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Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
       Volume 1

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: H. H. Milman

Release Date: April, 1997 [EBook #890]
[Most recently updated: March 28, 2020]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE ***




Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger





      HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

      Edward Gibbon, Esq.

      With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

      Volume 1

      1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)




        CONTENTS

 Introduction Preface By The Editor Preface Of The Author Preface To
 The First Volume
 Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The Antoninies.—Part
 I.   Part II. Part III.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
 Macrinus.—Part I.   Part II.   Part III.   Part IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 Chapter XIII: Reign Of Diocletian And This Three Associates.—Part I.  
 Part II.   Part III.   Part IV.

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

Troubles After The Abdication Of Diocletian.—Death Of
Constantius.—Elevation Of Constantine And Maxentius. ­ 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 XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part I.   Part II.
 Part III.   Part IV.   Part V.   Part VI.   Part VII.   Part VIII.
 Part IX.

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




      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
      art, 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:* in the eloquent
      language of his recent French editor, M. Guizot:—

      “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 least 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 rational 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.*

      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 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.

      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, 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.

      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 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.




      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,* 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.

      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
      Antoninies.—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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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.

      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;
      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, 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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.
      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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.




      Chapter I: The Extent Of The Empire In The Age Of The
      Antoninies.—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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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.
      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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.
      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, 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.

      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.
      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. 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. 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.* 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. 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.

      Nine centuries of war had gradually introduced into the service
      many alterations and improvements. The legions, as they are
      described by Polybius, 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. The heavy-armed infantry, which composed its principal
      strength, 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. 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. The legion was usually drawn up eight deep; and the
      regular distance of three feet was left between the files as well
      as ranks. 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.
      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. 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.

      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. 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.
      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; and whenever they embraced the
      profession of arms, they were immediately intrusted with a troop
      of horse, or a cohort of foot. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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. 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.




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

      The camp of a Roman legion presented the appearance of a
      fortified city. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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.

      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; 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. The
      provinces of the Danube soon acquired the general appellation of
      Illyricum, or the Illyrian frontier, 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.

      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.

      After the Danube had received the waters of the Teyss and the
      Save, it acquired, at least among the Greeks, the name of Ister.
      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.

      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.

      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. * 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. 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.

      The geographers of antiquity have frequently hesitated to what
      portion of the globe they should ascribe Egypt. 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. *

      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; but which is now diffused
      over the immense ocean that rolls between the ancient and the new
      continent.

      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. * It is easier to
      deplore the fate, than to describe the actual condition, of
      Corsica. 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.

      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. 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.




      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.
      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. The elegant mythology
      of Homer gave a beautiful, and almost a regular form, to the
      polytheism of the ancient world.

      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. 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.

      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.

      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. 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;
      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: but the priests themselves, their
      gods and their altars, subsisted in peaceful obscurity till the
      final destruction of Paganism.

      Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled
      with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, who all
      introduced and enjoyed the favorite superstitions of their native
      country. 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. * 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. 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. 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; 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. Rome gradually became the
      common temple of her subjects; and the freedom of the city was
      bestowed on all the gods of mankind.

      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. During the most flourishing æra of the
      Athenian commonwealth, the number of citizens gradually decreased
      from about thirty to twenty-one thousand. 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. 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, 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.




      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. 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, * 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.

      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, and in Gaul, 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. 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.

      “Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits,” is a very just
      observation of Seneca, 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.
      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.
      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.
      The right of Latium, as it was called, * 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. Those of
      the provincials who were permitted to bear arms in the legions;
      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. Their ambition, instead of disturbing the tranquillity of
      the state, was intimately connected with its safety and
      greatness.

      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. 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, that the faint traces of the Punic or Celtic idioms
      were preserved only in the mountains, or among the peasants.
      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
      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. 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. The
      slothful effeminacy of the former exposed them to the contempt,
      the sullen ferociousness of the latter excited the aversion, of
      the conquerors. 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.

      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. 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.

      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, * taken in thousands by
      the chance of war, purchased at a vile price, 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, the most severe regulations, 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. * In their numerous families, and particularly in
      their country estates, they encouraged the marriage of their
      slaves. The sentiments of nature, the habits of education, and
      the possession of a dependent species of property, contributed to
      alleviate the hardships of servitude. 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.

      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.
      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. 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.

      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. Without
      interpreting, in their utmost strictness, the liberal
      appellations of legions and myriads, 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. 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. Almost every profession,
      either liberal 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. 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.
      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. 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.

      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. * 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, and forms the most numerous society that has ever been
      united under the same system of government.




      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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.
      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, * 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, Euboea, Boeotia, and
      Peloponnesus, experienced his favors; and many inscriptions of
      the cities of Greece and Asia gratefully style Herodes Atticus
      their patron and benefactor.

      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; 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. 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. * 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.

      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, 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. * 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; 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. 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. III. Three hundred African cities had once
      acknowledged the authority of Carthage, 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, 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. Four of them were
      immediately rejected as unequal to the burden; and among these
      was Laodicea, whose splendor is still displayed in its ruins.
      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.
      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? 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, and yielded, with reluctance, to the
      majesty of Rome itself.




      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. 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. 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. 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. 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. * 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. 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. 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.

      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: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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, 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. 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; precious stones, among which the pearl
      claimed the first rank after the diamond; 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 * 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. The annual loss is computed, by a writer of
      an inquisitive but censorious temper, at upwards of eight hundred
      thousand pounds sterling. 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. 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.

      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.” 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.

      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. 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.* 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.

      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.” 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.




      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. * 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.

      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, 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.

      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, * 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, which had always been bestowed, by
      the censors, on the citizen the most eminent for his honors and
      services. 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.

      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.”

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. * 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.

      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 and tribunitian offices, 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. 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. * 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.

      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.

      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, 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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.

      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. 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.

      The deification of the emperors 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. * 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. 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;
      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. This
      legal, and, as it should seem, injudicious profanation, so
      abhorrent to our stricter principles, was received with a very
      faint murmur, 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.

      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. 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. _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.
      *




      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. 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.

      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, 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.

      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.

      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: * 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 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_. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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; 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.

      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. 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.

      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; 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.

      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. 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 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.

      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, 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, 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.

      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; and the benevolence of his soul displayed
      itself in a cheerful serenity of temper.

      The virtue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was of severer and more
      laborious kind. 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. 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. 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, * 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. War he detested, as the disgrace and calamity of human
      nature; 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.

      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, and the
      timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy.
      During fourscore years (excepting only the short and doubtful
      respite of Vespasian’s reign) 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. The servile judges
      professed to assert the majesty of the commonwealth, violated in
      the person of its first magistrate, whose clemency they most
      applauded when they trembled the most at his inexorable and
      impending cruelty. 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.

      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 restrain 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. 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. “Wherever you are,” said Cicero to the
      exiled Marcellus, “remember that you are equally within the power
      of the conqueror.”




      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. His excessive indulgence to his
      brother, * his wife, and his son, exceeded the bounds of private
      virtue, and became a public injury, by the example and
      consequences of their vices.

      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.
      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, 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. 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.

      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; 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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,
      popular address, and imagined virtues, attracted the public
      favor; the honorable peace which he had recently granted to the
      barbarians, diffused a universal joy; 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.

      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. A fatal incident decided his fluctuating character.

      One evening, as the emperor was returning to the palace, through
      a dark and narrow portico in the amphitheatre, 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.

      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. * 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.

      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; 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.

      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. This
      presumption of a distant army, and their discovery of the
      weakness of government, was a sure presage of the most dreadful
      convulsions.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      By these means, Cleander, in the space of three years, had
      accumulated more wealth than had ever yet been possessed by any
      freedman. 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. 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. 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.




      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. 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, 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,
      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.

      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
      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.

      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. Ignorant of these distinctions,
      Commodus eagerly embraced the glorious resemblance, and styled
      himself (as we still read on his medals ) the _Roman_ _Hercules_.
      * 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.

      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. 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. 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.*

      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. 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. 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. 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. 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 of the
      mournful and applauding senate. 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.

      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. 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, * 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.

      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. 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.

      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. * 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, 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.

      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; 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. *

      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.

      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, 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, 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.

      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.

      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, 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.

      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 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.




      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.* 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. 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, which was fortified
      with skilful care, and placed on a commanding situation.

      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.

      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. 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, 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.

      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.

      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. 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. *

      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. 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. 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.

      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, with a numerous train of auxiliaries;
      and however different in their characters, they were all soldiers
      of experience and capacity.

      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. 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. 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. 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, 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.

      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. 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. 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 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, Niger trifled
      away in the luxury of Antioch those irretrievable moments which
      were diligently improved by the decisive activity of Severus.

      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. 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, 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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.




      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. 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. 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.

      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.

      The funeral and consecration of Pertinax was next solemnized with
      every circumstance of sad magnificence. 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.

      The uncommon abilities and fortune of Severus have induced an
      elegant historian to compare him with the first and greatest of
      the Cæsars. 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? 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, 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.

      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.

      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, 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      The military labors of Severus seem inadequate to the importance
      of his conquests. Two engagements, * 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. The battle
      of Lyons, where one hundred and fifty thousand Romans 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. The war was finished by that memorable
      day.

      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.

      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. 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. 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 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.

      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.

