the Apocalypse was tacitly excluded from the sacred canon, by the
      same churches of Asia to which it is addressed; and we may learn
      from the complaint of Sulpicius Severus, that their sentence had
      been ratified by the greater number of Christians of his time.
      From what causes then is the Apocalypse at present so generally
      received by the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant churches?
      The following ones may be assigned. 1. The Greeks were subdued by
      the authority of an impostor, who, in the sixth century, assumed
      the character of Dionysius the Areopagite. 2. A just apprehension
      that the grammarians might become more important than the
      theologians, engaged the council of Trent to fix the seal of
      their infallibility on all the books of Scripture contained in
      the Latin Vulgate, in the number of which the Apocalypse was
      fortunately included. (Fr. Paolo, Istoria del Concilio
      Tridentino, l. ii.) 3. The advantage of turning those mysterious
      prophecies against the See of Rome, inspired the Protestants with
      uncommon veneration for so useful an ally. See the ingenious and
      elegant discourses of the present bishop of Litchfield on that
      unpromising subject. * Note: The exclusion of the Apocalypse is
      not improbably assigned to its obvious unfitness to be read in
      churches. It is to be feared that a history of the interpretation
      of the Apocalypse would not give a very favorable view either of
      the wisdom or the charity of the successive ages of Christianity.
      Wetstein’s interpretation, differently modified, is adopted by
      most Continental scholars.—M.]

      Whilst the happiness and glory of a temporal reign were promised
      to the disciples of Christ, the most dreadful calamities were
      denounced against an unbelieving world. The edification of a new
      Jerusalem was to advance by equal steps with the destruction of
      the mystic Babylon; and as long as the emperors who reigned
      before Constantine persisted in the profession of idolatry, the
      epithet of Babylon was applied to the city and to the empire of
      Rome. A regular series was prepared of all the moral and physical
      evils which can afflict a flourishing nation; intestine discord,
      and the invasion of the fiercest barbarians from the unknown
      regions of the North; pestilence and famine, comets and eclipses,
      earthquakes and inundations. 68 All these were only so many
      preparatory and alarming signs of the great catastrophe of Rome,
      when the country of the Scipios and Cæsars should be consumed by
      a flame from Heaven, and the city of the seven hills, with her
      palaces, her temples, and her triumphal arches, should be buried
      in a vast lake of fire and brimstone. It might, however, afford
      some consolation to Roman vanity, that the period of their empire
      would be that of the world itself; which, as it had once perished
      by the element of water, was destined to experience a second and
      a speedy destruction from the element of fire. In the opinion of
      a general conflagration, the faith of the Christian very happily
      coincided with the tradition of the East, the philosophy of the
      Stoics, and the analogy of Nature; and even the country, which,
      from religious motives, had been chosen for the origin and
      principal scene of the conflagration, was the best adapted for
      that purpose by natural and physical causes; by its deep caverns,
      beds of sulphur, and numerous volcanoes, of which those of Ætna,
      of Vesuvius, and of Lipari, exhibit a very imperfect
      representation. The calmest and most intrepid sceptic could not
      refuse to acknowledge that the destruction of the present system
      of the world by fire was in itself extremely probable. The
      Christian, who founded his belief much less on the fallacious
      arguments of reason than on the authority of tradition and the
      interpretation of Scripture, expected it with terror and
      confidence as a certain and approaching event; and as his mind
      was perpetually filled with the solemn idea, he considered every
      disaster that happened to the empire as an infallible symptom of
      an expiring world. 69

      68 (return) [ Lactantius (Institut. Divin. vii. 15, &c.) relates
      the dismal talk of futurity with great spirit and eloquence. *
      Note: Lactantius had a notion of a great Asiatic empire, which
      was previously to rise on the ruins of the Roman: quod Romanum
      nomen animus dicere, sed dicam. quia futurum est tolletur de
      terra, et impere. Asiam revertetur.—M.]

      69 (return) [ On this subject every reader of taste will be
      entertained with the third part of Burnet’s Sacred Theory. He
      blends philosophy, Scripture, and tradition, into one magnificent
      system; in the description of which he displays a strength of
      fancy not inferior to that of Milton himself.]

      The condemnation of the wisest and most virtuous of the Pagans,
      on account of their ignorance or disbelief of the divine truth,
      seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the present age.
      70 But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much firmer
      consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal
      torture, the far greater part of the human species. A charitable
      hope might perhaps be indulged in favor of Socrates, or some
      other sages of antiquity, who had consulted the light of reason
      before that of the gospel had arisen. 71 But it was unanimously
      affirmed, that those who, since the birth or the death of Christ,
      had obstinately persisted in the worship of the dæmons, neither
      deserved nor could expect a pardon from the irritated justice of
      the Deity. These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the
      ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into
      a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and friendship
      were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious
      faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves
      oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by
      resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of
      their future triumph. “You are fond of spectacles,” exclaims the
      stern Tertullian; “expect the greatest of all spectacles, the
      last and eternal judgment of the universe. 71b How shall I
      admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many
      proud monarchs, so many fancied gods, groaning in the lowest
      abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who persecuted the name
      of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled
      against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in
      red-hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated
      poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ;
      so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their own
      sufferings; so many dancers.”

      711 But the humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil
      over the rest of this infernal description, which the zealous
      African pursues in a long variety of affected and unfeeling
      witticisms. 72

      70 (return) [ And yet whatever may be the language of
      individuals, it is still the public doctrine of all the Christian
      churches; nor can even our own refuse to admit the conclusions
      which must be drawn from the viiith and the xviiith of her
      Articles. The Jansenists, who have so diligently studied the
      works of the fathers, maintain this sentiment with distinguished
      zeal; and the learned M. de Tillemont never dismisses a virtuous
      emperor without pronouncing his damnation. Zuinglius is perhaps
      the only leader of a party who has ever adopted the milder
      sentiment, and he gave no less offence to the Lutherans than to
      the Catholics. See Bossuet, Histoire des Variations des Eglises
      Protestantes, l. ii. c. 19—22.]

      71 (return) [ Justin and Clemens of Alexandria allow that some of
      the philosophers were instructed by the Logos; confounding its
      double signification of the human reason, and of the Divine
      Word.]

      711 (return) [ This translation is not exact: the first sentence
      is imperfect. Tertullian says, Ille dies nationibus insperatus,
      ille derisus, cum tanta sacculi vetustas et tot ejus nativitates
      uno igne haurientur. The text does not authorize the exaggerated
      expressions, so many magistrates, so many sago philosophers, so
      many poets, &c.; but simply magistrates, philosophers, poets.—G.
      —It is not clear that Gibbon’s version or paraphrase is
      incorrect: Tertullian writes, tot tantosque reges item præsides,
      &c.—M.]

      71b (return) [Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 30. In order to
      ascertain the degree of authority which the zealous African had
      acquired it may be sufficient to allege the testimony of Cyprian,
      the doctor and guide of all the western churches. (See Prudent.
      Hym. xiii. 100.) As often as he applied himself to his daily
      study of the writings of Tertullian, he was accustomed to say,
      “Da mihi magistrum, Give me my master.” (Hieronym. de Viris
      Illustribus, tom. i. p. 284.)]

      72 (return) [ The object of Tertullian’s vehemence in his
      Treatise, was to keep the Christians away from the secular games
      celebrated by the Emperor Severus: It has not prevented him from
      showing himself in other places full of benevolence and charity
      towards unbelievers: the spirit of the gospel has sometimes
      prevailed over the violence of human passions: Qui ergo putaveris
      nihil nos de salute Cæsaris curare (he says in his Apology)
      inspice Dei voces, literas nostras. Scitote ex illis præceptum
      esse nobis ad redudantionem, benignitates etiam pro inimicis Deum
      orare, et pro persecutoribus cona precari. Sed etiam nominatim
      atque manifeste orate inquit (Christus) pro regibus et pro
      principibus et potestatibus ut omnia sint tranquilla vobis Tert.
      Apol. c. 31.—G. ——It would be wiser for Christianity, retreating
      upon its genuine records in the New Testament, to disclaim this
      fierce African, than to identify itself with his furious
      invectives by unsatisfactory apologies for their unchristian
      fanaticism.—M.]

      Doubtless there were many among the primitive Christians of a
      temper more suitable to the meekness and charity of their
      profession. There were many who felt a sincere compassion for the
      danger of their friends and countrymen, and who exerted the most
      benevolent zeal to save them from the impending destruction.

      The careless Polytheist, assailed by new and unexpected terrors,
      against which neither his priests nor his philosophers could
      afford him any certain protection, was very frequently terrified
      and subdued by the menace of eternal tortures. His fears might
      assist the progress of his faith and reason; and if he could once
      persuade himself to suspect that the Christian religion might
      possibly be true, it became an easy task to convince him that it
      was the safest and most prudent party that he could possibly
      embrace.

      III. The supernatural gifts, which even in this life were
      ascribed to the Christians above the rest of mankind, must have
      conduced to their own comfort, and very frequently to the
      conviction of infidels. Besides the occasional prodigies, which
      might sometimes be effected by the immediate interposition of the
      Deity when he suspended the laws of Nature for the service of
      religion, the Christian church, from the time of the apostles and
      their first disciples, 73 has claimed an uninterrupted succession
      of miraculous powers, the gift of tongues, of vision, and of
      prophecy, the power of expelling dæmons, of healing the sick, and
      of raising the dead. The knowledge of foreign languages was
      frequently communicated to the contemporaries of Irenæus, though
      Irenæus himself was left to struggle with the difficulties of a
      barbarous dialect, whilst he preached the gospel to the natives
      of Gaul. 74 The divine inspiration, whether it was conveyed in
      the form of a waking or of a sleeping vision, is described as a
      favor very liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on
      women as on elders, on boys as well as upon bishops. When their
      devout minds were sufficiently prepared by a course of prayer, of
      fasting, and of vigils, to receive the extraordinary impulse,
      they were transported out of their senses, and delivered in
      ecstasy what was inspired, being mere organs of the Holy Spirit,
      just as a pipe or flute is of him who blows into it. 75 We may
      add, that the design of these visions was, for the most part,
      either to disclose the future history, or to guide the present
      administration, of the church. The expulsion of the dæmons from
      the bodies of those unhappy persons whom they had been permitted
      to torment, was considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of
      religion, and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apoligists, as
      the most convincing evidence of the truth of Christianity. The
      awful ceremony was usually performed in a public manner, and in
      the presence of a great number of spectators; the patient was
      relieved by the power or skill of the exorcist, and the
      vanquished dæmon was heard to confess that he was one of the
      fabled gods of antiquity, who had impiously usurped the adoration
      of mankind. 76 But the miraculous cure of diseases of the most
      inveterate or even preternatural kind can no longer occasion any
      surprise, when we recollect, that in the days of Irenæus, about
      the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was
      very far from being esteemed an uncommon event; that the miracle
      was frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great fasting
      and the joint supplication of the church of the place, and that
      the persons thus restored to their prayers had lived afterwards
      among them many years. 77 At such a period, when faith could
      boast of so many wonderful victories over death, it seems
      difficult to account for the scepticism of those philosophers,
      who still rejected and derided the doctrine of the resurrection.
      A noble Grecian had rested on this important ground the whole
      controversy, and promised Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, that if
      he could be gratified with the sight of a single person who had
      been actually raised from the dead, he would immediately embrace
      the Christian religion. It is somewhat remarkable, that the
      prelate of the first eastern church, however anxious for the
      conversion of his friend, thought proper to decline this fair and
      reasonable challenge. 78

      73 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evasions of Dr. Middleton, it
      is impossible to overlook the clear traces of visions and
      inspiration, which may be found in the apostolic fathers. * Note:
      Gibbon should have noticed the distinct and remarkable passage
      from Chrysostom, quoted by Middleton, (Works, vol. i. p. 105,) in
      which he affirms the long discontinuance of miracles as a
      notorious fact.—M.]

      74 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæres. Proem. p.3 Dr. Middleton (Free
      Inquiry, p. 96, &c.) observes, that as this pretension of all
      others was the most difficult to support by art, it was the
      soonest given up. The observation suits his hypothesis. * Note:
      This passage of Irenæus contains no allusion to the gift of
      tongues; it is merely an apology for a rude and unpolished Greek
      style, which could not be expected from one who passed his life
      in a remote and barbarous province, and was continually obliged
      to speak the Celtic language.—M. Note: Except in the life of
      Pachomius, an Egyptian monk of the fourth century. (see Jortin,
      Ecc. Hist. i. p. 368, edit. 1805,) and the latter (not earlier)
      lives of Xavier, there is no claim laid to the gift of tongues
      since the time of Irenæus; and of this claim, Xavier’s own
      letters are profoundly silent. See Douglas’s Criterion, p. 76
      edit. 1807.—M.]

      75 (return) [ Athenagoras in Legatione. Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad
      Gentes Tertullian advers. Marcionit. l. iv. These descriptions
      are not very unlike the prophetic fury, for which Cicero (de
      Divinat.ii. 54) expresses so little reverence.]

      76 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) throws out a bold
      defiance to the Pagan magistrates. Of the primitive miracles, the
      power of exorcising is the only one which has been assumed by
      Protestants. * Note: But by Protestants neither of the most
      enlightened ages nor most reasoning minds.—M.]

      77 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæreses, l. ii. 56, 57, l. v. c. 6.
      Mr. Dodwell (Dissertat. ad Irenæum, ii. 42) concludes, that the
      second century was still more fertile in miracles than the first.
      * Note: It is difficult to answer Middleton’s objection to this
      statement of Irenæus: “It is very strange, that from the time of
      the apostles there is not a single instance of this miracle to be
      found in the three first centuries; except a single case,
      slightly intimated in Eusebius, from the Works of Papias; which
      he seems to rank among the other fabulous stories delivered by
      that weak man.” Middleton, Works, vol. i. p. 59. Bp. Douglas
      (Criterion, p 389) would consider Irenæus to speak of what had
      “been performed formerly.” not in his own time.—M.]

      78 (return) [ Theophilus ad Autolycum, l. i. p. 345. Edit.
      Benedictin. Paris, 1742. * Note: A candid sceptic might discern
      some impropriety in the Bishop being called upon to perform a
      miracle on demand.—M.]

      The miracles of the primitive church, after obtaining the
      sanction of ages, have been lately attacked in a very free and
      ingenious inquiry, 79 which, though it has met with the most
      favorable reception from the public, appears to have excited a
      general scandal among the divines of our own as well as of the
      other Protestant churches of Europe. 80 Our different sentiments
      on this subject will be much less influenced by any particular
      arguments, than by our habits of study and reflection; and, above
      all, by the degree of evidence which we have accustomed ourselves
      to require for the proof of a miraculous event. The duty of an
      historian does not call upon him to interpose his private
      judgment in this nice and important controversy; but he ought not
      to dissemble the difficulty of adopting such a theory as may
      reconcile the interest of religion with that of reason, of making
      a proper application of that theory, and of defining with
      precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from error and
      from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift of
      supernatural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of
      the popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and of
      miracles, is continued without interruption; and the progress of
      superstition was so gradual, and almost imperceptible, that we
      know not in what particular link we should break the chain of
      tradition. Every age bears testimony to the wonderful events by
      which it was distinguished, and its testimony appears no less
      weighty and respectable than that of the preceding generation,
      till we are insensibly led on to accuse our own inconsistency, if
      in the eighth or in the twelfth century we deny to the venerable
      Bede, or to the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence
      which, in the second century, we had so liberally granted to
      Justin or to Irenæus. 81 If the truth of any of those miracles is
      appreciated by their apparent use and propriety, every age had
      unbelievers to convince, heretics to confute, and idolatrous
      nations to convert; and sufficient motives might always be
      produced to justify the interposition of Heaven. And yet, since
      every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality, and every
      reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous
      powers, it is evident that there must have been _some period_ in
      which they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the
      Christian church. Whatever æra is chosen for that purpose, the
      death of the apostles, the conversion of the Roman empire, or the
      extinction of the Arian heresy, 82 the insensibility of the
      Christians who lived at that time will equally afford a just
      matter of surprise. They still supported their pretensions after
      they had lost their power. Credulity performed the office of
      faith; fanaticism was permitted to assume the language of
      inspiration, and the effects of accident or contrivance were
      ascribed to supernatural causes. The recent experience of genuine
      miracles should have instructed the Christian world in the ways
      of Providence, and habituated their eye (if we may use a very
      inadequate expression) to the style of the divine artist. Should
      the most skilful painter of modern Italy presume to decorate his
      feeble imitations with the name of Raphæl or of Correggio, the
      insolent fraud would be soon discovered, and indignantly
      rejected.

      79 (return) [ Dr. Middleton sent out his Introduction in the year
      1747, published his Free Inquiry in 1749, and before his death,
      which happened in 1750, he had prepared a vindication of it
      against his numerous adversaries.]

      80 (return) [ The university of Oxford conferred degrees on his
      opponents. From the indignation of Mosheim, (p. 221,) we may
      discover the sentiments of the Lutheran divines. * Note: Yet many
      Protestant divines will now without reluctance confine miracles
      to the time of the apostles, or at least to the first century.—M]

      81 (return) [It may seem somewhat remarkable, that Bernard of
      Clairvaux, who records so many miracles of his friend St.
      Malachi, never takes any notice of his own, which, in their turn,
      however, are carefully related by his companions and disciples.
      In the long series of ecclesiastical history, does there exist a
      single instance of a saint asserting that he himself possessed
      the gift of miracles?]

      82 (return) [ The conversion of Constantine is the æra which is
      most usually fixed by Protestants. The more rational divines are
      unwilling to admit the miracles of the ivth, whilst the more
      credulous are unwilling to reject those of the vth century. *
      Note: All this appears to proceed on the principle that any
      distinct line can be drawn in an unphilosophic age between
      wonders and miracles, or between what piety, from their
      unexpected and extraordinary nature, the marvellous concurrence
      of secondary causes to some remarkable end, may consider
      providential interpositions, and miracles strictly so called, in
      which the laws of nature are suspended or violated. It is
      impossible to assign, on one side, limits to human credulity, on
      the other, to the influence of the imagination on the bodily
      frame; but some of the miracles recorded in the Gospels are such
      palpable impossibilities, according to the known laws and
      operations of nature, that if recorded on sufficient evidence,
      and the evidence we believe to be that of eye-witnesses, we
      cannot reject them, without either asserting, with Hume, that no
      evidence can prove a miracle, or that the Author of Nature has no
      power of suspending its ordinary laws. But which of the
      post-apostolic miracles will bear this test?—M.]

      Whatever opinion may be entertained of the miracles of the
      primitive church since the time of the apostles, this unresisting
      softness of temper, so conspicuous among the believers of the
      second and third centuries, proved of some accidental benefit to
      the cause of truth and religion. In modern times, a latent and
      even involuntary scepticism adheres to the most pious
      dispositions. Their admission of supernatural truths is much less
      an active consent than a cold and passive acquiescence.
      Accustomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable
      order of Nature, our reason, or at least our imagination, is not
      sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible action of the Deity.

      But, in the first ages of Christianity, the situation of mankind
      was extremely different. The most curious, or the most credulous,
      among the Pagans, were often persuaded to enter into a society
      which asserted an actual claim of miraculous powers. The
      primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their
      minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most
      extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied, that on every
      side they were incessantly assaulted by dæmons, comforted by
      visions, instructed by prophecy, and surprisingly delivered from
      danger, sickness, and from death itself, by the supplications of
      the church. The real or imaginary prodigies, of which they so
      frequently conceived themselves to be the objects, the
      instruments, or the spectators, very happily disposed them to
      adopt with the same ease, but with far greater justice, the
      authentic wonders of the evangelic history; and thus miracles
      that exceeded not the measure of their own experience, inspired
      them with the most lively assurance of mysteries which were
      acknowledged to surpass the limits of their understanding. It is
      this deep impression of supernatural truths which has been so
      much celebrated under the name of faith; a state of mind
      described as the surest pledge of the divine favor and of future
      felicity, and recommended as the first, or perhaps the only merit
      of a Christian. According to the more rigid doctors, the moral
      virtues, which may be equally practised by infidels, are
      destitute of any value or efficacy in the work of our
      justification.




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

      IV. But the primitive Christian demonstrated his faith by his
      virtues; and it was very justly supposed that the divine
      persuasion, which enlightened or subdued the understanding, must,
      at the same time, purify the heart, and direct the actions, of
      the believer. The first apologists of Christianity who justify
      the innocence of their brethren, and the writers of a later
      period who celebrate the sanctity of their ancestors, display, in
      the most lively colors, the reformation of manners which was
      introduced into the world by the preaching of the gospel. As it
      is my intention to remark only such human causes as were
      permitted to second the influence of revelation, I shall slightly
      mention two motives which might naturally render the lives of the
      primitive Christians much purer and more austere than those of
      their Pagan contemporaries, or their degenerate successors;
      repentance for their past sins, and the laudable desire of
      supporting the reputation of the society in which they were
      engaged. 83

      83 (return) [ These, in the opinion of the editor, are the most
      uncandid paragraphs in Gibbon’s History. He ought either, with
      manly courage, to have denied the moral reformation introduced by
      Christianity, or fairly to have investigated all its motives; not
      to have confined himself to an insidious and sarcastic
      description of the less pure and generous elements of the
      Christian character as it appeared even at that early time.—M.]

      It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the
      malice of infidelity, that the Christians allured into their
      party the most atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were
      touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to wash
      away, in the water of baptism, the guilt of their past conduct,
      for which the temples of the gods refused to grant them any
      expiation. But this reproach, when it is cleared from
      misrepresentation, contributes as much to the honor as it did to
      the increase of the church. The friends of Christianity may
      acknowledge without a blush that many of the most eminent saints
      had been before their baptism the most abandoned sinners. Those
      persons, who in the world had followed, though in an imperfect
      manner, the dictates of benevolence and propriety, derived such a
      calm satisfaction from the opinion of their own rectitude, as
      rendered them much less susceptible of the sudden emotions of
      shame, of grief, and of terror, which have given birth to so many
      wonderful conversions. After the example of their divine Master,
      the missionaries of the gospel disdained not the society of men,
      and especially of women, oppressed by the consciousness, and very
      often by the effects, of their vices. As they emerged from sin
      and superstition to the glorious hope of immortality, they
      resolved to devote themselves to a life, not only of virtue, but
      of penitence. The desire of perfection became the ruling passion
      of their soul; and it is well known that, while reason embraces a
      cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over
      the space which lies between the most opposite extremes. 83b

      83b (return) [The imputations of Celsus and Julian, with the
      defence of the fathers, are very fairly stated by Spanheim,
      Commentaire sur les Cesars de Julian, p. 468.]

      When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of the
      faithful, and were admitted to the sacraments of the church, they
      found themselves restrained from relapsing into their past
      disorders by another consideration of a less spiritual, but of a
      very innocent and respectable nature. Any particular society that
      has departed from the great body of the nation, or the religion
      to which it belonged, immediately becomes the object of universal
      as well as invidious observation. In proportion to the smallness
      of its numbers, the character of the society may be affected by
      the virtues and vices of the persons who compose it; and every
      member is engaged to watch with the most vigilant attention over
      his own behavior, and over that of his brethren, since, as he
      must expect to incur a part of the common disgrace, he may hope
      to enjoy a share of the common reputation. When the Christians of
      Bithynia were brought before the tribunal of the younger Pliny,
      they assured the proconsul, that, far from being engaged in any
      unlawful conspiracy, they were bound by a solemn obligation to
      abstain from the commission of those crimes which disturb the
      private or public peace of society, from theft, robbery,
      adultery, perjury, and fraud. 84 841 Near a century afterwards,
      Tertullian, with an honest pride, could boast, that very few
      Christians had suffered by the hand of the executioner, except on
      account of their religion. 85 Their serious and sequestered life,
      averse to the gay luxury of the age, inured them to chastity,
      temperance, economy, and all the sober and domestic virtues. As
      the greater number were of some trade or profession, it was
      incumbent on them, by the strictest integrity and the fairest
      dealing, to remove the suspicions which the profane are too apt
      to conceive against the appearances of sanctity. The contempt of
      the world exercised them in the habits of humility, meekness, and
      patience. The more they were persecuted, the more closely they
      adhered to each other. Their mutual charity and unsuspecting
      confidence has been remarked by infidels, and was too often
      abused by perfidious friends. 86

      84 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. * Note: Is not the sense of
      Tertullian rather, if guilty of any other offence, he had thereby
      ceased to be a Christian?—M.]

      841 (return) [ And this blamelessness was fully admitted by the
      candid and enlightened Roman.—M.]

      85 (return) [ Tertullian, Apolog. c. 44. He adds, however, with
      some degree of hesitation, “Aut si aliud, jam non Christianus.” *
      Note: Tertullian says positively no Christian, nemo illic
      Christianus; for the rest, the limitation which he himself
      subjoins, and which Gibbon quotes in the foregoing note,
      diminishes the force of this assertion, and appears to prove that
      at least he knew none such.—G.]

      86 (return) [ The philosopher Peregrinus (of whose life and death
      Lucian has left us so entertaining an account) imposed, for a
      long time, on the credulous simplicity of the Christians of
      Asia.]

      It is a very honorable circumstance for the morals of the
      primitive Christians, that even their faults, or rather errors,
      were derived from an excess of virtue. The bishops and doctors of
      the church, whose evidence attests, and whose authority might
      influence, the professions, the principles, and even the practice
      of their contemporaries, had studied the Scriptures with less
      skill than devotion; and they often received, in the most literal
      sense, those rigid precepts of Christ and the apostles, to which
      the prudence of succeeding commentators has applied a looser and
      more figurative mode of interpretation. Ambitious to exalt the
      perfection of the gospel above the wisdom of philosophy, the
      zealous fathers have carried the duties of self-mortification, of
      purity, and of patience, to a height which it is scarcely
      possible to attain, and much less to preserve, in our present
      state of weakness and corruption. A doctrine so extraordinary and
      so sublime must inevitably command the veneration of the people;
      but it was ill calculated to obtain the suffrage of those worldly
      philosophers who, in the conduct of this transitory life, consult
      only the feelings of nature and the interest of society. 87

      87 (return) [ See a very judicious treatise of Barbeyrac sur la
      Morale des Peres.]

      There are two very natural propensities which we may distinguish
      in the most virtuous and liberal dispositions, the love of
      pleasure and the love of action. If the former is refined by art
      and learning, improved by the charms of social intercourse, and
      corrected by a just regard to economy, to health, and to
      reputation, it is productive of the greatest part of the
      happiness of private life. The love of action is a principle of a
      much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads to anger,
      to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided by the sense
      of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the parent of every
      virtue, and if those virtues are accompanied with equal
      abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be indebted for
      their safety and prosperity to the undaunted courage of a single
      man. To the love of pleasure we may therefore ascribe most of the
      agreeable, to the love of action we may attribute most of the
      useful and respectable, qualifications. The character in which
      both the one and the other should be united and harmonized would
      seem to constitute the most perfect idea of human nature. The
      insensible and inactive disposition, which should be supposed
      alike destitute of both, would be rejected, by the common consent
      of mankind, as utterly incapable of procuring any happiness to
      the individual, or any public benefit to the world. But it was
      not in _this_ world that the primitive Christians were desirous
      of making themselves either agreeable or useful. 871

      871 (return) [ El que me fait cette homelie semi-stoicienne,
      semi-epicurienne? t’on jamais regarde l’amour du plaisir comme
      l’un des principes de la perfection morale? Et de quel droit
      faites vous de l’amour de l’action, et de l’amour du plaisir, les
      seuls elemens de l’etre humain? Est ce que vous faites
      abstraction de la verite en elle-meme, de la conscience et du
      sentiment du devoir? Est ce que vous ne sentez point, par
      exemple, que le sacrifice du moi a la justice et a la verite, est
      aussi dans le coeur de l’homme: que tout n’est pas pour lui
      action ou plaisir, et que dans le bien ce n’est pas le mouvement,
      mais la verite, qu’il cherche? Et puis * * Thucy dide et Tacite.
      ces maitres de l’histoire, ont ils jamais introduits dans leur
      recits un fragment de dissertation sur le plaisir et sur
      l’action. Villemain Cours de Lit. Franc part ii. Lecon v.—M.]

      The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of our reason or
      fancy, and the cheerful flow of unguarded conversation, may
      employ the leisure of a liberal mind. Such amusements, however,
      were rejected with abhorrence, or admitted with the utmost
      caution, by the severity of the fathers, who despised all
      knowledge that was not useful to salvation, and who considered
      all levity of discours as a criminal abuse of the gift of speech.
      In our present state of existence the body is so inseparably
      connected with the soul, that it seems to be our interest to
      taste, with innocence and moderation, the enjoyments of which
      that faithful companion is susceptible. Very different was the
      reasoning of our devout predecessors; vainly aspiring to imitate
      the perfection of angels, they disdained, or they affected to
      disdain, every earthly and corporeal delight. 88 Some of our
      senses indeed are necessary for our preservation, others for our
      subsistence, and others again for our information; and thus far
      it was impossible to reject the use of them. The first sensation
      of pleasure was marked as the first moment of their abuse. The
      unfeeling candidate for heaven was instructed, not only to resist
      the grosser allurements of the taste or smell, but even to shut
      his ears against the profane harmony of sounds, and to view with
      indifference the most finished productions of human art. Gay
      apparel, magnificent houses, and elegant furniture, were supposed
      to unite the double guilt of pride and of sensuality; a simple
      and mortified appearance was more suitable to the Christian who
      was certain of his sins and doubtful of his salvation. In their
      censures of luxury the fathers are extremely minute and
      circumstantial; 89 and among the various articles which excite
      their pious indignation we may enumerate false hair, garments of
      any color except white, instruments of music, vases of gold or
      silver, downy pillows, (as Jacob reposed his head on a stone,)
      white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, the use of warm
      baths, and the practice of shaving the beard, which, according to
      the expression of Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and
      an impious attempt to improve the works of the Creator. 90 When
      Christianity was introduced among the rich and the polite, the
      observation of these singular laws was left, as it would be at
      present, to the few who were ambitious of superior sanctity. But
      it is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the inferior ranks
      of mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and
      pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue
      of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was
      very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance.

      88 (return) [ Lactant. Institut. Divin. l. vi. c. 20, 21, 22.]

      89 (return) [ Consult a work of Clemens of Alexandria, entitled
      The Pædagogue, which contains the rudiments of ethics, as they
      were taught in the most celebrated of the Christian schools.]

      90 (return) [ Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 23. Clemens
      Alexandrin. Pædagog. l. iii. c. 8.]