      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 suspicion 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 other
      senators, whose names history has recorded; their wives,
      children, and clients attended them in death, * and the noblest
      provincials of Spain and Gaul were involved in the same ruin.
      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.

      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. 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. The fame of the Roman arms was revived by
      that warlike and successful emperor, 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.

      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. 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, 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, * 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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, * 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. The animosities of the palace, by irritating the
      ambition and alarming the fears of Plautianus, threatened to
      produce a revolution, and obliged the emperor, who still loved
      him, to consent with reluctance to his death. After the fall of
      Plautianus, an eminent lawyer, the celebrated Papinian, was
      appointed to execute the motley office of Prætorian Præfect.

      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
      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. 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.

      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
      Macrinus.—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.” Distracted with the care,
      not of acquiring, but of preserving an empire, oppressed with age
      and infirmities, careless of fame, 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.

      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. 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. 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,
      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. 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. 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.

      Two sons, Caracalla 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.

      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. 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.

      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.

      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. 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; 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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.

      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 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. 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. 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; * 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. 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.

      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. 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; * 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. Helvius Pertinax, son
      to the prince of that name, lost his life by an unseasonable
      witticism. It was a sufficient crime of Thrasea Priscus to be
      descended from a family in which the love of liberty seemed an
      hereditary quality. 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.




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Macrinus.—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. 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. 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. “That it was easier to commit than to
      justify a parricide,” was the glorious reply of Papinian; 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.

      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. But Caracalla was the common
      enemy of mankind. He left 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. 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.

      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. 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.” 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
      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.

      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. * 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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
      hasty 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. 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 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.

      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. 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.

      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. * 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, 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.

      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, 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, 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, * 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.

      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.

      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. 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.

      The Sun was worshipped at Emesa, under the name of Elagabalus,
      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.




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

      To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, the
      Imperial fanatic attempted to remove the Ancilia, the Palladium,
      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.

      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, 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, 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, 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.

      It may seem probable, the vices and follies of Elagabalus have
      been adorned by fancy, and blackened by prejudice. 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; * 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.

      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.

      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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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.

      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. *

      The simple journal of his ordinary occupations exhibits a
      pleasing picture of an accomplished emperor, 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. 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.”

      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. *
      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.

      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.

      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. 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.

      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. *
      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. 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.




      Chapter VI: Death Of Severus, Tyranny Of Caracalla, Usurpation Of
      Macrinus.—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. 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 soldiers  , but _citizens_, 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.

      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. 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. The fatigues of the Persian war irritated the
      military discontent; the unsuccessful event * 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.

      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, 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. 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. 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.

      History has never, perhaps, suffered a greater or more
      irreparable injury than in the loss of the curious register *
      bequeathed by Augustus to the senate, in which that experienced
      prince so accurately balanced the revenues and expenses of the
      Roman empire. 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. 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. 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. The ten thousand Euboic or
      Phœnician talents, about four millions sterling, which vanquished
      Carthage was condemned to pay within the term of fifty years,
      were a slight acknowledgment of the superiority of Rome, 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.

      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. 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. * Mention is made of a mine near Carthagena
      which yielded every day twenty-five thousand drachmas of silver,
      or about three hundred thousand pounds a year. Twenty thousand
      pound weight of gold was annually received from the provinces of
      Asturia, Gallicia, and Lusitania.

      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.

      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; 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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; Parthian and Babylonian leather, cottons, silks,
      both raw and manufactured, ebony ivory, and eunuchs. We may
      observe that the use and value of those effeminate slaves
      gradually rose with the decline of the empire.

      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.*

      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. 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; nor could it be
      exacted from the nearest of kin on the father’s side. When the
      rights of nature and property 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.

      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. 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. 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; nor do the friends of the
      younger Pliny seem to have been less generous to that amiable
      orator. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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, 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. * 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.

      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. 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.

      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. To their
      influence and example we may partly ascribe the modest obedience
      of the legions during the two first centuries of the Imperial
      history.

      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, 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.

      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.

      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; 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.

      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. 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.

      The former tyrants, Caligula and Nero, Commodus, and Caracalla,
      were all dissolute and unexperienced youths, 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, 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.

      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. 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.

      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.

      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, 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.

      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. 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. The public shows exhibited at his expense, and in which
      the people were entertained with many hundreds of wild beasts and
      gladiators, 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, he appears prudently to have declined
      the command of armies and the government of provinces. * 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. The Roman people
      acknowledged in the features of the younger Gordian the
      resemblance of Scipio Africanus, 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.

      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.

      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,
      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, 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!” 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.

      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; and the example of Rome was followed by
      the rest of Italy.

      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.

      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.

      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!”




      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, 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, they had both
      attained the full maturity of age and experience.

      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. 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 * 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.

      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. 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, 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.

      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,
      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.

      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.
      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. 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.

      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. 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.” His apprehensions were but
      too well justified by the event.

      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.

      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. 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.
      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.

      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; 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.

      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. 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.

      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, 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.

      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. 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 where he was killed, near the conflux of the Euphrates with
      the little river Aboras. The fortunate Philip, raised to the
      empire by the votes of the soldiers, found a ready obedience from
      the senate and the provinces.

      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 of Algiers, 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?

      “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.




      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, 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
      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.

      Since Romulus, with a small band of shepherds and outlaws,
      fortified himself on the hills near the Tyber, ten centuries had
      already elapsed. 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.

      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,
      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, * 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.

      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. The latter represent him as
      descended from a branch of the ancient kings of Persia, though
      time and misfortune had gradually reduced his ancestors to the
      humble station of private citizens. 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. * In
      the last of these their king Artaban was slain, and the spirit of
      the nation was forever broken. The authority of Artaxerxes was
      solemnly acknowledged in a great assembly held at Balch in
      Khorasan. 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, 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.

      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. * The
      memory of Zoroaster, the ancient prophet and philosopher of the
      Persians, was still revered in the East; but the obsolete and
      mysterious language, in which the Zendavesta was composed, opened
      a field of dispute to seventy sects, who variously explained the
      fundamental doctrines of their religion, and were all
      indifferently derided 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. 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.

      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_; 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. * The principle of good
      is eternally absorbed 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.




      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, “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, 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.

      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.

      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. * 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.” 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.” 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.

      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. The property of
      the Magi was very considerable. Besides the less invidious
      possession of a large tract of the most fertile lands of Media,
      they levied a general tax on the fortunes and the industry of the
      Persians. “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.” *

      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. 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. 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.

      The first counsel of the Magi was agreeable to the unsociable
      genius of their faith, to the practice of ancient kings, and even
      to the example of their legislator, who had fallen a victim to a
      religious war, excited by his own intolerant zeal. 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. The sword of Aristotle (such was the name given by the
      Orientals to the polytheism and philosophy of the Greeks) was
      easily broken; the flames of persecution soon reached the more
      stubborn Jews and Christians; 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. * 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.

      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, 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 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, 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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; 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.

      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. 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. 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. The innumerable attendants on
      luxury and despotism resorted to the court, and the little
      village of Ctesiphon insensibly swelled into a great city. 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. 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.
      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.

      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. 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, 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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, 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. 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.

      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, was encompassed by the superior
      numbers, and destroyed by the arrows of the enemy. The alliance
      of Chosroes, king of Armenia, 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.

      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. 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.”
      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.

      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.

      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. 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.




      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, * 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, 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.

      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. 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 of Scandinavia.

      Some ingenious writers 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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, 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, 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.




      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; 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.

      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, as well as the
      wild Tartar, 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. 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.

      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; 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.

      Of these arts, the ancient Germans were wretchedly destitute.
      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. 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; 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.
      But Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that the Germans, in
      his time, had _no_ cities; and that they affected to despise the
      works of Roman industry, as places of confinement rather than of
      security. Their edifices were not even contiguous, or formed into
      regular villas; 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. 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. The game of various sorts, with
      which the forests of Germany were plentifully stocked, supplied
      its inhabitants with food and exercise. Their monstrous herds of
      cattle, less remarkable indeed for their beauty than for their
      utility, 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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, we can oppose the equal names of Robertson and Hume.

      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.” 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. Some
      tribes, however, on the coast of the Baltic, acknowledged the
      authority of kings, though without relinquishing the rights of
      men, 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.

      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. 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.

      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. Princes
      were, however, appointed, in the general assembly, to administer
      justice, or rather to compose differences, in their respective
      districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as much regard was
      shown to birth as to merit. 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.

      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. At
      the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to
      imprison, or even to strike a private citizen. 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.




      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.” 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. 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.

      “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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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; 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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; and the hostile army was
      devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder.
      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, others imagined a gross paradise
      of immortal drunkenness. 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.

      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. *

      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 frame (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 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, 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. 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, 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, the allies, not the servants, of the Roman monarchy.

      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.

      “The Bructeri * (it is Tacitus who now speaks) were totally
      exterminated by the neighboring tribes, 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, and have nothing left to
      demand of fortune, except the discord of the barbarians.”—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.

      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. 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, who had taken the lead in the war,
      were the most severely punished in its catastrophe. They were
      commanded to retire five miles 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. 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.

      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.

      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, 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.




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

The Emperors Decius, Gallus, Æmilianus, Valerian, And Gallienus.—The
General Irruption Of The Barbarians.—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, 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, 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.

      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. 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. *
      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. 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. 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.