      The chaste severity of the fathers, in whatever related to the
      commerce of the two sexes, flowed from the same principle; their
      abhorrence of every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual,
      and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was their favorite
      opinion, that if Adam had preserved his obedience to the Creator,
      he would have lived forever in a state of virgin purity, and that
      some harmless mode of vegetation might have peopled paradise with
      a race of innocent and immortal beings. 91 The use of marriage
      was permitted only to his fallen posterity, as a necessary
      expedient to continue the human species, and as a restraint,
      however imperfect, on the natural licentiousness of desire. The
      hesitation of the orthodox casuists on this interesting subject,
      betrays the perplexity of men, unwilling to approve an
      institution which they were compelled to tolerate. 92 The
      enumeration of the very whimsical laws, which they most
      circumstantially imposed on the marriage-bed, would force a smile
      from the young and a blush from the fair. It was their unanimous
      sentiment that a first marriage was adequate to all the purposes
      of nature and of society. The sensual connection was refined into
      a resemblance of the mystic union of Christ with his church, and
      was pronounced to be indissoluble either by divorce or by death.
      The practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a
      legal adultery; and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous
      an offence against Christian purity, were soon excluded from the
      honors, and even from the alms, of the church. 93 Since desire
      was imputed as a crime, and marriage was tolerated as a defect,
      it was consistent with the same principles to consider a state of
      celibacy as the nearest approach to the divine perfection. It was
      with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the
      institution of six vestals; 94 but the primitive church was
      filled with a number of persons of either sex, who had devoted
      themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. 95 A few of
      these, among whom we may reckon the learned Origen, judged it the
      most prudent to disarm the tempter. 96 Some were insensible and
      some were invincible against the assaults of the flesh.
      Disdaining an ignominious flight, the virgins of the warm climate
      of Africa encountered the enemy in the closest engagement; they
      permitted priests and deacons to share their bed, and gloried
      amidst the flames in their unsullied purity. But insulted Nature
      sometimes vindicated her rights, and this new species of
      martyrdom served only to introduce a new scandal into the church.
      97 Among the Christian ascetics, however, (a name which they soon
      acquired from their painful exercise,) many, as they were less
      presumptuous, were probably more successful. The loss of sensual
      pleasure was supplied and compensated by spiritual pride. Even
      the multitude of Pagans were inclined to estimate the merit of
      the sacrifice by its apparent difficulty; and it was in the
      praise of these chaste spouses of Christ that the fathers have
      poured forth the troubled stream of their eloquence. 98 Such are
      the early traces of monastic principles and institutions, which,
      in a subsequent age, have counterbalanced all the temporal
      advantages of Christianity. 99

      91 (return) [ Beausobro, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. vii.
      c. 3. Justin, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustin, &c., strongly incline
      to this opinion. Note: But these were Gnostic or Manichean
      opinions. Beausobre distinctly describes Autustine’s bias to his
      recent escape from Manicheism; and adds that he afterwards
      changed his views.—M.]

      92 (return) [ Some of the Gnostic heretics were more consistent;
      they rejected the use of marriage.]

      93 (return) [ See a chain of tradition, from Justin Martyr to
      Jerome, in the Morale des Peres, c. iv. 6—26.]

      94 (return) [ See a very curious Dissertation on the Vestals, in
      the Memoires de l’Academie des Inscriptions, tom. iv. p. 161—227.
      Notwithstanding the honors and rewards which were bestowed on
      those virgins, it was difficult to procure a sufficient number;
      nor could the dread of the most horrible death always restrain
      their incontinence.]

      95 (return) [ Cupiditatem procreandi aut unam scimus aut nullam.
      Minutius Fælix, c. 31. Justin. Apolog. Major. Athenagoras in
      Legat. c 28. Tertullian de Cultu Foemin. l. ii.]

      96 (return) [ Eusebius, l. vi. 8. Before the fame of Origen had
      excited envy and persecution, this extraordinary action was
      rather admired than censured. As it was his general practice to
      allegorize Scripture, it seems unfortunate that in this instance
      only, he should have adopted the literal sense.]

      97 (return) [ Cyprian. Epist. 4, and Dodwell, Dissertat.
      Cyprianic. iii. Something like this rash attempt was long
      afterwards imputed to the founder of the order of Fontevrault.
      Bayle has amused himself and his readers on that very delicate
      subject.]

      98 (return) [ Dupin (Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 195)
      gives a particular account of the dialogue of the ten virgins, as
      it was composed by Methodius, Bishop of Tyre. The praises of
      virginity are excessive.]

      99 (return) [ The Ascetics (as early as the second century) made
      a public profession of mortifying their bodies, and of abstaining
      from the use of flesh and wine. Mosheim, p. 310.]

      The Christians were not less averse to the business than to the
      pleasures of this world. The defence of our persons and property
      they knew not how to reconcile with the patient doctrine which
      enjoined an unlimited forgiveness of past injuries, and commanded
      them to invite the repetition of fresh insults. Their simplicity
      was offended by the use of oaths, by the pomp of magistracy, and
      by the active contention of public life; nor could their humane
      ignorance be convinced that it was lawful on any occasion to shed
      the blood of our fellow-creatures, either by the sword of
      justice, or by that of war; even though their criminal or hostile
      attempts should threaten the peace and safety of the whole
      community. 100 It was acknowledged that, under a less perfect
      law, the powers of the Jewish constitution had been exercised,
      with the approbation of heaven, by inspired prophets and by
      anointed kings. The Christians felt and confessed that such
      institutions might be necessary for the present system of the
      world, and they cheerfully submitted to the authority of their
      Pagan governors. But while they inculcated the maxims of passive
      obedience, they refused to take any active part in the civil
      administration or the military defence of the empire. Some
      indulgence might, perhaps, be allowed to those persons who,
      before their conversion, were already engaged in such violent and
      sanguinary occupations; 101a but it was impossible that the
      Christians, without renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume
      the character of soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes. 102b
      This indolent, or even criminal disregard to the public welfare,
      exposed them to the contempt and reproaches of the Pagans, who
      very frequently asked, what must be the fate of the empire,
      attacked on every side by the barbarians, if all mankind should
      adopt the pusillanimous sentiments of the new sect. 103 To this
      insulting question the Christian apologists returned obscure and
      ambiguous answers, as they were unwilling to reveal the secret
      cause of their security; the expectation that, before the
      conversion of mankind was accomplished, war, government, the
      Roman empire, and the world itself, would be no more. It may be
      observed, that, in this instance likewise, the situation of the
      first Christians coincided very happily with their religious
      scruples, and that their aversion to an active life contributed
      rather to excuse them from the service, than to exclude them from
      the honors, of the state and army.

      100 (return) [ See the Morale des Peres. The same patient
      principles have been revived since the Reformation by the
      Socinians, the modern Anabaptists, and the Quakers. Barclay, the
      Apologist of the Quakers, has protected his brethren by the
      authority of the primitive Christian; p. 542-549]

      101a (return) [ Tertullian, Apolog. c. 21. De Idololatria, c. 17,
      18. Origen contra Celsum, l. v. p. 253, l. vii. p. 348, l. viii.
      p. 423-428.]

      102b (return) [ Tertullian (de Corona Militis, c. 11) suggested
      to them the expedient of deserting; a counsel which, if it had
      been generally known, was not very proper to conciliate the favor
      of the emperors towards the Christian sect. * Note: There is
      nothing which ought to astonish us in the refusal of the
      primitive Christians to take part in public affairs; it was the
      natural consequence of the contrariety of their principles to the
      customs, laws, and active life of the Pagan world. As Christians,
      they could not enter into the senate, which, according to Gibbon
      himself, always assembled in a temple or consecrated place, and
      where each senator, before he took his seat, made a libation of a
      few drops of wine, and burnt incense on the altar; as Christians,
      they could not assist at festivals and banquets, which always
      terminated with libations, &c.; finally, as “the innumerable
      deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with
      every circumstance of public and private life,” the Christians
      could not participate in them without incurring, according to
      their principles, the guilt of impiety. It was then much less by
      an effect of their doctrine, than by the consequence of their
      situation, that they stood aloof from public business. Whenever
      this situation offered no impediment, they showed as much
      activity as the Pagans. Proinde, says Justin Martyr, (Apol. c.
      17,) nos solum Deum adoramus, et vobis in rebus aliis læti
      inservimus.—G. ——-This latter passage, M. Guizot quotes in Latin;
      if he had consulted the original, he would have found it to be
      altogether irrelevant: it merely relates to the payment of
      taxes.—M. — —Tertullian does not suggest to the soldiers the
      expedient of deserting; he says that they ought to be constantly
      on their guard to do nothing during their service contrary to the
      law of God, and to resolve to suffer martyrdom rather than submit
      to a base compliance, or openly to renounce the service. (De Cor.
      Mil. ii. p. 127.) He does not positively decide that the military
      service is not permitted to Christians; he ends, indeed, by
      saying, Puta denique licere militiam usque ad causam coronæ.—G.
      ——M. Guizot is. I think, again unfortunate in his defence of
      Tertullian. That father says, that many Christian soldiers had
      deserted, aut deserendum statim sit, ut a multis actum. The
      latter sentence, Puta, &c, &c., is a concession for the sake of
      argument: wha follows is more to the purpose.—M. Many other
      passages of Tertullian prove that the army was full of
      Christians, Hesterni sumus et vestra omnia implevimus, urbes,
      insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa. (Apol.
      c. 37.) Navigamus et not vobiscum et militamus. (c. 42.) Origen,
      in truth, appears to have maintained a more rigid opinion, (Cont.
      Cels. l. viii.;) but he has often renounced this exaggerated
      severity, perhaps necessary to produce great results, and he
      speaks of the profession of arms as an honorable one. (l. iv. c.
      218.)— G. ——On these points Christian opinion, it should seem,
      was much divided Tertullian, when he wrote the De Cor. Mil., was
      evidently inclining to more ascetic opinions, and Origen was of
      the same class. See Neander, vol. l part ii. p. 305, edit.
      1828.—M.]

      103 (return) [ As well as we can judge from the mutilated
      representation of Origen, (1. viii. p. 423,) his adversary,
      Celsus, had urged his objection with great force and candor.]




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

      V. But the human character, however it may be exalted or
      depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to
      its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that
      seem the most adapted to its present condition. The primitive
      Christians were dead to the business and pleasures of the world;
      but their love of action, which could never be entirely
      extinguished, soon revived, and found a new occupation in the
      government of the church. A separate society, which attacked the
      established religion of the empire, was obliged to adopt some
      form of internal policy, and to appoint a sufficient number of
      ministers, intrusted not only with the spiritual functions, but
      even with the temporal direction of the Christian commonwealth.
      The safety of that society, its honor, its aggrandizement, were
      productive, even in the most pious minds, of a spirit of
      patriotism, such as the first of the Romans had felt for the
      republic, and sometimes of a similar indifference, in the use of
      whatever means might probably conduce to so desirable an end. The
      ambition of raising themselves or their friends to the honors and
      offices of the church, was disguised by the laudable intention of
      devoting to the public benefit the power and consideration,
      which, for that purpose only, it became their duty to solicit. In
      the exercise of their functions, they were frequently called upon
      to detect the errors of heresy or the arts of faction, to oppose
      the designs of perfidious brethren, to stigmatize their
      characters with deserved infamy, and to expel them from the bosom
      of a society whose peace and happiness they had attempted to
      disturb. The ecclesiastical governors of the Christians were
      taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of
      the dove; but as the former was refined, so the latter was
      insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government. In the church
      as well as in the world, the persons who were placed in any
      public station rendered themselves considerable by their
      eloquence and firmness, by their knowledge of mankind, and by
      their dexterity in business; and while they concealed from
      others, and perhaps from themselves, the secret motives of their
      conduct, they too frequently relapsed into all the turbulent
      passions of active life, which were tinctured with an additional
      degree of bitterness and obstinacy from the infusion of spiritual
      zeal.

      The government of the church has often been the subject, as well
      as the prize, of religious contention. The hostile disputants of
      Rome, of Paris, of Oxford, and of Geneva, have alike struggled to
      reduce the primitive and apostolic model 1041 to the respective
      standards of their own policy. The few who have pursued this
      inquiry with more candor and impartiality, are of opinion, 105
      that the apostles declined the office of legislation, and rather
      chose to endure some partial scandals and divisions, than to
      exclude the Christians of a future age from the liberty of
      varying their forms of ecclesiastical government according to the
      changes of times and circumstances. The scheme of policy, which,
      under their approbation, was adopted for the use of the first
      century, may be discovered from the practice of Jerusalem, of
      Ephesus, or of Corinth. The societies which were instituted in
      the cities of the Roman empire were united only by the ties of
      faith and charity. Independence and equality formed the basis of
      their internal constitution. The want of discipline and human
      learning was supplied by the occasional assistance of the
      _prophets_, 106 who were called to that function without
      distinction of age, of sex, 1061 or of natural abilities, and
      who, as often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the
      effusions of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But
      these extraordinary gifts were frequently abused or misapplied by
      the prophetic teachers. They displayed them at an improper
      season, presumptuously disturbed the service of the assembly,
      and, by their pride or mistaken zeal, they introduced,
      particularly into the apostolic church of Corinth, a long and
      melancholy train of disorders. 107 As the institution of prophets
      became useless, and even pernicious, their powers were withdrawn,
      and their office abolished. The public functions of religion were
      solely intrusted to the established ministers of the church, the
      _bishops_ and the _presbyters;_ two appellations which, in their
      first origin, appear to have distinguished the same office and
      the same order of persons. The name of Presbyter was expressive
      of their age, or rather of their gravity and wisdom. The title of
      Bishop denoted their inspection over the faith and manners of the
      Christians who were committed to their pastoral care. In
      proportion to the respective numbers of the faithful, a larger or
      smaller number of these _episcopal presbyters_ guided each infant
      congregation with equal authority and with united counsels. 108

      1041 (return) [ The aristocratical party in France, as well as in
      England, has strenuously maintained the divine origin of bishops.
      But the Calvinistical presbyters were impatient of a superior;
      and the Roman Pontiff refused to acknowledge an equal. See Fra
      Paolo.]

      105 (return) [ In the history of the Christian hierarchy, I have,
      for the most part, followed the learned and candid Mosheim.]

      106 (return) [ For the prophets of the primitive church, see
      Mosheim, Dissertationes ad Hist. Eccles. pertinentes, tom. ii. p.
      132—208.]

      1061 (return) [ St. Paul distinctly reproves the intrusion of
      females into the prophets office. 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35. 1 Tim. ii.
      11.—M.]

      107 (return) [ See the epistles of St. Paul, and of Clemens, to
      the Corinthians. * Note: The first ministers established in the
      church were the deacons, appointed at Jerusalem, seven in number;
      they were charged with the distribution of the alms; even females
      had a share in this employment. After the deacons came the elders
      or priests, charged with the maintenance of order and decorum in
      the community, and to act every where in its name. The bishops
      were afterwards charged to watch over the faith and the
      instruction of the disciples: the apostles themselves appointed
      several bishops. Tertullian, (adv. Marium, c. v.,) Clement of
      Alexandria, and many fathers of the second and third century, do
      not permit us to doubt this fact. The equality of rank between
      these different functionaries did not prevent their functions
      being, even in their origin, distinct; they became subsequently
      still more so. See Plank, Geschichte der Christ. Kirch.
      Verfassung., vol. i. p. 24.—G. On this extremely obscure subject,
      which has been so much perplexed by passion and interest, it is
      impossible to justify any opinion without entering into long and
      controversial details.——It must be admitted, in opposition to
      Plank, that in the New Testament, several words are sometimes
      indiscriminately used. (Acts xx. v. 17, comp. with 28 Tit. i. 5
      and 7. Philip. i. 1.) But it is as clear, that as soon as we can
      discern the form of church government, at a period closely
      bordering upon, if not within, the apostolic age, it appears with
      a bishop at the head of each community, holding some superiority
      over the presbyters. Whether he was, as Gibbon from Mosheim
      supposes, merely an elective head of the College of Presbyters,
      (for this we have, in fact, no valid authority,) or whether his
      distinct functions were established on apostolic authority, is
      still contested. The universal submission to this episcopacy, in
      every part of the Christian world appears to me strongly to favor
      the latter view.—M.]

      108 (return) [ Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity, l. vii.]