      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. The only traces that now subsist of
      this barbaric superstition are contained in the Edda, * 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.

      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.

      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, 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.

      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, 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, and as late as the age of the
      Antonines, 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. 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. The latter appear to have been subdivided into
      Ostrogoths, Visigoths, and Gepidæ. 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.

      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. 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; 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.

      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. 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. 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; we have some reason to believe that the first of these
      nations, which distinguished itself in the Macedonian war, and
      was afterwards divided into the formidable tribes of the Peucini,
      the Borani, the Carpi, &c., derived its origin from the Germans.
      * With better authority, a Sarmatian extraction may be assigned
      to the Venedi, who rendered themselves so famous in the middle
      ages. But the confusion of blood and manners on that doubtful
      frontier often perplexed the most accurate observers. As the
      Goths advanced near the Euxine Sea, they encountered a purer race
      of Sarmatians, the Jazyges, the Alani, 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.




      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. But the Goths withstood
      all these temptations, and still adhered to a life of idleness,
      of poverty, and of rapine.

      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. 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.

      Decius found the Goths engaged before Nicopolis, one of the many
      monuments of Trajan’s victories. 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.
      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, Philippopolis,
      destitute of succor, was taken by storm. A hundred thousand
      persons are reported to have been massacred in the sack of that
      great city. 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. 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, intrusted the passes of the mountains to officers of
      approved valor and fidelity, 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.

      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, till it was
      usurped and gradually neglected by the Cæsars. 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, 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.”

      A magistrate, invested with such extensive powers, would have
      appeared not so much the minister, as the colleague of his
      sovereign. 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. 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. 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.

      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, 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. 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.” In this morass the
      Roman army, after an ineffectual struggle, was irrecoverably
      lost; nor could the body of the emperor ever be found. Such was
      the fate of Decius, in the fiftieth year of his age; an
      accomplished prince, active in war and affable in peace; who,
      together with his son, has deserved to be compared, both in life
      and death, with the brightest examples of ancient virtue.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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
      Hostilianus, though it happened in the midst of a raging
      pestilence, was interpreted as the personal crime of Gallus; and
      even the defeat of the later emperor was ascribed by the voice of
      suspicion to the perfidious counsels of his hated successor. The
      tranquillity which the empire enjoyed during the first year of
      his administration, 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.

      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 through 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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 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, * 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.

      Valerian was about sixty years of age 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. 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. 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; 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.

      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, that Gaul,
      that the northern parts of Germany, 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. They suppose, that about the year two hundred and forty, a
      new confederacy was formed under the name of Franks, by the old
      inhabitants of the Lower Rhine and the Weser. * 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; 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. 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. 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. 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.




      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. 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.

      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; 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.
      When the exhausted country no longer supplied a variety of
      plunder, the Franks seized on some vessels in the ports of Spain,
      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.

      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. Patriotism
      contributed, as well as devotion, to consecrate the Sonnenwald,
      or wood of the Semnones. 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. 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.

      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. 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, * or _Allmen_, to
      denote at once their various lineage and their common bravery.
      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.

      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.

      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.

      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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      The banks of the Borysthenes are only sixty miles distant from
      the narrow entrance of the peninsula of Crim Tartary, known to
      the ancients under the name of Chersonesus Taurica. On that
      inhospitable shore, Euripides, embellishing with exquisite art
      the tales of antiquity, has placed the scene of one of his most
      affecting tragedies. 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, was at
      last swallowed up by the ambition of Mithridates, and, with the
      rest of his dominions, sunk under the weight of the Roman arms.
      From the reign of Augustus, 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. 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. This
      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. 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; and they are probably not inferior,
      in the art of navigation, to the ancient inhabitants of
      Bosphorus.

      The fleet of the Goths, leaving the coast of Circassia on the
      left hand, first appeared before Pityus, 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.

      Circling round the eastern extremity of the Euxine Sea, the
      navigation from Pityus to Trebizond is about three hundred miles.
      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,
      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. 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. 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.

      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, * 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, 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, 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.

      When the city of Cyzicus withstood the utmost effort of
      Mithridates, it was distinguished by wise laws, a naval power of
      two hundred galleys, and three arsenals, of arms, of military
      engines, and of corn. 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 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 Nice and Nicomedia, which they wantonly burnt. Some obscure
      hints are mentioned of a doubtful combat that secured their
      retreat. 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.

      When we are informed that the third fleet, equipped by the Goths
      in the ports of Bosphorus, consisted of five hundred sails of
      ships, our ready imagination instantly computes and multiplies
      the formidable armament; but, as we are assured by the judicious
      Strabo, 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, 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 Daxippus, 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.




      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, 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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 * to surrender, and spread
      devastation and terror on either side of the Euphrates.

      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. That worthless minister
      rendered his master formidable only to the oppressed subjects,
      and contemptible to the enemies of Rome. By his weak or wicked
      counsels, the Imperial army was betrayed into a situation where
      valor and military skill were equally unavailing. The vigorous
      attempt of the Romans to cut their way through the Persian host
      was repulsed with great slaughter; 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. 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.

      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, 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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.” 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 and the tents of the desert, 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. 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.

      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. The tale is moral
      and pathetic, but the truth of it may very fairly be called in
      question. The letters still extant from the princes of the East
      to Sapor are manifest forgeries; 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.

      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. 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, 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, 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. 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.

      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. 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, Saturninus; in Isauria, Trebellianus; Piso in Thessaly;
      Valens in Achaia; Æmilianus in Egypt; and Celsus in Africa. * 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.

      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. His mean and recent trade cast, indeed, an air
      of ridicule on his elevation; * 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, who, by female alliances, claimed a
      right of exhibiting, in his house, the images of Crassus and of
      the great Pompey. 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.

      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.”

      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.

      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. 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.” 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.

      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. 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.

      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; it was peopled by
      three hundred thousand free inhabitants, besides at least an
      equal number of slaves. The lucrative trade of Arabia and India
      flowed through the port of Alexandria, to the capital and
      provinces of the empire. * 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. 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, were at any time sufficient
      to kindle a sedition among that vast multitude, whose resentments
      were furious and implacable. 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. 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, * 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.

      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 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, 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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.




      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 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.

      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.

      The obscurity which covered the origin of Claudius, though it was
      afterwards embellished by some flattering fictions, 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; 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.” 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.
      When Claudius ascended the throne, he was about fifty-four years
      of age.

      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.”
      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.

      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.

      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. 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.

      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; 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.

      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.” 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.

      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 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.

      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, 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.

      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, * 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.

      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, 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.

      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.” 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.




      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. 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. * 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.

      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. 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. 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, * 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.

      While the vigorous and moderate conduct of Aurelian restored the
      Illyrian frontier, the nation of the Alemanni 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, and the numbers of the infantry doubled those of the
      cavalry. 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.

      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, 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 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. 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.

      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.
      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.

      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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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, 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.

      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. 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. The
      extent of the new walls, erected by Aurelian, and finished in the
      reign of Probus, was magnified by popular estimation to near
      fifty, but is reduced by accurate measurement to about twenty-one
      miles. 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, 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.

      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.
      The death of Victorinus, his friend and associate, was occasioned
      by a less worthy cause. The shining accomplishments 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. 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.

      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. The retreat of the irregular auxiliaries, Franks
      and Batavians, 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.

      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. Lyons, on the
      contrary, had resisted with obstinate disaffection the arms of
      Aurelian. We read of the punishment of Lyons, 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.

      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. She claimed her descent from the
      Macedonian kings of Egypt, * equalled in beauty her ancestor
      Cleopatra, and far surpassed that princess in chastity 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.

      This accomplished woman gave her hand to Odenathus, 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.




      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. 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, 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.

      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. 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. * 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 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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, and the second
      near Emesa. 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. 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.

      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
      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.

      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.” 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.

      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, 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, 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.

      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.” 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.

      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, 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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, 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. 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.

      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.
      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, 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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.” 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.




      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.” 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.

      The contention that ensued is one of the best attested, but most
      improbable events in the history of mankind. 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. * 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.

      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. 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.

      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,
      required his opinion on the important subject of a proper
      candidate for the vacant throne.

      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. The
      senator Tacitus was then seventy-five years of age. The long
      period of his innocent life was adorned with wealth and honors.
      He had twice been invested with the consular dignity, and enjoyed
      with elegance and sobriety his ample patrimony of between two and
      three millions sterling. 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. 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.

      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?”

      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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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.” 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.

      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.

      Whilst the deceased emperor was making preparations for a second
      expedition into the East, he had negotiated with the Alani, * 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.

      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. 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.

      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.

      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; 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.

      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. 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; in the full possession of his fame, of the love of the army,
      and of a mature vigor of mind and body.

      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.” 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.” When this respectful epistle was read by the
      consul, the senators were unable to disguise their satisfaction,
      that Probus should condescend thus humbly 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, 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. 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.




      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,
      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. He attacked the Isaurians
      in their mountains, besieged and took several of their strongest
      castles, 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, 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.

      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. 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. * 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. 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. 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; 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.” 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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, 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. 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. 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; nor could these
      artificial supplies, however repeated by succeeding emperors,
      restore the important limit of Gaul and Illyricum to its ancient
      and native vigor.

      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 natives 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.
      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.