      But the most perfect equality of freedom requires the directing
      hand of a superior magistrate: and the order of public
      deliberations soon introduces the office of a president, invested
      at least with the authority of collecting the sentiments, and of
      executing the resolutions, of the assembly. A regard for the
      public tranquillity, which would so frequently have been
      interrupted by annual or by occasional elections, induced the
      primitive Christians to constitute an honorable and perpetual
      magistracy, and to choose one of the wisest and most holy among
      their presbyters to execute, during his life, the duties of their
      ecclesiastical governor. It was under these circumstances that
      the lofty title of Bishop began to raise itself above the humble
      appellation of Presbyter; and while the latter remained the most
      natural distinction for the members of every Christian senate,
      the former was appropriated to the dignity of its new president.
      109 The advantages of this episcopal form of government, which
      appears to have been introduced before the end of the first
      century, 110 were so obvious, and so important for the future
      greatness, as well as the present peace, of Christianity, that it
      was adopted without delay by all the societies which were already
      scattered over the empire, had acquired in a very early period
      the sanction of antiquity, 111 and is still revered by the most
      powerful churches, both of the East and of the West, as a
      primitive and even as a divine establishment. 112 It is needless
      to observe, that the pious and humble presbyters, who were first
      dignified with the episcopal title, could not possess, and would
      probably have rejected, the power and pomp which now encircles
      the tiara of the Roman pontiff, or the mitre of a German prelate.
      But we may define, in a few words, the narrow limits of their
      original jurisdiction, which was chiefly of a spiritual, though
      in some instances of a temporal nature. 113 It consisted in the
      administration of the sacraments and discipline of the church,
      the superintendency of religious ceremonies, which imperceptibly
      increased in number and variety, the consecration of
      ecclesiastical ministers, to whom the bishop assigned their
      respective functions, the management of the public fund, and the
      determination of all such differences as the faithful were
      unwilling to expose before the tribunal of an idolatrous judge.
      These powers, during a short period, were exercised according to
      the advice of the presbyteral college, and with the consent and
      approbation of the assembly of Christians. The primitive bishops
      were considered only as the first of their equals, and the
      honorable servants of a free people. Whenever the episcopal chair
      became vacant by death, a new president was chosen among the
      presbyters by the suffrage of the whole congregation, every
      member of which supposed himself invested with a sacred and
      sacerdotal character. 114

      109 (return) [ See Jerome and Titum, c. i. and Epistol. 85, (in
      the Benedictine edition, 101,) and the elaborate apology of
      Blondel, pro sententia Hieronymi. The ancient state, as it is
      described by Jerome, of the bishop and presbyters of Alexandria,
      receives a remarkable confirmation from the patriarch Eutychius,
      (Annal. tom. i. p. 330, Vers Pocock;) whose testimony I know not
      how to reject, in spite of all the objections of the learned
      Pearson in his Vindiciæ Ignatianæ, part i. c. 11.]

      110 (return) [ See the introduction to the Apocalypse. Bishops,
      under the name of angels, were already instituted in the seven
      cities of Asia. And yet the epistle of Clemens (which is probably
      of as ancient a date) does not lead us to discover any traces of
      episcopacy either at Corinth or Rome.]

      111 (return) [ Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo, has been a fact as
      well as a maxim since the time of Tertullian and Irenæus.]

      112 (return) [ After we have passed the difficulties of the first
      century, we find the episcopal government universally
      established, till it was interrupted by the republican genius of
      the Swiss and German reformers.]

      113 (return) [ See Mosheim in the first and second centuries.
      Ignatius (ad Smyrnæos, c. 3, &c.) is fond of exalting the
      episcopal dignity. Le Clerc (Hist. Eccles. p. 569) very bluntly
      censures his conduct, Mosheim, with a more critical judgment, (p.
      161,) suspects the purity even of the smaller epistles.]

      114 (return) [ Nonne et Laici sacerdotes sumus? Tertullian,
      Exhort. ad Castitat. c. 7. As the human heart is still the same,
      several of the observations which Mr. Hume has made on
      Enthusiasm, (Essays, vol. i. p. 76, quarto edit.) may be applied
      even to real inspiration. * Note: This expression was employed by
      the earlier Christian writers in the sense used by St. Peter, 1
      Ep ii. 9. It was the sanctity and virtue not the power of
      priesthood, in which all Christians were to be equally
      distinguished.—M.]

      Such was the mild and equal constitution by which the Christians
      were governed more than a hundred years after the death of the
      apostles. Every society formed within itself a separate and
      independent republic; and although the most distant of these
      little states maintained a mutual as well as friendly intercourse
      of letters and deputations, the Christian world was not yet
      connected by any supreme authority or legislative assembly. As
      the numbers of the faithful were gradually multiplied, they
      discovered the advantages that might result from a closer union
      of their interest and designs. Towards the end of the second
      century, the churches of Greece and Asia adopted the useful
      institutions of provincial synods, 1141 and they may justly be
      supposed to have borrowed the model of a representative council
      from the celebrated examples of their own country, the
      Amphictyons, the Achæan league, or the assemblies of the Ionian
      cities. It was soon established as a custom and as a law, that
      the bishops of the independent churches should meet in the
      capital of the province at the stated periods of spring and
      autumn. Their deliberations were assisted by the advice of a few
      distinguished presbyters, and moderated by the presence of a
      listening multitude. 115 Their decrees, which were styled Canons,
      regulated every important controversy of faith and discipline;
      and it was natural to believe that a liberal effusion of the Holy
      Spirit would be poured on the united assembly of the delegates of
      the Christian people. The institution of synods was so well
      suited to private ambition, and to public interest, that in the
      space of a few years it was received throughout the whole empire.
      A regular correspondence was established between the provincial
      councils, which mutually communicated and approved their
      respective proceedings; and the catholic church soon assumed the
      form, and acquired the strength, of a great fœderative republic.
      116

      1141 (return) [ The synods were not the first means taken by the
      insulated churches to enter into communion and to assume a
      corporate character. The dioceses were first formed by the union
      of several country churches with a church in a city: many
      churches in one city uniting among themselves, or joining a more
      considerable church, became metropolitan. The dioceses were not
      formed before the beginning of the second century: before that
      time the Christians had not established sufficient churches in
      the country to stand in need of that union. It is towards the
      middle of the same century that we discover the first traces of
      the metropolitan constitution. (Probably the country churches
      were founded in general by missionaries from those in the city,
      and would preserve a natural connection with the parent
      church.)—M. ——The provincial synods did not commence till towards
      the middle of the third century, and were not the first synods.
      History gives us distinct notions of the synods, held towards the
      end of the second century, at Ephesus at Jerusalem, at Pontus,
      and at Rome, to put an end to the disputes which had arisen
      between the Latin and Asiatic churches about the celebration of
      Easter. But these synods were not subject to any regular form or
      periodical return; this regularity was first established with the
      provincial synods, which were formed by a union of the bishops of
      a district, subject to a metropolitan. Plank, p. 90. Geschichte
      der Christ. Kirch. Verfassung—G]

      115 (return) [ Acta Concil. Carthag. apud Cyprian. edit. Fell, p.
      158. This council was composed of eighty-seven bishops from the
      provinces of Mauritania, Numidia, and Africa; some presbyters and
      deacons assisted at the assembly; præsente plebis maxima parte.]

      116 (return) [ Aguntur præterea per Græcias illas, certis in
      locis concilia, &c Tertullian de Jejuniis, c. 13. The African
      mentions it as a recent and foreign institution. The coalition of
      the Christian churches is very ably explained by Mosheim, p. 164
      170.]

      As the legislative authority of the particular churches was
      insensibly superseded by the use of councils, the bishops
      obtained by their alliance a much larger share of executive and
      arbitrary power; and as soon as they were connected by a sense of
      their common interest, they were enabled to attack, with united
      vigor, the original rights of their clergy and people. The
      prelates of the third century imperceptibly changed the language
      of exhortation into that of command, scattered the seeds of
      future usurpations, and supplied, by scripture allegories and
      declamatory rhetoric, their deficiency of force and of reason.
      They exalted the unity and power of the church, as it was
      represented in the episcopal office, of which every bishop
      enjoyed an equal and undivided portion. 117 Princes and
      magistrates, it was often repeated, might boast an earthly claim
      to a transitory dominion; it was the episcopal authority alone
      which was derived from the Deity, and extended itself over this
      and over another world. The bishops were the vicegerents of
      Christ, the successors of the apostles, and the mystic
      substitutes of the high priest of the Mosaic law. Their exclusive
      privilege of conferring the sacerdotal character invaded the
      freedom both of clerical and of popular elections; and if, in the
      administration of the church, they still consulted the judgment
      of the presbyters, or the inclination of the people, they most
      carefully inculcated the merit of such a voluntary condescension.
      The bishops acknowledged the supreme authority which resided in
      the assembly of their brethren; but in the government of his
      peculiar diocese, each of them exacted from his _flock_ the same
      implicit obedience as if that favorite metaphor had been
      literally just, and as if the shepherd had been of a more exalted
      nature than that of his sheep. 118 This obedience, however, was
      not imposed without some efforts on one side, and some resistance
      on the other. The democratical part of the constitution was, in
      many places, very warmly supported by the zealous or interested
      opposition of the inferior clergy. But their patriotism received
      the ignominious epithets of faction and schism; and the episcopal
      cause was indebted for its rapid progress to the labors of many
      active prelates, who, like Cyprian of Carthage, could reconcile
      the arts of the most ambitious statesman with the Christian
      virtues which seem adapted to the character of a saint and
      martyr. 119

      117 (return) [ Cyprian, in his admired treatise De Unitate
      Ecclesiæ. p. 75—86]

      118 (return) [ We may appeal to the whole tenor of Cyprian’s
      conduct, of his doctrine, and of his epistles. Le Clerc, in a
      short life of Cyprian, (Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. xii. p.
      207—378,) has laid him open with great freedom and accuracy.]

      119 (return) [ If Novatus, Felicissimus, &c., whom the Bishop of
      Carthage expelled from his church, and from Africa, were not the
      most detestable monsters of wickedness, the zeal of Cyprian must
      occasionally have prevailed over his veracity. For a very just
      account of these obscure quarrels, see Mosheim, p. 497—512.]

      The same causes which at first had destroyed the equality of the
      presbyters introduced among the bishops a preeminence of rank,
      and from thence a superiority of jurisdiction. As often as in the
      spring and autumn they met in provincial synod, the difference of
      personal merit and reputation was very sensibly felt among the
      members of the assembly, and the multitude was governed by the
      wisdom and eloquence of the few. But the order of public
      proceedings required a more regular and less invidious
      distinction; the office of perpetual presidents in the councils
      of each province was conferred on the bishops of the principal
      city; and these aspiring prelates, who soon acquired the lofty
      titles of Metropolitans and Primates, secretly prepared
      themselves to usurp over their episcopal brethren the same
      authority which the bishops had so lately assumed above the
      college of presbyters. 120 Nor was it long before an emulation of
      preeminence and power prevailed among the Metropolitans
      themselves, each of them affecting to display, in the most
      pompous terms, the temporal honors and advantages of the city
      over which he presided; the numbers and opulence of the
      Christians who were subject to their pastoral care; the saints
      and martyrs who had arisen among them; and the purity with which
      they preserved the tradition of the faith, as it had been
      transmitted through a series of orthodox bishops from the apostle
      or the apostolic disciple, to whom the foundation of their church
      was ascribed. 121 From every cause, either of a civil or of an
      ecclesiastical nature, it was easy to foresee that Rome must
      enjoy the respect, and would soon claim the obedience, of the
      provinces. The society of the faithful bore a just proportion to
      the capital of the empire; and the Roman church was the greatest,
      the most numerous, and, in regard to the West, the most ancient
      of all the Christian establishments, many of which had received
      their religion from the pious labors of her missionaries. Instead
      of one apostolic founder, the utmost boast of Antioch, of
      Ephesus, or of Corinth, the banks of the Tyber were supposed to
      have been honored with the preaching and martyrdom of the two
      most eminent among the apostles; 122 and the bishops of Rome very
      prudently claimed the inheritance of whatsoever prerogatives were
      attributed either to the person or to the office of St. Peter.
      123 The bishops of Italy and of the provinces were disposed to
      allow them a primacy of order and association (such was their
      very accurate expression) in the Christian aristocracy. 124 But
      the power of a monarch was rejected with abhorrence, and the
      aspiring genius of Rome experienced from the nations of Asia and
      Africa a more vigorous resistance to her spiritual, than she had
      formerly done to her temporal, dominion. The patriotic Cyprian,
      who ruled with the most absolute sway the church of Carthage and
      the provincial synods, opposed with resolution and success the
      ambition of the Roman pontiff, artfully connected his own cause
      with that of the eastern bishops, and, like Hannibal, sought out
      new allies in the heart of Asia. 125 If this Punic war was
      carried on without any effusion of blood, it was owing much less
      to the moderation than to the weakness of the contending
      prelates. Invectives and excommunications were _their_ only
      weapons; and these, during the progress of the whole controversy,
      they hurled against each other with equal fury and devotion. The
      hard necessity of censuring either a pope, or a saint and martyr,
      distresses the modern Catholics whenever they are obliged to
      relate the particulars of a dispute in which the champions of
      religion indulged such passions as seem much more adapted to the
      senate or to the camp. 126

      120 (return) [ Mosheim, p. 269, 574. Dupin, Antiquæ Eccles.
      Disciplin. p. 19, 20.]

      121 (return) [ Tertullian, in a distinct treatise, has pleaded
      against the heretics the right of prescription, as it was held by
      the apostolic churches.]

      122 (return) [ The journey of St. Peter to Rome is mentioned by
      most of the ancients, (see Eusebius, ii. 25,) maintained by all
      the Catholics, allowed by some Protestants, (see Pearson and
      Dodwell de Success. Episcop. Roman,) but has been vigorously
      attacked by Spanheim, (Miscellanes Sacra, iii. 3.) According to
      Father Hardouin, the monks of the thirteenth century, who
      composed the Æneid, represented St. Peter under the allegorical
      character of the Trojan hero. * Note: It is quite clear that,
      strictly speaking, the church of Rome was not founded by either
      of these apostles. St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans proves
      undeniably the flourishing state of the church before his visit
      to the city; and many Roman Catholic writers have given up the
      impracticable task of reconciling with chronology any visit of
      St. Peter to Rome before the end of the reign of Claudius, or the
      beginning of that of Nero.—M.]

      123 (return) [ It is in French only that the famous allusion to
      St. Peter’s name is exact. Tu es Pierre, et sur cette pierre.—The
      same is imperfect in Greek, Latin, Italian, &c., and totally
      unintelligible in our Tentonic languages. * Note: It is exact in
      Syro-Chaldaic, the language in which it was spoken by Jesus
      Christ. (St. Matt. xvi. 17.) Peter was called Cephas; and cepha
      signifies base, foundation, rock—G.]

      124 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæreses, iii. 3. Tertullian de
      Præscription. c. 36, and Cyprian, Epistol. 27, 55, 71, 75. Le
      Clere (Hist. Eccles. p. 764) and Mosheim (p. 258, 578) labor in
      the interpretation of these passages. But the loose and
      rhetorical style of the fathers often appears favorable to the
      pretensions of Rome.]

      125 (return) [ See the sharp epistle from Firmilianus, bishop of
      Cæsarea, to Stephen, bishop of Rome, ap. Cyprian, Epistol. 75.]

      126 (return) [ Concerning this dispute of the rebaptism of
      heretics, see the epistles of Cyprian, and the seventh book of
      Eusebius.]

      The progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the
      memorable distinction of the laity and of the clergy, which had
      been unknown to the Greeks and Romans. 127 The former of these
      appellations comprehended the body of the Christian people; the
      latter, according to the signification of the word, was
      appropriated to the chosen portion that had been set apart for
      the service of religion; a celebrated order of men, which has
      furnished the most important, though not always the most
      edifying, subjects for modern history. Their mutual hostilities
      sometimes disturbed the peace of the infant church, but their
      zeal and activity were united in the common cause, and the love
      of power, which (under the most artful disguises) could insinuate
      itself into the breasts of bishops and martyrs, animated them to
      increase the number of their subjects, and to enlarge the limits
      of the Christian empire. They were destitute of any temporal
      force, and they were for a long time discouraged and oppressed,
      rather than assisted, by the civil magistrate; but they had
      acquired, and they employed within their own society, the two
      most efficacious instruments of government, rewards and
      punishments; the former derived from the pious liberality, the
      latter from the devout apprehensions, of the faithful.

      127 (return) [ For the origin of these words, see Mosheim, p.
      141. Spanheim, Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 633. The distinction of
      Clerus and Iaicus was established before the time of Tertullian.]