      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.” 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. 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.

      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, 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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; 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      The successor of Artaxerxes, * Varanes, or Bahram, though he had
      subdued the Segestans, one of the most warlike nations of Upper
      Asia, was alarmed at the approach of the Romans, and endeavored
      to retard their progress by a negotiation of peace. 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.
      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.

      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. 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. 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.”




      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. 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. 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.

      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; 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 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.

      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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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, and a majestic troop of
      thirty-two elephants. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
      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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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, 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.




      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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, 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. 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.

      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,
      * to confer on two generals of approved merit an unequal share of
      the sovereign authority. Galerius, surnamed Armentarius, from his
      original profession of a herdsman, and Constantius, who from his
      pale complexion had acquired the denomination of Chlorus, 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.
      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. These four princes distributed among themselves the
      wide extent of the Roman empire. The defence of Gaul, Spain, 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.

      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, had
      risen in a general insurrection; very similar to those which in
      the fourteenth century successively afflicted both France and
      England. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.
      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, 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.

      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. 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, 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.

      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. 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.

      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, 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. 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.

      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.




      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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 ) 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.
      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.

      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.
      Julian had assumed the purple at Carthage. 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. 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, 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. 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. 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. 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.
      Such had been the unworthy allies of the Egyptians; and while the
      attention of the state was engaged in more serious wars, their
      vexatious 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.

      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. 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.” 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.

      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. Those
      qualities were more nobly exerted in the defence of his
      benefactor Licinius. 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.

      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. 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. 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 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, 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, which at that time extended as far as the
      neighborhood of Sogdiana. 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.

      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. 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. * 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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; yet
      such was his strength and dexterity, that he reached in safety
      the opposite bank. 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.

      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. 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. 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.” 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. 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.




      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. 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.

      “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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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; 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. Their posterity, the Curds, with very little
      alteration either of name or manners, * 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; 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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.
      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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, 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. 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; 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.




      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; 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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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.” 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. * 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. 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.

      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, 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.

      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.

      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, 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, 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.

      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. 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.
      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.” 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.

      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. 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. 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.”

      Though Constantine, from a very obvious prejudice, affects to
      mention the palace of Diocletian with contempt, 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. 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.

      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, 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. 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. 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.

      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.

      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, 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.




      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 Maxentius. ­ 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.

      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.
      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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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, 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. The great Constantine was
      most probably born at Naissus, in Dacia; 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.
      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 evenge. 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. 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.

      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. 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, 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.

      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. 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.

      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. 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. The privileges which had exalted Italy
      above the rank of the provinces were no longer regarded: * 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.

      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.

      According to the advice, or rather the orders, of his colleague,
      the emperor Severus immediately hastened to Rome, in the full
      confidence, that, by his unexpected celerity, he should easily
      suppress the tumult of an unwarlike populace, commanded by a
      licentious youth. But he found on his arrival the gates of the
      city shut against him, the walls filled with men and arms, an
      experienced general at the head of the rebels, and his own troops
      without spirit or affection. A large body of Moors deserted to
      the enemy, allured by the promise of a large donative; and, if it
      be true that they had been levied by Maximian in his African war,
      preferring the natural feelings of gratitude to the artificial
      ties of allegiance. Anulinus, the Prætorian præfect, declared
      himself in favor of Maxentius, and drew after him the most
      considerable part of the troops, accustomed to obey his commands.
      Rome, according to the expression of an orator, recalled her
      armies; and the unfortunate Severus, destitute of force and of
      counsel, retired, or rather fled, with precipitation, to Ravenna.
      Here he might for some time have been safe. The fortifications of
      Ravenna were able to resist the attempts, and the morasses that
      surrounded the town were sufficient to prevent the approach, of
      the Italian army. The sea, which Severus commanded with a
      powerful fleet, secured him an inexhaustible supply of
      provisions, and gave a free entrance to the legions, which, on
      the return of spring, would advance to his assistance from
      Illyricum and the East. Maximian, who conducted the siege in
      person, was soon convinced that he might waste his time and his
      army in the fruitless enterprise, and that he had nothing to hope
      either from force or famine. With an art more suitable to the
      character of Diocletian than to his own, he directed his attack,
      not so much against the walls of Ravenna, as against the mind of
      Severus. The treachery which he had experienced disposed that
      unhappy prince to distrust the most sincere of his friends and
      adherents. The emissaries of Maximian easily persuaded his
      credulity, that a conspiracy was formed to betray the town, and
      prevailed upon his fears not to expose himself to the discretion
      of an irritated conqueror, but to accept the faith of an
      honorable capitulation. He was at first received with humanity
      and treated with respect. Maximian conducted the captive emperor
      to Rome, and gave him the most solemn assurances that he had
      secured his life by the resignation of the purple. But Severus
      could obtain only an easy death and an Imperial funeral. When the
      sentence was signified to him, the manner of executing it was
      left to his own choice; he preferred the favorite mode of the
      ancients, that of opening his veins; and as soon as he expired,
      his body was carried to the sepulchre which had been constructed
      for the family of Gallienus.




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

      Though the characters of Constantine and Maxentius had very
      little affinity with each other, their situation and interest
      were the same; and prudence seemed to require that they should
      unite their forces against the common enemy. Notwithstanding the
      superiority of his age and dignity, the indefatigable Maximian
      passed the Alps, and, courting a personal interview with the
      sovereign of Gaul, carried with him his daughter Fausta as the
      pledge of the new alliance. The marriage was celebrated at Arles
      with every circumstance of magnificence; and the ancient
      colleague of Diocletian, who again asserted his claim to the
      Western empire, conferred on his son-in-law and ally the title of
      Augustus. By consenting to receive that honor from Maximian,
      Constantine seemed to embrace the cause of Rome and of the
      senate; but his professions were ambiguous, and his assistance
      slow and ineffectual. He considered with attention the
      approaching contest between the masters of Italy and the emperor
      of the East, and was prepared to consult his own safety or
      ambition in the event of the war.

      The importance of the occasion called for the presence and
      abilities of Galerius. At the head of a powerful army, collected
      from Illyricum and the East, he entered Italy, resolved to
      revenge the death of Severus, and to chastise the rebellious
      Romans; or, as he expressed his intentions, in the furious
      language of a barbarian, to extirpate the senate, and to destroy
      the people by the sword. But the skill of Maximian had concerted
      a prudent system of defence. The invader found every place
      hostile, fortified, and inaccessible; and though he forced his
      way as far as Narni, within sixty miles of Rome, his dominion in
      Italy was confined to the narrow limits of his camp. Sensible of
      the increasing difficulties of his enterprise, the haughty
      Galerius made the first advances towards a reconciliation, and
      despatched two of his most considerable officers to tempt the
      Roman princes by the offer of a conference, and the declaration
      of his paternal regard for Maxentius, who might obtain much more
      from his liberality than he could hope from the doubtful chance
      of war. The offers of Galerius were rejected with firmness, his
      perfidious friendship refused with contempt, and it was not long
      before he discovered, that, unless he provided for his safety by
      a timely retreat, he had some reason to apprehend the fate of
      Severus. The wealth which the Romans defended against his
      rapacious tyranny, they freely contributed for his destruction.
      The name of Maximian, the popular arts of his son, the secret
      distribution of large sums, and the promise of still more liberal
      rewards, checked the ardor and corrupted the fidelity of the
      Illyrian legions; and when Galerius at length gave the signal of
      the retreat, it was with some difficulty that he could prevail on
      his veterans not to desert a banner which had so often conducted
      them to victory and honor. A contemporary writer assigns two
      other causes for the failure of the expedition; but they are both
      of such a nature, that a cautious historian will scarcely venture
      to adopt them. We are told that Galerius, who had formed a very
      imperfect notion of the greatness of Rome by the cities of the
      East with which he was acquainted, found his forces inadequate to
      the siege of that immense capital. But the extent of a city
      serves only to render it more accessible to the enemy: Rome had
      long since been accustomed to submit on the approach of a
      conqueror; nor could the temporary enthusiasm of the people have
      long contended against the discipline and valor of the legions.
      We are likewise informed that the legions themselves were struck
      with horror and remorse, and that those pious sons of the
      republic refused to violate the sanctity of their venerable
      parent. But when we recollect with how much ease, in the more
      ancient civil wars, the zeal of party and the habits of military
      obedience had converted the native citizens of Rome into her most
      implacable enemies, we shall be inclined to distrust this extreme
      delicacy of strangers and barbarians, who had never beheld Italy
      till they entered it in a hostile manner. Had they not been
      restrained by motives of a more interested nature, they would
      probably have answered Galerius in the words of Cæsar’s veterans:
      “If our general wishes to lead us to the banks of the Tyber, we
      are prepared to trace out his camp. Whatsoever walls he has
      determined to level with the ground, our hands are ready to work
      the engines: nor shall we hesitate, should the name of the
      devoted city be Rome itself.” These are indeed the expressions of
      a poet; but of a poet who has been distinguished, and even
      censured, for his strict adherence to the truth of history.