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

      I. The community of goods, which had so agreeably amused the
      imagination of Plato, 128 and which subsisted in some degree
      among the austere sect of the Essenians, 129 was adopted for a
      short time in the primitive church. The fervor of the first
      proselytes prompted them to sell those worldly possessions, which
      they despised, to lay the price of them at the feet of the
      apostles, and to content themselves with receiving an equal share
      out of the general distribution. 130 The progress of the
      Christian religion relaxed, and gradually abolished, this
      generous institution, which, in hands less pure than those of the
      apostles, would too soon have been corrupted and abused by the
      returning selfishness of human nature; and the converts who
      embraced the new religion were permitted to retain the possession
      of their patrimony, to receive legacies and inheritances, and to
      increase their separate property by all the lawful means of trade
      and industry. Instead of an absolute sacrifice, a moderate
      proportion was accepted by the ministers of the gospel; and in
      their weekly or monthly assemblies, every believer, according to
      the exigency of the occasion, and the measure of his wealth and
      piety, presented his voluntary offering for the use of the common
      fund. 131 Nothing, however inconsiderable, was refused; but it
      was diligently inculcated that, in the article of Tithes, the
      Mosaic law was still of divine obligation; and that since the
      Jews, under a less perfect discipline, had been commanded to pay
      a tenth part of all that they possessed, it would become the
      disciples of Christ to distinguish themselves by a superior
      degree of liberality, 132 and to acquire some merit by resigning
      a superfluous treasure, which must so soon be annihilated with
      the world itself. 133 It is almost unnecessary to observe, that
      the revenue of each particular church, which was of so uncertain
      and fluctuating a nature, must have varied with the poverty or
      the opulence of the faithful, as they were dispersed in obscure
      villages, or collected in the great cities of the empire. In the
      time of the emperor Decius, it was the opinion of the
      magistrates, that the Christians of Rome were possessed of very
      considerable wealth; that vessels of gold and silver were used in
      their religious worship, and that many among their proselytes had
      sold their lands and houses to increase the public riches of the
      sect, at the expense, indeed, of their unfortunate children, who
      found themselves beggars, because their parents had been saints.
      134 We should listen with distrust to the suspicions of strangers
      and enemies: on this occasion, however, they receive a very
      specious and probable color from the two following circumstances,
      the only ones that have reached our knowledge, which define any
      precise sums, or convey any distinct idea. Almost at the same
      period, the bishop of Carthage, from a society less opulent than
      that of Rome, collected a hundred thousand sesterces, (above
      eight hundred and fifty pounds sterling,) on a sudden call of
      charity to redeem the brethren of Numidia, who had been carried
      away captives by the barbarians of the desert. 135 About a
      hundred years before the reign of Decius, the Roman church had
      received, in a single donation, the sum of two hundred thousand
      sesterces from a stranger of Pontus, who proposed to fix his
      residence in the capital. 136 These oblations, for the most part,
      were made in money; nor was the society of Christians either
      desirous or capable of acquiring, to any considerable degree, the
      encumbrance of landed property. It had been provided by several
      laws, which were enacted with the same design as our statutes of
      mortmain, that no real estates should be given or bequeathed to
      any corporate body, without either a special privilege or a
      particular dispensation from the emperor or from the senate; 137
      who were seldom disposed to grant them in favor of a sect, at
      first the object of their contempt, and at last of their fears
      and jealousy. A transaction, however, is related under the reign
      of Alexander Severus, which discovers that the restraint was
      sometimes eluded or suspended, and that the Christians were
      permitted to claim and to possess lands within the limits of Rome
      itself. 138 The progress of Christianity, and the civil confusion
      of the empire, contributed to relax the severity of the laws; and
      before the close of the third century many considerable estates
      were bestowed on the opulent churches of Rome, Milan, Carthage,
      Antioch, Alexandria, and the other great cities of Italy and the
      provinces.

      128 (return) [ The community instituted by Plato is more perfect
      than that which Sir Thomas More had imagined for his Utopia. The
      community of women, and that of temporal goods, may be considered
      as inseparable parts of the same system.]

      129 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 2. Philo, de Vit.
      Contemplativ.]

      130 (return) [ See the Acts of the Apostles, c. 2, 4, 5, with
      Grotius’s Commentary. Mosheim, in a particular dissertation,
      attacks the common opinion with very inconclusive arguments. *
      Note: This is not the general judgment on Mosheim’s learned
      dissertation. There is no trace in the latter part of the New
      Testament of this community of goods, and many distinct proofs of
      the contrary. All exhortations to almsgiving would have been
      unmeaning if property had been in common—M.]

      131 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, c. 89. Tertullian,
      Apolog. c. 39.]

      132 (return) [ Irenæus ad Hæres. l. iv. c. 27, 34. Origen in Num.
      Hom. ii Cyprian de Unitat. Eccles. Constitut. Apostol. l. ii. c.
      34, 35, with the notes of Cotelerius. The Constitutions introduce
      this divine precept, by declaring that priests are as much above
      kings as the soul is above the body. Among the tithable articles,
      they enumerate corn, wine, oil, and wool. On this interesting
      subject, consult Prideaux’s History of Tithes, and Fra Paolo
      delle Materie Beneficiarie; two writers of a very different
      character.]

      133 (return) [ The same opinion which prevailed about the year
      one thousand, was productive of the same effects. Most of the
      Donations express their motive, “appropinquante mundi fine.” See
      Mosheim’s General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 457.]

      134 (return) [ Tum summa cura est fratribus (Ut sermo testatur
      loquax.) Offerre, fundis venditis Sestertiorum millia. Addicta
      avorum prædia Foedis sub auctionibus, Successor exheres gemit
      Sanctis egens Parentibus. Hæc occuluntur abditis Ecclesiarum in
      angulis. Et summa pietas creditur Nudare dulces
      liberos.——Prudent. Hymn 2. The subsequent conduct of the deacon
      Laurence only proves how proper a use was made of the wealth of
      the Roman church; it was undoubtedly very considerable; but Fra
      Paolo (c. 3) appears to exaggerate, when he supposes that the
      successors of Commodus were urged to persecute the Christians by
      their own avarice, or that of their Prætorian præfects.]

      135 (return) [ Cyprian, Epistol. 62.]

      136 (return) [ Tertullian de Præscriptione, c. 30.]

      137 (return) [ Diocletian gave a rescript, which is only a
      declaration of the old law; “Collegium, si nullo speciali
      privilegio subnixum sit, hæreditatem capere non posse, dubium non
      est.” Fra Paolo (c. 4) thinks that these regulations had been
      much neglected since the reign of Valerian.]

      138 (return) [ Hist. August. p. 131. The ground had been public;
      and was row disputed between the society of Christians and that
      of butchers. Note *: Carponarii, rather victuallers.—M.]

      The bishop was the natural steward of the church; the public
      stock was intrusted to his care without account or control; the
      presbyters were confined to their spiritual functions, and the
      more dependent order of the deacons was solely employed in the
      management and distribution of the ecclesiastical revenue. 139 If
      we may give credit to the vehement declamations of Cyprian, there
      were too many among his African brethren, who, in the execution
      of their charge, violated every precept, not only of evangelical
      perfection, but even of moral virtue. By some of these unfaithful
      stewards the riches of the church were lavished in sensual
      pleasures; by others they were perverted to the purposes of
      private gain, of fraudulent purchases, and of rapacious usury.
      140 But as long as the contributions of the Christian people were
      free and unconstrained, the abuse of their confidence could not
      be very frequent, and the general uses to which their liberality
      was applied reflected honor on the religious society. A decent
      portion was reserved for the maintenance of the bishop and his
      clergy; a sufficient sum was allotted for the expenses of the
      public worship, of which the feasts of love, the _agapæ_, as they
      were called, constituted a very pleasing part. The whole
      remainder was the sacred patrimony of the poor. According to the
      discretion of the bishop, it was distributed to support widows
      and orphans, the lame, the sick, and the aged of the community;
      to comfort strangers and pilgrims, and to alleviate the
      misfortunes of prisoners and captives, more especially when their
      sufferings had been occasioned by their firm attachment to the
      cause of religion. 141 A generous intercourse of charity united
      the most distant provinces, and the smaller congregations were
      cheerfully assisted by the alms of their more opulent brethren.
      142 Such an institution, which paid less regard to the merit than
      to the distress of the object, very materially conduced to the
      progress of Christianity. The Pagans, who were actuated by a
      sense of humanity, while they derided the doctrines, acknowledged
      the benevolence, of the new sect. 143 The prospect of immediate
      relief and of future protection allured into its hospitable bosom
      many of those unhappy persons whom the neglect of the world would
      have abandoned to the miseries of want, of sickness, and of old
      age. There is some reason likewise to believe that great numbers
      of infants, who, according to the inhuman practice of the times,
      had been exposed by their parents, were frequently rescued from
      death, baptized, educated, and maintained by the piety of the
      Christians, and at the expense of the public treasure. 144

      139 (return) [ Constitut. Apostol. ii. 35.]

      140 (return) [ Cyprian de Lapsis, p. 89. Epistol. 65. The charge
      is confirmed by the 19th and 20th canon of the council of
      Illiberis.]

      141 (return) [ See the apologies of Justin, Tertullian, &c.]

      142 (return) [ The wealth and liberality of the Romans to their
      most distant brethren is gratefully celebrated by Dionysius of
      Corinth, ap. Euseb. l. iv. c. 23.]

      143 (return) [ See Lucian iu Peregrin. Julian (Epist. 49) seems
      mortified that the Christian charity maintains not only their
      own, but likewise the heathen poor.]

      144 (return) [ Such, at least, has been the laudable conduct of
      more modern missionaries, under the same circumstances. Above
      three thousand new-born infants are annually exposed in the
      streets of Pekin. See Le Comte, Memoires sur la Chine, and the
      Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptians, tom. i. p. 61.]

      II. It is the undoubted right of every society to exclude from
      its communion and benefits such among its members as reject or
      violate those regulations which have been established by general
      consent. In the exercise of this power, the censures of the
      Christian church were chiefly directed against scandalous
      sinners, and particularly those who were guilty of murder, of
      fraud, or of incontinence; against the authors or the followers
      of any heretical opinions which had been condemned by the
      judgment of the episcopal order; and against those unhappy
      persons, who, whether from choice or compulsion, had polluted
      themselves after their baptism by any act of idolatrous worship.
      The consequences of excommunication were of a temporal as well as
      a spiritual nature. The Christian against whom it was pronounced
      was deprived of any part in the oblations of the faithful. The
      ties both of religious and of private friendship were dissolved:
      he found himself a profane object of abhorrence to the persons
      whom he the most esteemed, or by whom he had been the most
      tenderly beloved; and as far as an expulsion from a respectable
      society could imprint on his character a mark of disgrace, he was
      shunned or suspected by the generality of mankind. The situation
      of these unfortunate exiles was in itself very painful and
      melancholy; but, as it usually happens, their apprehensions far
      exceeded their sufferings. The benefits of the Christian
      communion were those of eternal life; nor could they erase from
      their minds the awful opinion, that to those ecclesiastical
      governors by whom they were condemned, the Deity had committed
      the keys of Hell and of Paradise. The heretics, indeed, who might
      be supported by the consciousness of their intentions, and by the
      flattering hope that they alone had discovered the true path of
      salvation, endeavored to regain, in their separate assemblies,
      those comforts, temporal as well as spiritual, which they no
      longer derived from the great society of Christians. But almost
      all those who had reluctantly yielded to the power of vice or
      idolatry were sensible of their fallen condition, and anxiously
      desirous of being restored to the benefits of the Christian
      communion.

      With regard to the treatment of these penitents, two opposite
      opinions, the one of justice, the other of mercy, divided the
      primitive church. The more rigid and inflexible casuists refused
      them forever, and without exception, the meanest place in the
      holy community, which they had disgraced or deserted; and leaving
      them to the remorse of a guilty conscience, indulged them only
      with a faint ray of hope that the contrition of their life and
      death might possibly be accepted by the Supreme Being. 145 A
      milder sentiment was embraced, in practice as well as in theory,
      by the purest and most respectable of the Christian churches. 146
      The gates of reconciliation and of heaven were seldom shut
      against the returning penitent; but a severe and solemn form of
      discipline was instituted, which, while it served to expiate his
      crime, might powerfully deter the spectators from the imitation
      of his example. Humbled by a public confession, emaciated by
      fasting and clothed in sackcloth, the penitent lay prostrate at
      the door of the assembly, imploring with tears the pardon of his
      offences, and soliciting the prayers of the faithful. 147 If the
      fault was of a very heinous nature, whole years of penance were
      esteemed an inadequate satisfaction to the divine justice; and it
      was always by slow and painful gradations that the sinner, the
      heretic, or the apostate, was readmitted into the bosom of the
      church. A sentence of perpetual excommunication was, however,
      reserved for some crimes of an extraordinary magnitude, and
      particularly for the inexcusable relapses of those penitents who
      had already experienced and abused the clemency of their
      ecclesiastical superiors. According to the circumstances or the
      number of the guilty, the exercise of the Christian discipline
      was varied by the discretion of the bishops. The councils of
      Ancyra and Illiberis were held about the same time, the one in
      Galatia, the other in Spain; but their respective canons, which
      are still extant, seem to breathe a very different spirit. The
      Galatian, who after his baptism had repeatedly sacrificed to
      idols, might obtain his pardon by a penance of seven years; and
      if he had seduced others to imitate his example, only three years
      more were added to the term of his exile. But the unhappy
      Spaniard, who had committed the same offence, was deprived of the
      hope of reconciliation, even in the article of death; and his
      idolatry was placed at the head of a list of seventeen other
      crimes, against which a sentence no less terrible was pronounced.
      Among these we may distinguish the inexpiable guilt of
      calumniating a bishop, a presbyter, or even a deacon. 148

      145 (return) [ The Montanists and the Novatians, who adhered to
      this opinion with the greatest rigor and obstinacy, found
      themselves at last in the number of excommunicated heretics. See
      the learned and copious Mosheim, Secul. ii. and iii.]

      146 (return) [ Dionysius ap. Euseb. iv. 23. Cyprian, de Lapsis.]

      147 (return) [ Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part iii. c. 5. The
      admirers of antiquity regret the loss of this public penance.]

      148 (return) [ See in Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom.
      ii. p. 304—313, a short but rational exposition of the canons of
      those councils, which were assembled in the first moments of
      tranquillity, after the persecution of Diocletian. This
      persecution had been much less severely felt in Spain than in
      Galatia; a difference which may, in some measure account for the
      contrast of their regulations.]

      The well-tempered mixture of liberality and rigor, the judicious
      dispensation of rewards and punishments, according to the maxims
      of policy as well as justice, constituted the _human_ strength of
      the church. The Bishops, whose paternal care extended itself to
      the government of both worlds, were sensible of the importance of
      these prerogatives; and covering their ambition with the fair
      pretence of the love of order, they were jealous of any rival in
      the exercise of a discipline so necessary to prevent the
      desertion of those troops which had enlisted themselves under the
      banner of the cross, and whose numbers every day became more
      considerable. From the imperious declamations of Cyprian, we
      should naturally conclude that the doctrines of excommunication
      and penance formed the most essential part of religion; and that
      it was much less dangerous for the disciples of Christ to neglect
      the observance of the moral duties, than to despise the censures
      and authority of their bishops. Sometimes we might imagine that
      we were listening to the voice of Moses, when he commanded the
      earth to open, and to swallow up, in consuming flames, the
      rebellious race which refused obedience to the priesthood of
      Aaron; and we should sometimes suppose that we heard a Roman
      consul asserting the majesty of the republic, and declaring his
      inflexible resolution to enforce the rigor of the laws. “If such
      irregularities are suffered with impunity,” (it is thus that the
      bishop of Carthage chides the lenity of his colleague,) “if such
      irregularities are suffered, there is an end of EPISCOPAL VIGOR;
      149 an end of the sublime and divine power of governing the
      Church, an end of Christianity itself.” Cyprian had renounced
      those temporal honors which it is probable he would never have
      obtained; but the acquisition of such absolute command over the
      consciences and understanding of a congregation, however obscure
      or despised by the world, is more truly grateful to the pride of
      the human heart than the possession of the most despotic power,
      imposed by arms and conquest on a reluctant people.

      1491] (return) [ Gibbon has been accused of injustice to the
      character of Cyprian, as exalting the “censures and authority of
      the church above the observance of the moral duties.”
      Felicissimus had been condemned by a synod of bishops, (non
      tantum mea, sed plurimorum coepiscorum, sententia condemnatum,)
      on the charge not only of schism, but of embezzlement of public
      money, the debauching of virgins, and frequent acts of adultery.
      His violent menaces had extorted his readmission into the church,
      against which Cyprian protests with much vehemence: ne pecuniæ
      commissæ sibi fraudator, ne stuprator virginum, ne matrimoniorum
      multorum depopulator et corruptor, ultra adhuc sponsam Christi
      incorruptam præsentiæ suæ dedecore, et impudica atque incesta
      contagione, violaret. See Chelsum’s Remarks, p. 134. If these
      charges against Felicissimus were true, they were something more
      than “irregularities,” A Roman censor would have been a fairer
      subject of comparison than a consul. On the other hand, it must
      be admitted that the charge of adultery deepens very rapidly as
      the controversy becomes more violent. It is first represented as
      a single act, recently detected, and which men of character were
      prepared to substantiate: adulterii etiam crimen accedit. quod
      patres nostri graves viri deprehendisse se nuntiaverunt, et
      probaturos se asseverarunt. Epist. xxxviii. The heretic has now
      darkened into a man of notorious and general profligacy. Nor can
      it be denied that of the whole long epistle, very far the larger
      and the more passionate part dwells on the breach of
      ecclesiastical unity rather than on the violation of Christian
      holiness.—M.]

      149 (return) [ Cyprian Epist. 69.]

      1492 (return) [ This supposition appears unfounded: the birth and
      the talents of Cyprian might make us presume the contrary.
      Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus, Carthaginensis, artis oratoriæ
      professione clarus, magnam sibi gloriam, opes, honores
      acquisivit, epularibus cænis et largis dapibus assuetus, pretiosa
      veste conspicuus, auro atque purpura fulgens, fascibus oblectatus
      et honoribus, stipatus clientium cuneis, frequentiore comitatu
      officii agminis honestatus, ut ipse de se loquitur in Epistola ad
      Donatum. See De Cave, Hist. Liter. b. i. p. 87.—G. Cave has
      rather embellished Cyprian’s language.—M.]

      In the course of this important, though perhaps tedious inquiry,
      I have attempted to display the secondary causes which so
      efficaciously assisted the truth of the Christian religion. If
      among these causes we have discovered any artificial ornaments,
      any accidental circumstances, or any mixture of error and
      passion, it cannot appear surprising that mankind should be the
      most sensibly affected by such motives as were suited to their
      imperfect nature. It was by the aid of these causes, exclusive
      zeal, the immediate expectation of another world, the claim of
      miracles, the practice of rigid virtue, and the constitution of
      the primitive church, that Christianity spread itself with so
      much success in the Roman empire. To the first of these the
      Christians were indebted for their invincible valor, which
      disdained to capitulate with the enemy whom they were resolved to
      vanquish. The three succeeding causes supplied their valor with
      the most formidable arms. The last of these causes united their
      courage, directed their arms, and gave their efforts that
      irresistible weight, which even a small band of well-trained and
      intrepid volunteers has so often possessed over an undisciplined
      multitude, ignorant of the subject and careless of the event of
      the war. In the various religions of Polytheism, some wandering
      fanatics of Egypt and Syria, who addressed themselves to the
      credulous superstition of the populace, were perhaps the only
      order of priests 150 that derived their whole support and credit
      from their sacerdotal profession, and were very deeply affected
      by a personal concern for the safety or prosperity of their
      tutelar deities. The ministers of Polytheism, both in Rome and in
      the provinces, were, for the most part, men of a noble birth, and
      of an affluent fortune, who received, as an honorable
      distinction, the care of a celebrated temple, or of a public
      sacrifice, exhibited, very frequently at their own expense, the
      sacred games, 151 and with cold indifference performed the
      ancient rites, according to the laws and fashion of their
      country. As they were engaged in the ordinary occupations of
      life, their zeal and devotion were seldom animated by a sense of
      interest, or by the habits of an ecclesiastical character.
      Confined to their respective temples and cities, they remained
      without any connection of discipline or government; and whilst
      they acknowledged the supreme jurisdiction of the senate, of the
      college of pontiffs, and of the emperor, those civil magistrates
      contented themselves with the easy task of maintaining in peace
      and dignity the general worship of mankind. We have already seen
      how various, how loose, and how uncertain were the religious
      sentiments of Polytheists. They were abandoned, almost without
      control, to the natural workings of a superstitious fancy. The
      accidental circumstances of their life and situation determined
      the object as well as the degree of their devotion; and as long
      as their adoration was successively prostituted to a thousand
      deities, it was scarcely possible that their hearts could be
      susceptible of a very sincere or lively passion for any of them.

      150 (return) [ The arts, the manners, and the vices of the
      priests of the Syrian goddess are very humorously described by
      Apuleius, in the eighth book of his Metamorphosis.]

      151 (return) [ The office of Asiarch was of this nature, and it
      is frequently mentioned in Aristides, the Inscriptions, &c. It
      was annual and elective. None but the vainest citizens could
      desire the honor; none but the most wealthy could support the
      expense. See, in the Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 200, with how
      much indifference Philip the Asiarch conducted himself in the
      martyrdom of Polycarp. There were likewise Bithyniarchs,
      Lyciarchs, &c.]

      When Christianity appeared in the world, even these faint and
      imperfect impressions had lost much of their original power.
      Human reason, which by its unassisted strength is incapable of
      perceiving the mysteries of faith, had already obtained an easy
      triumph over the folly of Paganism; and when Tertullian or
      Lactantius employ their labors in exposing its falsehood and
      extravagance, they are obliged to transcribe the eloquence of
      Cicero or the wit of Lucian. The contagion of these sceptical
      writings had been diffused far beyond the number of their
      readers. The fashion of incredulity was communicated from the
      philosopher to the man of pleasure or business, from the noble to
      the plebeian, and from the master to the menial slave who waited
      at his table, and who eagerly listened to the freedom of his
      conversation. On public occasions the philosophic part of mankind
      affected to treat with respect and decency the religious
      institutions of their country; but their secret contempt
      penetrated through the thin and awkward disguise; and even the
      people, when they discovered that their deities were rejected and
      derided by those whose rank or understanding they were accustomed
      to reverence, were filled with doubts and apprehensions
      concerning the truth of those doctrines, to which they had
      yielded the most implicit belief. The decline of ancient
      prejudice exposed a very numerous portion of human kind to the
      danger of a painful and comfortless situation. A state of
      scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But
      the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude,
      that if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of
      their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and
      supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and
      their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond
      the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which
      favored the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar
      is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of
      mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of
      some other mode of superstition. Some deities of a more recent
      and fashionable cast might soon have occupied the deserted
      temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if, in the decisive moment, the
      wisdom of Providence had not interposed a genuine revelation,
      fitted to inspire the most rational esteem and conviction,
      whilst, at the same time, it was adorned with all that could
      attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the veneration of the
      people. In their actual disposition, as many were almost
      disengaged from their artificial prejudices, but equally
      susceptible and desirous of a devout attachment; an object much
      less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant
      place in their hearts, and to gratify the uncertain eagerness of
      their passions. Those who are inclined to pursue this reflection,
      instead of viewing with astonishment the rapid progress of
      Christianity, will perhaps be surprised that its success was not
      still more rapid and still more universal. It has been observed,
      with truth as well as propriety, that the conquests of Rome
      prepared and facilitated those of Christianity. In the second
      chapter of this work we have attempted to explain in what manner
      the most civilized provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa were
      united under the dominion of one sovereign, and gradually
      connected by the most intimate ties of laws, of manners, and of
      language. The Jews of Palestine, who had fondly expected a
      temporal deliverer, gave so cold a reception to the miracles of
      the divine prophet, that it was found unnecessary to publish, or
      at least to preserve, any Hebrew gospel. 152 The authentic
      histories of the actions of Christ were composed in the Greek
      language, at a considerable distance from Jerusalem, and after
      the Gentile converts were grown extremely numerous. 153 As soon
      as those histories were translated into the Latin tongue, they
      were perfectly intelligible to all the subjects of Rome,
      excepting only to the peasants of Syria and Egypt, for whose
      benefit particular versions were afterwards made. The public
      highways, which had been constructed for the use of the legions,
      opened an easy passage for the Christian missionaries from
      Damascus to Corinth, and from Italy to the extremity of Spain or
      Britain; nor did those spiritual conquerors encounter any of the
      obstacles which usually retard or prevent the introduction of a
      foreign religion into a distant country. There is the strongest
      reason to believe, that before the reigns of Diocletian and
      Constantine, the faith of Christ had been preached in every
      province, and in all the great cities of the empire; but the
      foundation of the several congregations, the numbers of the
      faithful who composed them, and their proportion to the
      unbelieving multitude, are now buried in obscurity, or disguised
      by fiction and declamation. Such imperfect circumstances,
      however, as have reached our knowledge concerning the increase of
      the Christian name in Asia and Greece, in Egypt, in Italy, and in
      the West, we shall now proceed to relate, without neglecting the
      real or imaginary acquisitions which lay beyond the frontiers of
      the Roman empire.

      152 (return) [ The modern critics are not disposed to believe
      what the fathers almost unanimously assert, that St. Matthew
      composed a Hebrew gospel, of which only the Greek translation is
      extant. It seems, however, dangerous to reject their testimony. *
      Note: Strong reasons appear to confirm this testimony. Papias,
      contemporary of the Apostle St. John, says positively that
      Matthew had written the discourses of Jesus Christ in Hebrew, and
      that each interpreted them as he could. This Hebrew was the
      Syro-Chaldaic dialect, then in use at Jerusalem: Origen, Irenæus,
      Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, confirm this statement. Jesus
      Christ preached himself in Syro-Chaldaic, as is proved by many
      words which he used, and which the Evangelists have taken the
      pains to translate. St. Paul, addressing the Jews, used the same
      language: Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 2, xxvi. 14. The opinions of some
      critics prove nothing against such undeniable testimonies.
      Moreover, their principal objection is, that St. Matthew quotes
      the Old Testament according to the Greek version of the LXX.,
      which is inaccurate; for of ten quotations, found in his Gospel,
      seven are evidently taken from the Hebrew text; the threo others
      offer little that differ: moreover, the latter are not literal
      quotations. St. Jerome says positively, that, according to a copy
      which he had seen in the library of Cæsarea, the quotations were
      made in Hebrew (in Catal.) More modern critics, among others
      Michaelis, do not entertain a doubt on the subject. The Greek
      version appears to have been made in the time of the apostles, as
      St. Jerome and St. Augustus affirm, perhaps by one of them.—G.
      ——Among modern critics, Dr. Hug has asserted the Greek original
      of St. Matthew, but the general opinion of the most learned
      biblical writer, supports the view of M. Guizot.—M.]

      153 (return) [ Under the reigns of Nero and Domitian, and in the
      cities of Alexandria, Antioch, Rome, and Ephesus. See Mill.
      Prolegomena ad Nov. Testament, and Dr. Lardner’s fair and
      extensive collection, vol. xv. Note: This question has, it is
      well known, been most elaborately discussed since the time of
      Gibbon. The Preface to the Translation of Schleier Macher’s
      Version of St. Luke contains a very able summary of the various
      theories.—M.]




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

      The rich provinces that extend from the Euphrates to the Ionian
      Sea were the principal theatre on which the apostle of the
      Gentiles displayed his zeal and piety. The seeds of the gospel,
      which he had scattered in a fertile soil, were diligently
      cultivated by his disciples; and it should seem that, during the
      two first centuries, the most considerable body of Christians was
      contained within those limits. Among the societies which were
      instituted in Syria, none were more ancient or more illustrious
      than those of Damascus, of Berea or Aleppo, and of Antioch. The
      prophetic introduction of the Apocalypse has described and
      immortalized the seven churches of Asia; Ephesus, Smyrna,
      Pergamus, Thyatira, 154 Sardes, Laodicea, and Philadelphia; and
      their colonies were soon diffused over that populous country. In
      a very early period, the islands of Cyprus and Crete, the
      provinces of Thrace and Macedonia, gave a favorable reception to
      the new religion; and Christian republics were soon founded in
      the cities of Corinth, of Sparta, and of Athens. 155 The
      antiquity of the Greek and Asiatic churches allowed a sufficient
      space of time for their increase and multiplication; and even the
      swarms of Gnostics and other heretics serve to display the
      flourishing condition of the orthodox church, since the
      appellation of heretics has always been applied to the less
      numerous party. To these domestic testimonies we may add the
      confession, the complaints, and the apprehensions of the Gentiles
      themselves. From the writings of Lucian, a philosopher who had
      studied mankind, and who describes their manners in the most
      lively colors, we may learn that, under the reign of Commodus,
      his native country of Pontus was filled with Epicureans and
      _Christians_. 156 Within fourscore years after the death of
      Christ, 157 the humane Pliny laments the magnitude of the evil
      which he vainly attempted to eradicate. In his very curious
      epistle to the emperor Trajan, he affirms that the temples were
      almost deserted, that the sacred victims scarcely found any
      purchasers, and that the superstition had not only infected the
      cities, but had even spread itself into the villages and the open
      country of Pontus and Bithynia. 158

      154 (return) [ The Alogians (Epiphanius de Hæres. 51) disputed
      the genuineness of the Apocalypse, because the church of Thyatira
      was not yet founded. Epiphanius, who allows the fact, extricates
      himself from the difficulty by ingeniously supposing that St.
      John wrote in the spirit of prophecy. See Abauzit, Discours sur
      l’Apocalypse.]

      155 (return) [ The epistles of Ignatius and Dionysius (ap. Euseb.
      iv. 23) point out many churches in Asia and Greece. That of
      Athens seems to have been one of the least flourishing.]

      156 (return) [ Lucian in Alexandro, c. 25. Christianity however,
      must have been very unequally diffused over Pontus; since, in the
      middle of the third century, there was no more than seventeen
      believers in the extensive diocese of Neo-Cæsarea. See M. de
      Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 675, from Basil and
      Gregory of Nyssa, who were themselves natives of Cappadocia.
      Note: Gibbon forgot the conclusion of this story, that Gregory
      left only seventeen heathens in his diocese. The antithesis is
      suspicious, and both numbers may have been chosen to magnify the
      spiritual fame of the wonder-worker.—M.]

      157 (return) [ According to the ancients, Jesus Christ suffered
      under the consulship of the two Gemini, in the year 29 of our
      present æra. Pliny was sent into Bithynia (according to Pagi) in
      the year 110.]

      158 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97.]