      The legions of Galerius exhibited a very melancholy proof of
      their disposition, by the ravages which they committed in their
      retreat. They murdered, they ravished, they plundered, they drove
      away the flocks and herds of the Italians; they burnt the
      villages through which they passed, and they endeavored to
      destroy the country which it had not been in their power to
      subdue. During the whole march, Maxentius hung on their rear, but
      he very prudently declined a general engagement with those brave
      and desperate veterans. His father had undertaken a second
      journey into Gaul, with the hope of persuading Constantine, who
      had assembled an army on the frontier, to join in the pursuit,
      and to complete the victory. But the actions of Constantine were
      guided by reason, and not by resentment. He persisted in the wise
      resolution of maintaining a balance of power in the divided
      empire, and he no longer hated Galerius, when that aspiring
      prince had ceased to be an object of terror.

      The mind of Galerius was the most susceptible of the sterner
      passions, but it was not, however, incapable of a sincere and
      lasting friendship. Licinius, whose manners as well as character
      were not unlike his own, seems to have engaged both his affection
      and esteem. Their intimacy had commenced in the happier period
      perhaps of their youth and obscurity. It had been cemented by the
      freedom and dangers of a military life; they had advanced almost
      by equal steps through the successive honors of the service; and
      as soon as Galerius was invested with the Imperial dignity, he
      seems to have conceived the design of raising his companion to
      the same rank with himself. During the short period of his
      prosperity, he considered the rank of Cæsar as unworthy of the
      age and merit of Licinius, and rather chose to reserve for him
      the place of Constantius, and the empire of the West. While the
      emperor was employed in the Italian war, he intrusted his friend
      with the defence of the Danube; and immediately after his return
      from that unfortunate expedition, he invested Licinius with the
      vacant purple of Severus, resigning to his immediate command the
      provinces of Illyricum. The news of his promotion was no sooner
      carried into the East, than Maximin, who governed, or rather
      oppressed, the countries of Egypt and Syria, betrayed his envy
      and discontent, disdained the inferior name of Cæsar, and,
      notwithstanding the prayers as well as arguments of Galerius,
      exacted, almost by violence, the equal title of Augustus. For the
      first, and indeed for the last time, the Roman world was
      administered by six emperors. In the West, Constantine and
      Maxentius affected to reverence their father Maximian. In the
      East, Licinius and Maximin honored with more real consideration
      their benefactor Galerius. The opposition of interest, and the
      memory of a recent war, divided the empire into two great hostile
      powers; but their mutual fears produced an apparent tranquillity,
      and even a feigned reconciliation, till the death of the elder
      princes, of Maximian, and more particularly of Galerius, gave a
      new direction to the views and passions of their surviving
      associates.

      When Maximian had reluctantly abdicated the empire, the venal
      orators of the times applauded his philosophic moderation. When
      his ambition excited, or at least encouraged, a civil war, they
      returned thanks to his generous patriotism, and gently censured
      that love of ease and retirement which had withdrawn him from the
      public service. But it was impossible that minds like those of
      Maximian and his son could long possess in harmony an undivided
      power. Maxentius considered himself as the legal sovereign of
      Italy, elected by the Roman senate and people; nor would he
      endure the control of his father, who arrogantly declared that by
      his name and abilities the rash youth had been established on the
      throne. The cause was solemnly pleaded before the Prætorian
      guards; and those troops, who dreaded the severity of the old
      emperor, espoused the party of Maxentius. The life and freedom of
      Maximian were, however, respected, and he retired from Italy into
      Illyricum, affecting to lament his past conduct, and secretly
      contriving new mischiefs. But Galerius, who was well acquainted
      with his character, soon obliged him to leave his dominions, and
      the last refuge of the disappointed Maximian was the court of his
      son-in-law Constantine. He was received with respect by that
      artful prince, and with the appearance of filial tenderness by
      the empress Fausta. That he might remove every suspicion, he
      resigned the Imperial purple a second time, professing himself at
      length convinced of the vanity of greatness and ambition. Had he
      persevered in this resolution, he might have ended his life with
      less dignity, indeed, than in his first retirement, yet, however,
      with comfort and reputation. But the near prospect of a throne
      brought back to his remembrance the state from whence he was
      fallen, and he resolved, by a desperate effort, either to reign
      or to perish. An incursion of the Franks had summoned
      Constantine, with a part of his army, to the banks of the Rhine;
      the remainder of the troops were stationed in the southern
      provinces of Gaul, which lay exposed to the enterprises of the
      Italian emperor, and a considerable treasure was deposited in the
      city of Arles. Maximian either craftily invented, or easily
      credited, a vain report of the death of Constantine. Without
      hesitation he ascended the throne, seized the treasure, and
      scattering it with his accustomed profusion among the soldiers,
      endeavored to awake in their minds the memory of his ancient
      dignity and exploits. Before he could establish his authority, or
      finish the negotiation which he appears to have entered into with
      his son Maxentius, the celerity of Constantine defeated all his
      hopes. On the first news of his perfidy and ingratitude, that
      prince returned by rapid marches from the Rhine to the Saone,
      embarked on the last-mentioned river at Chalons, and, at Lyons
      trusting himself to the rapidity of the Rhone, arrived at the
      gates of Arles with a military force which it was impossible for
      Maximian to resist, and which scarcely permitted him to take
      refuge in the neighboring city of Marseilles. The narrow neck of
      land which joined that place to the continent was fortified
      against the besiegers, whilst the sea was open, either for the
      escape of Maximian, or for the succor of Maxentius, if the latter
      should choose to disguise his invasion of Gaul under the
      honorable pretence of defending a distressed, or, as he might
      allege, an injured father. Apprehensive of the fatal consequences
      of delay, Constantine gave orders for an immediate assault; but
      the scaling-ladders were found too short for the height of the
      walls, and Marseilles might have sustained as long a siege as it
      formerly did against the arms of Cæsar, if the garrison,
      conscious either of their fault or of their danger, had not
      purchased their pardon by delivering up the city and the person
      of Maximian. A secret but irrevocable sentence of death was
      pronounced against the usurper; he obtained only the same favor
      which he had indulged to Severus, and it was published to the
      world, that, oppressed by the remorse of his repeated crimes, he
      strangled himself with his own hands. After he had lost the
      assistance, and disdained the moderate counsels, of Diocletian,
      the second period of his active life was a series of public
      calamities and personal mortifications, which were terminated, in
      about three years, by an ignominious death. He deserved his fate;
      but we should find more reason to applaud the humanity of
      Constantine, if he had spared an old man, the benefactor of his
      father, and the father of his wife. During the whole of this
      melancholy transaction, it appears that Fausta sacrificed the
      sentiments of nature to her conjugal duties.

      The last years of Galerius were less shameful and unfortunate;
      and though he had filled with more glory the subordinate station
      of Cæsar than the superior rank of Augustus, he preserved, till
      the moment of his death, the first place among the princes of the
      Roman world. He survived his retreat from Italy about four years;
      and wisely relinquishing his views of universal empire, he
      devoted the remainder of his life to the enjoyment of pleasure,
      and to the execution of some works of public utility, among which
      we may distinguish the discharging into the Danube the
      superfluous waters of the Lake Pelso, and the cutting down the
      immense forests that encompassed it; an operation worthy of a
      monarch, since it gave an extensive country to the agriculture of
      his Pannonian subjects. His death was occasioned by a very
      painful and lingering disorder. His body, swelled by an
      intemperate course of life to an unwieldy corpulence, was covered
      with ulcers, and devoured by innumerable swarms of those insects
      which have given their name to a most loathsome disease; but as
      Galerius had offended a very zealous and powerful party among his
      subjects, his sufferings, instead of exciting their compassion,
      have been celebrated as the visible effects of divine justice. He
      had no sooner expired in his palace of Nicomedia, than the two
      emperors who were indebted for their purple to his favors, began
      to collect their forces, with the intention either of disputing,
      or of dividing, the dominions which he had left without a master.
      They were persuaded, however, to desist from the former design,
      and to agree in the latter. The provinces of Asia fell to the
      share of Maximin, and those of Europe augmented the portion of
      Licinius. The Hellespont and the Thracian Bosphorus formed their
      mutual boundary, and the banks of those narrow seas, which flowed
      in the midst of the Roman world, were covered with soldiers, with
      arms, and with fortifications. The deaths of Maximian and of
      Galerius reduced the number of emperors to four. The sense of
      their true interest soon connected Licinius and Constantine; a
      secret alliance was concluded between Maximin and Maxentius, and
      their unhappy subjects expected with terror the bloody
      consequences of their inevitable dissensions, which were no
      longer restrained by the fear or the respect which they had
      entertained for Galerius.

      Among so many crimes and misfortunes, occasioned by the passions
      of the Roman princes, there is some pleasure in discovering a
      single action which may be ascribed to their virtue. In the sixth
      year of his reign, Constantine visited the city of Autun, and
      generously remitted the arrears of tribute, reducing at the same
      time the proportion of their assessment from twenty-five to
      eighteen thousand heads, subject to the real and personal
      capitation. Yet even this indulgence affords the most
      unquestionable proof of the public misery. This tax was so
      extremely oppressive, either in itself or in the mode of
      collecting it, that whilst the revenue was increased by
      extortion, it was diminished by despair: a considerable part of
      the territory of Autun was left uncultivated; and great numbers
      of the provincials rather chose to live as exiles and outlaws,
      than to support the weight of civil society. It is but too
      probable, that the bountiful emperor relieved, by a partial act
      of liberality, one among the many evils which he had caused by
      his general maxims of administration. But even those maxims were
      less the effect of choice than of necessity. And if we except the
      death of Maximian, the reign of Constantine in Gaul seems to have
      been the most innocent and even virtuous period of his life. The
      provinces were protected by his presence from the inroads of the
      barbarians, who either dreaded or experienced his active valor.
      After a signal victory over the Franks and Alemanni, several of
      their princes were exposed by his order to the wild beasts in the
      amphitheatre of Treves, and the people seem to have enjoyed the
      spectacle, without discovering, in such a treatment of royal
      captives, any thing that was repugnant to the laws of nations or
      of humanity. *

      The virtues of Constantine were rendered more illustrious by the
      vices of Maxentius. Whilst the Gallic provinces enjoyed as much
      happiness as the condition of the times was capable of receiving,
      Italy and Africa groaned under the dominion of a tyrant, as
      contemptible as he was odious. The zeal of flattery and faction
      has indeed too frequently sacrificed the reputation of the
      vanquished to the glory of their successful rivals; but even
      those writers who have revealed, with the most freedom and
      pleasure, the faults of Constantine, unanimously confess that
      Maxentius was cruel, rapacious, and profligate. He had the good
      fortune to suppress a slight rebellion in Africa. The governor
      and a few adherents had been guilty; the province suffered for
      their crime. The flourishing cities of Cirtha and Carthage, and
      the whole extent of that fertile country, were wasted by fire and
      sword. The abuse of victory was followed by the abuse of law and
      justice. A formidable army of sycophants and delators invaded
      Africa; the rich and the noble were easily convicted of a
      connection with the rebels; and those among them who experienced
      the emperor’s clemency, were only punished by the confiscation of
      their estates. So signal a victory was celebrated by a
      magnificent triumph, and Maxentius exposed to the eyes of the
      people the spoils and captives of a Roman province. The state of
      the capital was no less deserving of compassion than that of
      Africa. The wealth of Rome supplied an inexhaustible fund for his
      vain and prodigal expenses, and the ministers of his revenue were
      skilled in the arts of rapine. It was under his reign that the
      method of exacting a _free gift_ from the senators was first
      invented; and as the sum was insensibly increased, the pretences
      of levying it, a victory, a birth, a marriage, or an imperial
      consulship, were proportionably multiplied. Maxentius had imbibed
      the same implacable aversion to the senate, which had
      characterized most of the former tyrants of Rome; nor was it
      possible for his ungrateful temper to forgive the generous
      fidelity which had raised him to the throne, and supported him
      against all his enemies. The lives of the senators were exposed
      to his jealous suspicions, the dishonor of their wives and
      daughters heightened the gratification of his sensual passions.
      It may be presumed that an Imperial lover was seldom reduced to
      sigh in vain; but whenever persuasion proved ineffectual, he had
      recourse to violence; and there remains _one_ memorable example
      of a noble matron, who preserved her chastity by a voluntary
      death. The soldiers were the only order of men whom he appeared
      to respect, or studied to please. He filled Rome and Italy with
      armed troops, connived at their tumults, suffered them with
      impunity to plunder, and even to massacre, the defenceless
      people; and indulging them in the same licentiousness which their
      emperor enjoyed, Maxentius often bestowed on his military
      favorites the splendid villa, or the beautiful wife, of a
      senator. A prince of such a character, alike incapable of
      governing, either in peace or in war, might purchase the support,
      but he could never obtain the esteem, of the army. Yet his pride
      was equal to his other vices. Whilst he passed his indolent life
      either within the walls of his palace, or in the neighboring
      gardens of Sallust, he was repeatedly heard to declare, that _he_
      _alone_ was emperor, and that the other princes were no more than
      his lieutenants, on whom he had devolved the defence of the
      frontier provinces, that he might enjoy without interruption the
      elegant luxury of the capital. Rome, which had so long regretted
      the absence, lamented, during the six years of his reign, the
      presence of her sovereign.

      Though Constantine might view the conduct of Maxentius with
      abhorrence, and the situation of the Romans with compassion, we
      have no reason to presume that he would have taken up arms to
      punish the one or to relieve the other. But the tyrant of Italy
      rashly ventured to provoke a formidable enemy, whose ambition had
      been hitherto restrained by considerations of prudence, rather
      than by principles of justice. After the death of Maximian, his
      titles, according to the established custom, had been erased, and
      his statues thrown down with ignominy. His son, who had
      persecuted and deserted him when alive, effected to display the
      most pious regard for his memory, and gave orders that a similar
      treatment should be immediately inflicted on all the statues that
      had been erected in Italy and Africa to the honor of Constantine.
      That wise prince, who sincerely wished to decline a war, with the
      difficulty and importance of which he was sufficiently
      acquainted, at first dissembled the insult, and sought for
      redress by the milder expedient of negotiation, till he was
      convinced that the hostile and ambitious designs of the Italian
      emperor made it necessary for him to arm in his own defence.
      Maxentius, who openly avowed his pretensions to the whole
      monarchy of the West, had already prepared a very considerable
      force to invade the Gallic provinces on the side of Rhætia; and
      though he could not expect any assistance from Licinius, he was
      flattered with the hope that the legions of Illyricum, allured by
      his presents and promises, would desert the standard of that
      prince, and unanimously declare themselves his soldiers and
      subjects. Constantine no longer hesitated. He had deliberated
      with caution, he acted with vigor. He gave a private audience to
      the ambassadors, who, in the name of the senate and people,
      conjured him to deliver Rome from a detested tyrant; and without
      regarding the timid remonstrances of his council, he resolved to
      prevent the enemy, and to carry the war into the heart of Italy.

      The enterprise was as full of danger as of glory; and the
      unsuccessful event of two former invasions was sufficient to
      inspire the most serious apprehensions. The veteran troops, who
      revered the name of Maximian, had embraced in both those wars the
      party of his son, and were now restrained by a sense of honor, as
      well as of interest, from entertaining an idea of a second
      desertion. Maxentius, who considered the Prætorian guards as the
      firmest defence of his throne, had increased them to their
      ancient establishment; and they composed, including the rest of
      the Italians who were enlisted into his service, a formidable
      body of fourscore thousand men. Forty thousand Moors and
      Carthaginians had been raised since the reduction of Africa. Even
      Sicily furnished its proportion of troops; and the armies of
      Maxentius amounted to one hundred and seventy thousand foot and
      eighteen thousand horse. The wealth of Italy supplied the
      expenses of the war; and the adjacent provinces were exhausted,
      to form immense magazines of corn and every other kind of
      provisions.

      The whole force of Constantine consisted of ninety thousand foot
      and eight thousand horse; and as the defence of the Rhine
      required an extraordinary attention during the absence of the
      emperor, it was not in his power to employ above half his troops
      in the Italian expedition, unless he sacrificed the public safety
      to his private quarrel. At the head of about forty thousand
      soldiers he marched to encounter an enemy whose numbers were at
      least four times superior to his own. But the armies of Rome,
      placed at a secure distance from danger, were enervated by
      indulgence and luxury. Habituated to the baths and theatres of
      Rome, they took the field with reluctance, and were chiefly
      composed of veterans who had almost forgotten, or of new levies
      who had never acquired, the use of arms and the practice of war.
      The hardy legions of Gaul had long defended the frontiers of the
      empire against the barbarians of the North; and in the
      performance of that laborious service, their valor was exercised
      and their discipline confirmed. There appeared the same
      difference between the leaders as between the armies. Caprice or
      flattery had tempted Maxentius with the hopes of conquest; but
      these aspiring hopes soon gave way to the habits of pleasure and
      the consciousness of his inexperience. The intrepid mind of
      Constantine had been trained from his earliest youth to war, to
      action, and to military command.




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

      When Hannibal marched from Gaul into Italy, he was obliged, first
      to discover, and then to open, a way over mountains, and through
      savage nations, that had never yielded a passage to a regular
      army. The Alps were then guarded by nature, they are now
      fortified by art. Citadels, constructed with no less skill than
      labor and expense, command every avenue into the plain, and on
      that side render Italy almost inaccessible to the enemies of the
      king of Sardinia. But in the course of the intermediate period,
      the generals, who have attempted the passage, have seldom
      experienced any difficulty or resistance. In the age of
      Constantine, the peasants of the mountains were civilized and
      obedient subjects; the country was plentifully stocked with
      provisions, and the stupendous highways, which the Romans had
      carried over the Alps, opened several communications between Gaul
      and Italy. Constantine preferred the road of the Cottian Alps,
      or, as it is now called, of Mount Cenis, and led his troops with
      such active diligence, that he descended into the plain of
      Piedmont before the court of Maxentius had received any certain
      intelligence of his departure from the banks of the Rhine. The
      city of Susa, however, which is situated at the foot of Mount
      Cenis, was surrounded with walls, and provided with a garrison
      sufficiently numerous to check the progress of an invader; but
      the impatience of Constantine’s troops disdained the tedious
      forms of a siege. The same day that they appeared before Susa,
      they applied fire to the gates, and ladders to the walls; and
      mounting to the assault amidst a shower of stones and arrows,
      they entered the place sword in hand, and cut in pieces the
      greatest part of the garrison. The flames were extinguished by
      the care of Constantine, and the remains of Susa preserved from
      total destruction. About forty miles from thence, a more severe
      contest awaited him. A numerous army of Italians was assembled
      under the lieutenants of Maxentius, in the plains of Turin. Its
      principal strength consisted in a species of heavy cavalry, which
      the Romans, since the decline of their discipline, had borrowed
      from the nations of the East. The horses, as well as the men,
      were clothed in complete armor, the joints of which were artfully
      adapted to the motions of their bodies. The aspect of this
      cavalry was formidable, their weight almost irresistible; and as,
      on this occasion, their generals had drawn them up in a compact
      column or wedge, with a sharp point, and with spreading flanks,
      they flattered themselves that they could easily break and
      trample down the army of Constantine. They might, perhaps, have
      succeeded in their design, had not their experienced adversary
      embraced the same method of defence, which in similar
      circumstances had been practised by Aurelian. The skilful
      evolutions of Constantine divided and baffled this massy column
      of cavalry. The troops of Maxentius fled in confusion towards
      Turin; and as the gates of the city were shut against them, very
      few escaped the sword of the victorious pursuers. By this
      important service, Turin deserved to experience the clemency and
      even favor of the conqueror. He made his entry into the Imperial
      palace of Milan, and almost all the cities of Italy between the
      Alps and the Po not only acknowledged the power, but embraced
      with zeal the party, of Constantine.