      Without descending into a minute scrutiny of the expressions or
      of the motives of those writers who either celebrate or lament
      the progress of Christianity in the East, it may in general be
      observed that none of them have left us any grounds from whence a
      just estimate might be formed of the real numbers of the faithful
      in those provinces. One circumstance, however, has been
      fortunately preserved, which seems to cast a more distinct light
      on this obscure but interesting subject. Under the reign of
      Theodosius, after Christianity had enjoyed, during more than
      sixty years, the sunshine of Imperial favor, the ancient and
      illustrious church of Antioch consisted of one hundred thousand
      persons, three thousand of whom were supported out of the public
      oblations. 159 The splendor and dignity of the queen of the East,
      the acknowledged populousness of Cæsarea, Seleucia, and
      Alexandria, and the destruction of two hundred and fifty thousand
      souls in the earthquake which afflicted Antioch under the elder
      Justin, 160 are so many convincing proofs that the whole number
      of its inhabitants was not less than half a million, and that the
      Christians, however multiplied by zeal and power, did not exceed
      a fifth part of that great city. How different a proportion must
      we adopt when we compare the persecuted with the triumphant
      church, the West with the East, remote villages with populous
      towns, and countries recently converted to the faith with the
      place where the believers first received the appellation of
      Christians! It must not, however, be dissembled, that, in another
      passage, Chrysostom, to whom we are indebted for this useful
      information, computes the multitude of the faithful as even
      superior to that of the Jews and Pagans. 161 But the solution of
      this apparent difficulty is easy and obvious. The eloquent
      preacher draws a parallel between the civil and the
      ecclesiastical constitution of Antioch; between the list of
      Christians who had acquired heaven by baptism, and the list of
      citizens who had a right to share the public liberality. Slaves,
      strangers, and infants were comprised in the former; they were
      excluded from the latter.

      159 (return) [ Chrysostom. Opera, tom. vii. p. 658, 810, (edit.
      Savil. ii. 422, 329.)]

      160 (return) [ John Malala, tom. ii. p. 144. He draws the same
      conclusion with regard to the populousness of antioch.]

      161 (return) [ Chrysostom. tom. i. p. 592. I am indebted for
      these passages, though not for my inference, to the learned Dr.
      Lardner. Credibility of the Gospel of History, vol. xii. p. 370.
      * Note: The statements of Chrysostom with regard to the
      population of Antioch, whatever may be their accuracy, are
      perfectly consistent. In one passage he reckons the population at
      200,000. In a second the Christians at 100,000. In a third he
      states that the Christians formed more than half the population.
      Gibbon has neglected to notice the first passage, and has drawn
      by estimate of the population of Antioch from other sources. The
      8000 maintained by alms were widows and virgins alone—M.]

      The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and its proximity to
      Palestine, gave an easy entrance to the new religion. It was at
      first embraced by great numbers of the Theraputæ, or Essenians,
      of the Lake Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much of its
      reverence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The austere life of the
      Essenians, their fasts and excommunications, the community of
      goods, the love of celibacy, their zeal for martyrdom, and the
      warmth though not the purity of their faith, already offered a
      very lively image of the primitive discipline. 162 It was in the
      school of Alexandria that the Christian theology appears to have
      assumed a regular and scientific form; and when Hadrian visited
      Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and of Greeks,
      sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inquisitive
      prince. 163 But the progress of Christianity was for a long time
      confined within the limits of a single city, which was itself a
      foreign colony, and till the close of the second century the
      predecessors of Demetrius were the only prelates of the Egyptian
      church. Three bishops were consecrated by the hands of Demetrius,
      and the number was increased to twenty by his successor Heraclas.
      164 The body of the natives, a people distinguished by a sullen
      inflexibility of temper, 165 entertained the new doctrine with
      coldness and reluctance; and even in the time of Origen, it was
      rare to meet with an Egyptian who had surmounted his early
      prejudices in favor of the sacred animals of his country. 166 As
      soon, indeed, as Christianity ascended the throne, the zeal of
      those barbarians obeyed the prevailing impulsion; the cities of
      Egypt were filled with bishops, and the deserts of Thebais
      swarmed with hermits.

      162 (return) [ Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. 2, c. 20, 21, 22,
      23, has examined with the most critical accuracy the curious
      treatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeutæ. By proving
      that it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, Basnage
      has demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius (l. ii. c. 17) and a crowd
      of modern Catholics, that the Therapeutæ were neither Christians
      nor monks. It still remains probable that they changed their
      name, preserved their manners, adopted some new articles of
      faith, and gradually became the fathers of the Egyptian
      Ascetics.]

      163 (return) [ See a letter of Hadrian in the Augustan History,
      p. 245.]

      164 (return) [ For the succession of Alexandrian bishops, consult
      Renaudot’s History, p. 24, &c. This curious fact is preserved by
      the patriarch Eutychius, (Annal. tom. i. p. 334, Vers. Pocock,)
      and its internal evidence would alone be a sufficient answer to
      all the objections which Bishop Pearson has urged in the Vindiciæ
      Ignatianæ.]

      165 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin. xxii. 16.]

      166 (return) [ Origen contra Celsum, l. i. p. 40.]

      A perpetual stream of strangers and provincials flowed into the
      capacious bosom of Rome. Whatever was strange or odious, whoever
      was guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that
      immense capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a
      various conflux of nations, every teacher, either of truth or
      falsehood, every founder, whether of a virtuous or a criminal
      association, might easily multiply his disciples or accomplices.
      The Christians of Rome, at the time of the accidental persecution
      of Nero, are represented by Tacitus as already amounting to a
      very great multitude, 167 and the language of that great
      historian is almost similar to the style employed by Livy, when
      he relates the introduction and the suppression of the rites of
      Bacchus. After the Bacchanals had awakened the severity of the
      senate, it was likewise apprehended that a very great multitude,
      as it were _another people_, had been initiated into those
      abhorred mysteries. A more careful inquiry soon demonstrated that
      the offenders did not exceed seven thousand; a number indeed
      sufficiently alarming, when considered as the object of public
      justice. 168 It is with the same candid allowance that we should
      interpret the vague expressions of Tacitus, and in a former
      instance of Pliny, when they exaggerate the crowds of deluded
      fanatics who had forsaken the established worship of the gods.
      The church of Rome was undoubtedly the first and most populous of
      the empire; and we are possessed of an authentic record which
      attests the state of religion in that city about the middle of
      the third century, and after a peace of thirty-eight years. The
      clergy, at that time, consisted of a bishop, forty-six
      presbyters, seven deacons, as many sub-deacons, forty-two
      acolytes, and fifty readers, exorcists, and porters. The number
      of widows, of the infirm, and of the poor, who were maintained by
      the oblations of the faithful, amounted to fifteen hundred. 169
      From reason, as well as from the analogy of Antioch, we may
      venture to estimate the Christians of Rome at about fifty
      thousand. The populousness of that great capital cannot perhaps
      be exactly ascertained; but the most modest calculation will not
      surely reduce it lower than a million of inhabitants, of whom the
      Christians might constitute at the most a twentieth part. 170

      167 (return) [ Ingens multitudo is the expression of Tacitus, xv.
      44.]

      168 (return) [ T. Liv. xxxix. 13, 15, 16, 17. Nothing could
      exceed the horror and consternation of the senate on the
      discovery of the Bacchanalians, whose depravity is described, and
      perhaps exaggerated, by Livy.]

      169 (return) [ Eusebius, l. vi. c. 43. The Latin translator (M.
      de Valois) has thought proper to reduce the number of presbyters
      to forty-four.]

      170 (return) [ This proportion of the presbyters and of the poor,
      to the rest of the people, was originally fixed by Burnet,
      (Travels into Italy, p. 168,) and is approved by Moyle, (vol. ii.
      p. 151.) They were both unacquainted with the passage of
      Chrysostom, which converts their conjecture almost into a fact.]

      The western provincials appeared to have derived the knowledge of
      Christianity from the same source which had diffused among them
      the language, the sentiments, and the manners of Rome.

      In this more important circumstance, Africa, as well as Gaul was
      gradually fashioned to the imitation of the capital. Yet
      notwithstanding the many favorable occasions which might invite
      the Roman missionaries to visit their Latin provinces, it was
      late before they passed either the sea or the Alps; 171 nor can
      we discover in those great countries any assured traces either of
      faith or of persecution that ascend higher than the reign of the
      Antonines. 172 The slow progress of the gospel in the cold
      climate of Gaul, was extremely different from the eagerness with
      which it seems to have been received on the burning sands of
      Africa. The African Christians soon formed one of the principal
      members of the primitive church. The practice introduced into
      that province of appointing bishops to the most inconsiderable
      towns, and very frequently to the most obscure villages,
      contributed to multiply the splendor and importance of their
      religious societies, which during the course of the third century
      were animated by the zeal of Tertullian, directed by the
      abilities of Cyprian, and adorned by the eloquence of Lactantius.

      But if, on the contrary, we turn our eyes towards Gaul, we must
      content ourselves with discovering, in the time of Marcus
      Antoninus, the feeble and united congregations of Lyons and
      Vienna; and even as late as the reign of Decius we are assured,
      that in a few cities only, Arles, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Limoges,
      Clermont, Tours, and Paris, some scattered churches were
      supported by the devotion of a small number of Christians. 173
      Silence is indeed very consistent with devotion; but as it is
      seldom compatible with zeal, we may perceive and lament the
      languid state of Christianity in those provinces which had
      exchanged the Celtic for the Latin tongue, since they did not,
      during the three first centuries, give birth to a single
      ecclesiastical writer. From Gaul, which claimed a just
      preeminence of learning and authority over all the countries on
      this side of the Alps, the light of the gospel was more faintly
      reflected on the remote provinces of Spain and Britain; and if we
      may credit the vehement assertions of Tertullian, they had
      already received the first rays of the faith, when he addressed
      his apology to the magistrates of the emperor Severus. 174 But
      the obscure and imperfect origin of the western churches of
      Europe has been so negligently recorded, that if we would relate
      the time and manner of their foundation, we must supply the
      silence of antiquity by those legends which avarice or
      superstition long afterwards dictated to the monks in the lazy
      gloom of their convents. 175 Of these holy romances, that of the
      apostle St. James can alone, by its singular extravagance,
      deserve to be mentioned. From a peaceful fisherman of the Lake of
      Gennesareth, he was transformed into a valorous knight, who
      charged at the head of the Spanish chivalry in their battles
      against the Moors. The gravest historians have celebrated his
      exploits; the miraculous shrine of Compostella displayed his
      power; and the sword of a military order, assisted by the terrors
      of the Inquisition, was sufficient to remove every objection of
      profane criticism. 176

      171 (return) [ Serius trans Alpes, religione Dei suscepta.
      Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. With regard to Africa, see Tertullian
      ad Scapulam, c. 3. It is imagined that the Scyllitan martyrs were
      the first, (Acta Sincera Rumart. p. 34.) One of the adversaries
      of Apuleius seems to have been a Christian. Apolog. p. 496, 497,
      edit. Delphin.]

      172 (return) [ Tum primum intra Gallias martyria visa. Sulp.
      Severus, l. ii. These were the celebrated martyrs of Lyons. See
      Eusebius, v. i. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 316.
      According to the Donatists, whose assertion is confirmed by the
      tacit acknowledgment of Augustin, Africa was the last of the
      provinces which received the gospel. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast.
      tom. i. p. 754.]

      173 (return) [ Raræ in aliquibus civitatibus ecclesiæ, paucorum
      Christianorum devotione, resurgerent. Acta Sincera, p. 130.
      Gregory of Tours, l i. c. 28. Mosheim, p. 207, 449. There is some
      reason to believe that in the beginning of the fourth century,
      the extensive dioceses of Liege, of Treves, and of Cologne,
      composed a single bishopric, which had been very recently
      founded. See Memoires de Tillemont, tom vi. part i. p. 43, 411.]

      174 (return) [ The date of Tertullian’s Apology is fixed, in a
      dissertation of Mosheim, to the year 198.]

      175 (return) [ In the fifteenth century, there were few who had
      either inclination or courage to question, whether Joseph of
      Arimathea founded the monastery of Glastonbury, and whether
      Dionysius the Areopagite preferred the residence of Paris to that
      of Athens.]

      176 (return) [ The stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the
      ninth century. See Mariana, (Hist. Hispan. l. vii. c. 13, tom. i.
      p. 285, edit. Hag. Com. 1733,) who, in every sense, imitates
      Livy, and the honest detection of the legend of St. James by Dr.
      Geddes, Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 221.]

      The progress of Christianity was not confined to the Roman
      empire; and according to the primitive fathers, who interpret
      facts by prophecy, the new religion, within a century after the
      death of its divine Author, had already visited every part of the
      globe. “There exists not,” says Justin Martyr, “a people, whether
      Greek or Barbarian, or any other race of men, by whatsoever
      appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however
      ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell under tents,
      or wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers are not
      offered up in the name of a crucified Jesus to the Father and
      Creator of all things.” 177 But this splendid exaggeration, which
      even at present it would be extremely difficult to reconcile with
      the real state of mankind, can be considered only as the rash
      sally of a devout but careless writer, the measure of whose
      belief was regulated by that of his wishes. But neither the
      belief nor the wishes of the fathers can alter the truth of
      history. It will still remain an undoubted fact, that the
      barbarians of Scythia and Germany, who afterwards subverted the
      Roman monarchy, were involved in the darkness of paganism; and
      that even the conversion of Iberia, of Armenia, or of Æthiopia,
      was not attempted with any degree of success till the sceptre was
      in the hands of an orthodox emperor. 178 Before that time, the
      various accidents of war and commerce might indeed diffuse an
      imperfect knowledge of the gospel among the tribes of Caledonia,
      179 and among the borderers of the Rhine, the Danube, and the
      Euphrates. 180 Beyond the last-mentioned river, Edessa was
      distinguished by a firm and early adherence to the faith. 181
      From Edessa the principles of Christianity were easily introduced
      into the Greek and Syrian cities which obeyed the successors of
      Artaxerxes; but they do not appear to have made any deep
      impression on the minds of the Persians, whose religious system,
      by the labors of a well-disciplined order of priests, had been
      constructed with much more art and solidity than the uncertain
      mythology of Greece and Rome. 182

      177 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphon. p. 341.
      Irenæus adv. Hæres. l. i. c. 10. Tertullian adv. Jud. c. 7. See
      Mosheim, p. 203.]

      178 (return) [ See the fourth century of Mosheim’s History of the
      Church. Many, though very confused circumstances, that relate to
      the conversion of Iberia and Armenia, may be found in Moses of
      Chorene, l. ii. c. 78—89. Note: Mons. St. Martin has shown that
      Armenia was the first nation that embraced Christianity. Memoires
      sur l’Armenie, vol. i. p. 306, and notes to Le Beæ. Gibbon,
      indeed had expressed his intention of withdrawing the words “of
      Armenia” from the text of future editions. (Vindication, Works,
      iv. 577.) He was bitterly taunted by Person for neglecting or
      declining to fulfil his promise. Preface to Letters to
      Travis.—M.]

      179 (return) [ According to Tertullian, the Christian faith had
      penetrated into parts of Britain inaccessible to the Roman arms.
      About a century afterwards, Ossian, the son of Fingal, is said to
      have disputed, in his extreme old age, with one of the foreign
      missionaries, and the dispute is still extant, in verse, and in
      the Erse language. See Mr. Macpher son’s Dissertation on the
      Antiquity of Ossian’s Poems, p. 10.]

      180 (return) [ The Goths, who ravaged Asia in the reign of
      Gallienus, carried away great numbers of captives; some of whom
      were Christians, and became missionaries. See Tillemont, Memoires
      Ecclesiast. tom. iv. p. 44.]

      181 (return) [ The legends of Abgarus, fabulous as it is, affords
      a decisive proof, that many years before Eusebius wrote his
      history, the greatest part of the inhabitants of Edessa had
      embraced Christianity. Their rivals, the citizens of Carrhæ,
      adhered, on the contrary, to the cause of Paganism, as late as
      the sixth century.]

      182 (return) [ According to Bardesanes (ap. Euseb. Præpar.
      Evangel.) there were some Christians in Persia before the end of
      the second century. In the time of Constantine (see his epistle
      to Sapor, Vit. l. iv. c. 13) they composed a flourishing church.
      Consult Beausobre, Hist. Cristique du Manicheisme, tom. i. p.
      180, and the Bibliotheca Orietalis of Assemani.]