      From Milan to Rome, the Æmilian and Flaminian highways offered an
      easy march of about four hundred miles; but though Constantine
      was impatient to encounter the tyrant, he prudently directed his
      operations against another army of Italians, who, by their
      strength and position, might either oppose his progress, or, in
      case of a misfortune, might intercept his retreat. Ruricius
      Pompeianus, a general distinguished by his valor and ability, had
      under his command the city of Verona, and all the troops that
      were stationed in the province of Venetia. As soon as he was
      informed that Constantine was advancing towards him, he detached
      a large body of cavalry, which was defeated in an engagement near
      Brescia, and pursued by the Gallic legions as far as the gates of
      Verona. The necessity, the importance, and the difficulties of
      the siege of Verona, immediately presented themselves to the
      sagacious mind of Constantine. The city was accessible only by a
      narrow peninsula towards the west, as the other three sides were
      surrounded by the Adige, a rapid river, which covered the
      province of Venetia, from whence the besieged derived an
      inexhaustible supply of men and provisions. It was not without
      great difficulty, and after several fruitless attempts, that
      Constantine found means to pass the river at some distance above
      the city, and in a place where the torrent was less violent. He
      then encompassed Verona with strong lines, pushed his attacks
      with prudent vigor, and repelled a desperate sally of Pompeianus.
      That intrepid general, when he had used every means of defence
      that the strength of the place or that of the garrison could
      afford, secretly escaped from Verona, anxious not for his own,
      but for the public safety. With indefatigable diligence he soon
      collected an army sufficient either to meet Constantine in the
      field, or to attack him if he obstinately remained within his
      lines. The emperor, attentive to the motions, and informed of the
      approach of so formidable an enemy, left a part of his legions to
      continue the operations of the siege, whilst, at the head of
      those troops on whose valor and fidelity he more particularly
      depended, he advanced in person to engage the general of
      Maxentius. The army of Gaul was drawn up in two lines, according
      to the usual practice of war; but their experienced leader,
      perceiving that the numbers of the Italians far exceeded his own,
      suddenly changed his disposition, and, reducing the second,
      extended the front of his first line to a just proportion with
      that of the enemy. Such evolutions, which only veteran troops can
      execute without confusion in a moment of danger, commonly prove
      decisive; but as this engagement began towards the close of the
      day, and was contested with great obstinacy during the whole
      night, there was less room for the conduct of the generals than
      for the courage of the soldiers. The return of light displayed
      the victory of Constantine, and a field of carnage covered with
      many thousands of the vanquished Italians. Their general,
      Pompeianus, was found among the slain; Verona immediately
      surrendered at discretion, and the garrison was made prisoners of
      war. When the officers of the victorious army congratulated their
      master on this important success, they ventured to add some
      respectful complaints, of such a nature, however, as the most
      jealous monarchs will listen to without displeasure. They
      represented to Constantine, that, not contented with all the
      duties of a commander, he had exposed his own person with an
      excess of valor which almost degenerated into rashness; and they
      conjured him for the future to pay more regard to the
      preservation of a life in which the safety of Rome and of the
      empire was involved.

      While Constantine signalized his conduct and valor in the field,
      the sovereign of Italy appeared insensible of the calamities and
      danger of a civil war which reigned in the heart of his
      dominions. Pleasure was still the only business of Maxentius.
      Concealing, or at least attempting to conceal, from the public
      knowledge the misfortunes of his arms, he indulged himself in a
      vain confidence which deferred the remedies of the approaching
      evil, without deferring the evil itself. The rapid progress of
      Constantine was scarcely sufficient to awaken him from his fatal
      security; he flattered himself, that his well-known liberality,
      and the majesty of the Roman name, which had already delivered
      him from two invasions, would dissipate with the same facility
      the rebellious army of Gaul. The officers of experience and
      ability, who had served under the banners of Maximian, were at
      length compelled to inform his effeminate son of the imminent
      danger to which he was reduced; and, with a freedom that at once
      surprised and convinced him, to urge the necessity of preventing
      his ruin by a vigorous exertion of his remaining power. The
      resources of Maxentius, both of men and money, were still
      considerable. The Prætorian guards felt how strongly their own
      interest and safety were connected with his cause; and a third
      army was soon collected, more numerous than those which had been
      lost in the battles of Turin and Verona. It was far from the
      intention of the emperor to lead his troops in person. A stranger
      to the exercises of war, he trembled at the apprehension of so
      dangerous a contest; and as fear is commonly superstitious, he
      listened with melancholy attention to the rumors of omens and
      presages which seemed to menace his life and empire. Shame at
      length supplied the place of courage, and forced him to take the
      field. He was unable to sustain the contempt of the Roman people.
      The circus resounded with their indignant clamors, and they
      tumultuously besieged the gates of the palace, reproaching the
      pusillanimity of their indolent sovereign, and celebrating the
      heroic spirit of Constantine. Before Maxentius left Rome, he
      consulted the Sibylline books. The guardians of these ancient
      oracles were as well versed in the arts of this world as they
      were ignorant of the secrets of fate; and they returned him a
      very prudent answer, which might adapt itself to the event, and
      secure their reputation, whatever should be the chance of arms.

      The celerity of Constantine’s march has been compared to the
      rapid conquest of Italy by the first of the Cæsars; nor is the
      flattering parallel repugnant to the truth of history, since no
      more than fifty-eight days elapsed between the surrender of
      Verona and the final decision of the war. Constantine had always
      apprehended that the tyrant would consult the dictates of fear,
      and perhaps of prudence; and that, instead of risking his last
      hopes in a general engagement, he would shut himself up within
      the walls of Rome. His ample magazines secured him against the
      danger of famine; and as the situation of Constantine admitted
      not of delay, he might have been reduced to the sad necessity of
      destroying with fire and sword the Imperial city, the noblest
      reward of his victory, and the deliverance of which had been the
      motive, or rather indeed the pretence, of the civil war. It was
      with equal surprise and pleasure, that on his arrival at a place
      called Saxa Rubra, about nine miles from Rome, he discovered the
      army of Maxentius prepared to give him battle. Their long front
      filled a very spacious plain, and their deep array reached to the
      banks of the Tyber, which covered their rear, and forbade their
      retreat. We are informed, and we may believe, that Constantine
      disposed his troops with consummate skill, and that he chose for
      himself the post of honor and danger. Distinguished by the
      splendor of his arms, he charged in person the cavalry of his
      rival; and his irresistible attack determined the fortune of the
      day. The cavalry of Maxentius was principally composed either of
      unwieldy cuirassiers, or of light Moors and Numidians. They
      yielded to the vigor of the Gallic horse, which possessed more
      activity than the one, more firmness than the other. The defeat
      of the two wings left the infantry without any protection on its
      flanks, and the undisciplined Italians fled without reluctance
      from the standard of a tyrant whom they had always hated, and
      whom they no longer feared. The Prætorians, conscious that their
      offences were beyond the reach of mercy, were animated by revenge
      and despair. Notwithstanding their repeated efforts, those brave
      veterans were unable to recover the victory: they obtained,
      however, an honorable death; and it was observed that their
      bodies covered the same ground which had been occupied by their
      ranks. The confusion then became general, and the dismayed troops
      of Maxentius, pursued by an implacable enemy, rushed by thousands
      into the deep and rapid stream of the Tyber. The emperor himself
      attempted to escape back into the city over the Milvian bridge;
      but the crowds which pressed together through that narrow passage
      forced him into the river, where he was immediately drowned by
      the weight of his armor. His body, which had sunk very deep into
      the mud, was found with some difficulty the next day. The sight
      of his head, when it was exposed to the eyes of the people,
      convinced them of their deliverance, and admonished them to
      receive with acclamations of loyalty and gratitude the fortunate
      Constantine, who thus achieved by his valor and ability the most
      splendid enterprise of his life.