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

      From this impartial though imperfect survey of the progress of
      Christianity, it may perhaps seem probable, that the number of
      its proselytes has been excessively magnified by fear on the one
      side, and by devotion on the other. According to the
      irreproachable testimony of Origen, 183 the proportion of the
      faithful was very inconsiderable, when compared with the
      multitude of an unbelieving world; but, as we are left without
      any distinct information, it is impossible to determine, and it
      is difficult even to conjecture, the real numbers of the
      primitive Christians. The most favorable calculation, however,
      that can be deduced from the examples of Antioch and of Rome,
      will not permit us to imagine that more than a twentieth part of
      the subjects of the empire had enlisted themselves under the
      banner of the cross before the important conversion of
      Constantine. But their habits of faith, of zeal, and of union,
      seemed to multiply their numbers; and the same causes which
      contributed to their future increase, served to render their
      actual strength more apparent and more formidable.

      183 (return) [Origen contra Celsum, l. viii. p. 424.]

      Such is the constitution of civil society, that, whilst a few
      persons are distinguished by riches, by honors, and by knowledge,
      the body of the people is condemned to obscurity, ignorance and
      poverty. The Christian religion, which addressed itself to the
      whole human race, must consequently collect a far greater number
      of proselytes from the lower than from the superior ranks of
      life. This innocent and natural circumstance has been improved
      into a very odious imputation, which seems to be less strenuously
      denied by the apologists, than it is urged by the adversaries, of
      the faith; that the new sect of Christians was almost entirely
      composed of the dregs of the populace, of peasants and mechanics,
      of boys and women, of beggars and slaves, the last of whom might
      sometimes introduce the missionaries into the rich and noble
      families to which they belonged. These obscure teachers (such was
      the charge of malice and infidelity) are as mute in public as
      they are loquacious and dogmatical in private. Whilst they
      cautiously avoid the dangerous encounter of philosophers, they
      mingle with the rude and illiterate crowd, and insinuate
      themselves into those minds whom their age, their sex, or their
      education, has the best disposed to receive the impression of
      superstitious terrors. 184

      184 (return) [ Minucius Felix, c. 8, with Wowerus’s notes. Celsus
      ap. Origen, l. iii. p. 138, 142. Julian ap. Cyril. l. vi. p. 206,
      edit. Spanheim.]

      This unfavorable picture, though not devoid of a faint
      resemblance, betrays, by its dark coloring and distorted
      features, the pencil of an enemy. As the humble faith of Christ
      diffused itself through the world, it was embraced by several
      persons who derived some consequence from the advantages of
      nature or fortune. Aristides, who presented an eloquent apology
      to the emperor Hadrian, was an Athenian philosopher. 185 Justin
      Martyr had sought divine knowledge in the schools of Zeno, of
      Aristotle, of Pythagoras, and of Plato, before he fortunately was
      accosted by the old man, or rather the angel, who turned his
      attention to the study of the Jewish prophets. 186 Clemens of
      Alexandria had acquired much various reading in the Greek, and
      Tertullian in the Latin, language. Julius Africanus and Origen
      possessed a very considerable share of the learning of their
      times; and although the style of Cyprian is very different from
      that of Lactantius, we might almost discover that both those
      writers had been public teachers of rhetoric. Even the study of
      philosophy was at length introduced among the Christians, but it
      was not always productive of the most salutary effects; knowledge
      was as often the parent of heresy as of devotion, and the
      description which was designed for the followers of Artemon, may,
      with equal propriety, be applied to the various sects that
      resisted the successors of the apostles. “They presume to alter
      the Holy Scriptures, to abandon the ancient rule of faith, and to
      form their opinions according to the subtile precepts of logic.
      The science of the church is neglected for the study of geometry,
      and they lose sight of heaven while they are employed in
      measuring the earth. Euclid is perpetually in their hands.
      Aristotle and Theophrastus are the objects of their admiration;
      and they express an uncommon reverence for the works of Galen.
      Their errors are derived from the abuse of the arts and sciences
      of the infidels, and they corrupt the simplicity of the gospel by
      the refinements of human reason.” 187

      185 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv. 3. Hieronym. Epist. 83.]

      186 (return) [ The story is prettily told in Justin’s Dialogues.
      Tillemont, (Mem Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 384,) who relates it
      after him is sure that the old man was a disguised angel.]

      187 (return) [ Eusebius, v. 28. It may be hoped, that none,
      except the heretics, gave occasion to the complaint of Celsus,
      (ap. Origen, l. ii. p. 77,) that the Christians were perpetually
      correcting and altering their Gospels. * Note: Origen states in
      reply, that he knows of none who had altered the Gospels except
      the Marcionites, the Valentinians, and perhaps some followers of
      Lucanus.—M.]

      Nor can it be affirmed with truth, that the advantages of birth
      and fortune were always separated from the profession of
      Christianity. Several Roman citizens were brought before the
      tribunal of Pliny, and he soon discovered, that a great number of
      persons of _every order_ of men in Bithynia had deserted the
      religion of their ancestors. 188 His unsuspected testimony may,
      in this instance, obtain more credit than the bold challenge of
      Tertullian, when he addresses himself to the fears as well as the
      humanity of the proconsul of Africa, by assuring him, that if he
      persists in his cruel intentions, he must decimate Carthage, and
      that he will find among the guilty many persons of his own rank,
      senators and matrons of noblest extraction, and the friends or
      relations of his most intimate friends. 189 It appears, however,
      that about forty years afterwards the emperor Valerian was
      persuaded of the truth of this assertion, since in one of his
      rescripts he evidently supposes that senators, Roman knights, and
      ladies of quality, were engaged in the Christian sect. 190 The
      church still continued to increase its outward splendor as it
      lost its internal purity; and, in the reign of Diocletian, the
      palace, the courts of justice, and even the army, concealed a
      multitude of Christians, who endeavored to reconcile the
      interests of the present with those of a future life.

      188 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. Fuerunt alii similis amentiæ,
      cives Romani—-Multi enim omnis ætatis, omnis ordinis, utriusque
      sexus, etiam vocuntur in periculum et vocabuntur.]

      189 (return) [ Tertullian ad Scapulum. Yet even his rhetoric
      rises no higher than to claim a tenth part of Carthage.]

      190 (return) [ Cyprian. Epist. 70.]

      And yet these exceptions are either too few in number, or too
      recent in time, entirely to remove the imputation of ignorance
      and obscurity which has been so arrogantly cast on the first
      proselytes of Christianity. 1901 Instead of employing in our
      defence the fictions of later ages, it will be more prudent to
      convert the occasion of scandal into a subject of edification.
      Our serious thoughts will suggest to us, that the apostles
      themselves were chosen by Providence among the fishermen of
      Galilee, and that the lower we depress the temporal condition of
      the first Christians, the more reason we shall find to admire
      their merit and success. It is incumbent on us diligently to
      remember, that the kingdom of heaven was promised to the poor in
      spirit, and that minds afflicted by calamity and the contempt of
      mankind, cheerfully listen to the divine promise of future
      happiness; while, on the contrary, the fortunate are satisfied
      with the possession of this world; and the wise abuse in doubt
      and dispute their vain superiority of reason and knowledge.

      1901 (return) [ This incomplete enumeration ought to be increased
      by the names of several Pagans converted at the dawn of
      Christianity, and whose conversion weakens the reproach which the
      historian appears to support. Such are, the Proconsul Sergius
      Paulus, converted at Paphos, (Acts xiii. 7—12.) Dionysius, member
      of the Areopagus, converted with several others, al Athens, (Acts
      xvii. 34;) several persons at the court of Nero, (Philip. iv 22;)
      Erastus, receiver at Corinth, (Rom. xvi.23;) some Asiarchs, (Acts
      xix. 31) As to the philosophers, we may add Tatian, Athenagoras,
      Theophilus of Antioch, Hegesippus, Melito, Miltiades, Pantænus,
      Ammenius, all distinguished for their genius and learning.—G.]

      We stand in need of such reflections to comfort us for the loss
      of some illustrious characters, which in our eyes might have
      seemed the most worthy of the heavenly present. The names of
      Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of Tacitus, of
      Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epictetus, and of the emperor
      Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age in which they flourished, and
      exalt the dignity of human nature. They filled with glory their
      respective stations, either in active or contemplative life;
      their excellent understandings were improved by study; Philosophy
      had purified their minds from the prejudices of the popular
      superstitions; and their days were spent in the pursuit of truth
      and the practice of virtue. Yet all these sages (it is no less an
      object of surprise than of concern) overlooked or rejected the
      perfection of the Christian system. Their language or their
      silence equally discover their contempt for the growing sect,
      which in their time had diffused itself over the Roman empire.
      Those among them who condescended to mention the Christians,
      consider them only as obstinate and perverse enthusiasts, who
      exacted an implicit submission to their mysterious doctrines,
      without being able to produce a single argument that could engage
      the attention of men of sense and learning. 191

      191 (return) [ Dr. Lardner, in his first and second volumes of
      Jewish and Christian testimonies, collects and illustrates those
      of Pliny the younger, of Tacitus, of Galen, of Marcus Antoninus,
      and perhaps of Epictetus, (for it is doubtful whether that
      philosopher means to speak of the Christians.) The new sect is
      totally unnoticed by Seneca, the elder Pliny, and Plutarch.]

      It is at least doubtful whether any of these philosophers perused
      the apologies 1911 which the primitive Christians repeatedly
      published in behalf of themselves and of their religion; but it
      is much to be lamented that such a cause was not defended by
      abler advocates. They expose with superfluous wit and eloquence
      the extravagance of Polytheism. They interest our compassion by
      displaying the innocence and sufferings of their injured
      brethren. But when they would demonstrate the divine origin of
      Christianity, they insist much more strongly on the predictions
      which announced, than on the miracles which accompanied, the
      appearance of the Messiah. Their favorite argument might serve to
      edify a Christian or to convert a Jew, since both the one and the
      other acknowledge the authority of those prophecies, and both are
      obliged, with devout reverence, to search for their sense and
      their accomplishment. But this mode of persuasion loses much of
      its weight and influence, when it is addressed to those who
      neither understand nor respect the Mosaic dispensation and the
      prophetic style. 192 In the unskilful hands of Justin and of the
      succeeding apologists, the sublime meaning of the Hebrew oracles
      evaporates in distant types, affected conceits, and cold
      allegories; and even their authenticity was rendered suspicious
      to an unenlightened Gentile, by the mixture of pious forgeries,
      which, under the names of Orpheus, Hermes, and the Sibyls, 193
      were obtruded on him as of equal value with the genuine
      inspirations of Heaven. The adoption of fraud and sophistry in
      the defence of revelation too often reminds us of the injudicious
      conduct of those poets who load their _invulnerable_ heroes with
      a useless weight of cumbersome and brittle armor.

      1911 (return) [ The emperors Hadrian, Antoninus &c., read with
      astonishment the apologies of Justin Martyr, of Aristides, of
      Melito, &c. (See St. Hieron. ad mag. orat. Orosius, lviii. c.
      13.) Eusebius says expressly, that the cause of Christianity was
      defended before the senate, in a very elegant discourse, by
      Apollonius the Martyr.—G. ——Gibbon, in his severer spirit of
      criticism, may have questioned the authority of Jerome and
      Eusebius. There are some difficulties about Apollonius, which
      Heinichen (note in loc. Eusebii) would solve, by suppose lag him
      to have been, as Jerome states, a senator.—M.]

      192 (return) [ If the famous prophecy of the Seventy Weeks had
      been alleged to a Roman philosopher, would he not have replied in
      the words of Cicero, “Quæ tandem ista auguratio est, annorum
      potius quam aut rænsium aut dierum?” De Divinatione, ii. 30.
      Observe with what irreverence Lucian, (in Alexandro, c. 13.) and
      his friend Celsus ap. Origen, (l. vii. p. 327,) express
      themselves concerning the Hebrew prophets.]

      193 (return) [ The philosophers who derided the more ancient
      predictions of the Sibyls, would easily have detected the Jewish
      and Christian forgeries, which have been so triumphantly quoted
      by the fathers, from Justin Martyr to Lactantius. When the
      Sibylline verses had performed their appointed task, they, like
      the system of the millennium, were quietly laid aside. The
      Christian Sybil had unluckily fixed the ruin of Rome for the year
      195, A. U. C. 948.]

      But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and
      philosophic world, to those evidences which were represented by
      the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their
      senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their
      first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed
      by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the
      sick were healed, the dead were raised, dæmons were expelled, and
      the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of
      the church. But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from
      the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of
      life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the
      moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of
      Tiberius, the whole earth, 194 or at least a celebrated province
      of the Roman empire, 195 was involved in a preternatural darkness
      of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have
      excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind,
      passed without notice in an age of science and history. 196 It
      happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who
      must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the
      earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these
      philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great
      phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses,
      which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. 197 Both the one
      and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to
      which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the
      globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny 198 is designed for eclipses
      of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents
      himself with describing the singular defect of light which
      followed the murder of Cæsar, when, during the greatest part of a
      year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendor. The
      season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the
      preternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already
      celebrated by most of the poets 199 and historians of that
      memorable age. 200

      194 (return) [ The fathers, as they are drawn out in battle array
      by Dom Calmet, (Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. iii. p.
      295—308,) seem to cover the whole earth with darkness, in which
      they are followed by most of the moderns.]

      195 (return) [ Origen ad Matth. c. 27, and a few modern critics,
      Beza, Le Clerc, Lardner, &c., are desirous of confining it to the
      land of Judea.]

      196 (return) [ The celebrated passage of Phlegon is now wisely
      abandoned. When Tertullian assures the Pagans that the mention of
      the prodigy is found in Arcanis (not Archivis) vestris, (see his
      Apology, c. 21,) he probably appeals to the Sibylline verses,
      which relate it exactly in the words of the Gospel. * Note:
      According to some learned theologians a misunderstanding of the
      text in the Gospel has given rise to this mistake, which has
      employed and wearied so many laborious commentators, though
      Origen had already taken the pains to preinform them. The
      expression does not mean, they assert, an eclipse, but any kind
      of obscurity occasioned in the atmosphere, whether by clouds or
      any other cause. As this obscuration of the sun rarely took place
      in Palestine, where in the middle of April the sky was usually
      clear, it assumed, in the eyes of the Jews and Christians, an
      importance conformable to the received notion, that the sun
      concealed at midday was a sinister presage. See Amos viii. 9, 10.
      The word is often taken in this sense by contemporary writers;
      the Apocalypse says the sun was concealed, when speaking of an
      obscuration caused by smoke and dust. (Revel. ix. 2.) Moreover,
      the Hebrew word ophal, which in the LXX. answers to the Greek,
      signifies any darkness; and the Evangelists, who have modelled
      the sense of their expressions by those of the LXX., must have
      taken it in the same latitude. This darkening of the sky usually
      precedes earthquakes. (Matt. xxvii. 51.) The Heathen authors
      furnish us a number of examples, of which a miraculous
      explanation was given at the time. See Ovid. ii. v. 33, l. xv. v.
      785. Pliny, Hist. Nat. l. ii. c 30. Wetstein has collected all
      these examples in his edition of the New Testament. We need not,
      then, be astonished at the silence of the Pagan authors
      concerning a phenomenon which did not extend beyond Jerusalem,
      and which might have nothing contrary to the laws of nature;
      although the Christians and the Jews may have regarded it as a
      sinister presage. See Michaelis Notes on New Testament, v. i. p.
      290. Paulus, Commentary on New Testament, iii. p. 760.—G.]

      197 (return) [ Seneca, Quæst. Natur. l. i. 15, vi. l. vii. 17.
      Plin. Hist. Natur. l. ii.]

      198 (return) [ Plin. Hist. Natur. ii. 30.]

      199 (return) [ Virgil. Georgic. i. 466. Tibullus, l. i. Eleg. v.
      ver. 75. Ovid Metamorph. xv. 782. Lucan. Pharsal. i. 540. The
      last of these poets places this prodigy before the civil war.]

      200 (return) [ See a public epistle of M. Antony in Joseph.
      Antiquit. xiv. 12. Plutarch in Cæsar. p. 471. Appian. Bell.
      Civil. l. iv. Dion Cassius, l. xlv. p. 431. Julius Obsequens, c.
      128. His little treatise is an abstract of Livy’s prodigies.]