      In the use of victory, Constantine neither deserved the praise of
      clemency, nor incurred the censure of immoderate rigor. He
      inflicted the same treatment to which a defeat would have exposed
      his own person and family, put to death the two sons of the
      tyrant, and carefully extirpated his whole race. The most
      distinguished adherents of Maxentius must have expected to share
      his fate, as they had shared his prosperity and his crimes; but
      when the Roman people loudly demanded a greater number of
      victims, the conqueror resisted, with firmness and humanity,
      those servile clamors, which were dictated by flattery as well as
      by resentment. Informers were punished and discouraged; the
      innocent, who had suffered under the late tyranny, were recalled
      from exile, and restored to their estates. A general act of
      oblivion quieted the minds and settled the property of the
      people, both in Italy and in Africa. The first time that
      Constantine honored the senate with his presence, he
      recapitulated his own services and exploits in a modest oration,
      assured that illustrious order of his sincere regard, and
      promised to reëstablish its ancient dignity and privileges. The
      grateful senate repaid these unmeaning professions by the empty
      titles of honor, which it was yet in their power to bestow; and
      without presuming to ratify the authority of Constantine, they
      passed a decree to assign him the first rank among the three
      _Augusti_ who governed the Roman world. Games and festivals were
      instituted to preserve the fame of his victory, and several
      edifices, raised at the expense of Maxentius, were dedicated to
      the honor of his successful rival. The triumphal arch of
      Constantine still remains a melancholy proof of the decline of
      the arts, and a singular testimony of the meanest vanity. As it
      was not possible to find in the capital of the empire a sculptor
      who was capable of adorning that public monument, the arch of
      Trajan, without any respect either for his memory or for the
      rules of propriety, was stripped of its most elegant figures. The
      difference of times and persons, of actions and characters, was
      totally disregarded. The Parthian captives appear prostrate at
      the feet of a prince who never carried his arms beyond the
      Euphrates; and curious antiquarians can still discover the head
      of Trajan on the trophies of Constantine. The new ornaments which
      it was necessary to introduce between the vacancies of ancient
      sculpture are executed in the rudest and most unskilful manner.

      The final abolition of the Prætorian guards was a measure of
      prudence as well as of revenge. Those haughty troops, whose
      numbers and privileges had been restored, and even augmented, by
      Maxentius, were forever suppressed by Constantine. Their
      fortified camp was destroyed, and the few Prætorians who had
      escaped the fury of the sword were dispersed among the legions,
      and banished to the frontiers of the empire, where they might be
      serviceable without again becoming dangerous. By suppressing the
      troops which were usually stationed in Rome, Constantine gave the
      fatal blow to the dignity of the senate and people, and the
      disarmed capital was exposed without protection to the insults or
      neglect of its distant master. We may observe, that in this last
      effort to preserve their expiring freedom, the Romans, from the
      apprehension of a tribute, had raised Maxentius to the throne. He
      exacted that tribute from the senate under the name of a free
      gift. They implored the assistance of Constantine. He vanquished
      the tyrant, and converted the free gift into a perpetual tax. The
      senators, according to the declaration which was required of
      their property, were divided into several classes. The most
      opulent paid annually eight pounds of gold, the next class paid
      four, the last two, and those whose poverty might have claimed an
      exemption, were assessed, however, at seven pieces of gold.
      Besides the regular members of the senate, their sons, their
      descendants, and even their relations, enjoyed the vain
      privileges, and supported the heavy burdens, of the senatorial
      order; nor will it any longer excite our surprise, that
      Constantine should be attentive to increase the number of persons
      who were included under so useful a description. After the defeat
      of Maxentius, the victorious emperor passed no more than two or
      three months in Rome, which he visited twice during the remainder
      of his life, to celebrate the solemn festivals of the tenth and
      of the twentieth years of his reign. Constantine was almost
      perpetually in motion, to exercise the legions, or to inspect the
      state of the provinces. Treves, Milan, Aquileia, Sirmium,
      Naissus, and Thessalonica, were the occasional places of his
      residence, till he founded a new Rome on the confines of Europe
      and Asia.

      Before Constantine marched into Italy, he had secured the
      friendship, or at least the neutrality, of Licinius, the Illyrian
      emperor. He had promised his sister Constantia in marriage to
      that prince; but the celebration of the nuptials was deferred
      till after the conclusion of the war, and the interview of the
      two emperors at Milan, which was appointed for that purpose,
      appeared to cement the union of their families and interests. In
      the midst of the public festivity they were suddenly obliged to
      take leave of each other. An inroad of the Franks summoned
      Constantine to the Rhine, and the hostile approach of the
      sovereign of Asia demanded the immediate presence of Licinius.
      Maximin had been the secret ally of Maxentius, and without being
      discouraged by his fate, he resolved to try the fortune of a
      civil war. He moved out of Syria, towards the frontiers of
      Bithynia, in the depth of winter. The season was severe and
      tempestuous; great numbers of men as well as horses perished in
      the snow; and as the roads were broken up by incessant rains, he
      was obliged to leave behind him a considerable part of the heavy
      baggage, which was unable to follow the rapidity of his forced
      marches. By this extraordinary effort of diligence, he arrived
      with a harassed but formidable army, on the banks of the Thracian
      Bosphorus before the lieutenants of Licinius were apprised of his
      hostile intentions. Byzantium surrendered to the power of
      Maximin, after a siege of eleven days. He was detained some days
      under the walls of Heraclea; and he had no sooner taken
      possession of that city than he was alarmed by the intelligence
      that Licinius had pitched his camp at the distance of only
      eighteen miles. After a fruitless negotiation, in which the two
      princes attempted to seduce the fidelity of each other’s
      adherents, they had recourse to arms. The emperor of the East
      commanded a disciplined and veteran army of above seventy
      thousand men; and Licinius, who had collected about thirty
      thousand Illyrians, was at first oppressed by the superiority of
      numbers. His military skill, and the firmness of his troops,
      restored the day, and obtained a decisive victory. The incredible
      speed which Maximin exerted in his flight is much more celebrated
      than his prowess in the battle. Twenty-four hours afterwards he
      was seen, pale, trembling, and without his Imperial ornaments, at
      Nicomedia, one hundred and sixty miles from the place of his
      defeat. The wealth of Asia was yet unexhausted; and though the
      flower of his veterans had fallen in the late action, he had
      still power, if he could obtain time, to draw very numerous
      levies from Syria and Egypt. But he survived his misfortune only
      three or four months. His death, which happened at Tarsus, was
      variously ascribed to despair, to poison, and to the divine
      justice. As Maximin was alike destitute of abilities and of
      virtue, he was lamented neither by the people nor by the
      soldiers. The provinces of the East, delivered from the terrors
      of civil war, cheerfully acknowledged the authority of Licinius.

      The vanquished emperor left behind him two children, a boy of
      about eight, and a girl of about seven, years old. Their
      inoffensive age might have excited compassion; but the compassion
      of Licinius was a very feeble resource, nor did it restrain him
      from _extinguishing_the name and memory of his adversary. The
      death of Severianus will admit of less excuse, as it was dictated
      neither by revenge nor by policy. The conqueror had never
      received any injury from the father of that unhappy youth, and
      the short and obscure reign of Severus, in a distant part of the
      empire, was already forgotten. But the execution of Candidianus
      was an act of the blackest cruelty and ingratitude. He was the
      natural son of Galerius, the friend and benefactor of Licinius.
      The prudent father had judged him too young to sustain the weight
      of a diadem; but he hoped that, under the protection of princes
      who were indebted to his favor for the Imperial purple,
      Candidianus might pass a secure and honorable life. He was now
      advancing towards the twentieth year of his age, and the royalty
      of his birth, though unsupported either by merit or ambition, was
      sufficient to exasperate the jealous mind of Licinius. To these
      innocent and illustrious victims of his tyranny, we must add the
      wife and daughter of the emperor Diocletian. When that prince
      conferred on Galerius the title of Cæsar, he had given him in
      marriage his daughter Valeria, whose melancholy adventures might
      furnish a very singular subject for tragedy. She had fulfilled
      and even surpassed the duties of a wife. As she had not any
      children herself, she condescended to adopt the illegitimate son
      of her husband, and invariably displayed towards the unhappy
      Candidianus the tenderness and anxiety of a real mother. After
      the death of Galerius, her ample possessions provoked the
      avarice, and her personal attractions excited the desires, of his
      successor, Maximin. He had a wife still alive; but divorce was
      permitted by the Roman law, and the fierce passions of the tyrant
      demanded an immediate gratification. The answer of Valeria was
      such as became the daughter and widow of emperors; but it was
      tempered by the prudence which her defenceless condition
      compelled her to observe. She represented to the persons whom
      Maximin had employed on this occasion, “that even if honor could
      permit a woman of her character and dignity to entertain a
      thought of second nuptials, decency at least must forbid her to
      listen to his addresses at a time when the ashes of her husband
      and his benefactor were still warm, and while the sorrows of her
      mind were still expressed by her mourning garments. She ventured
      to declare, that she could place very little confidence in the
      professions of a man whose cruel inconstancy was capable of
      repudiating a faithful and affectionate wife.” On this repulse,
      the love of Maximin was converted into fury; and as witnesses and
      judges were always at his disposal, it was easy for him to cover
      his fury with an appearance of legal proceedings, and to assault
      the reputation as well as the happiness of Valeria. Her estates
      were confiscated, her eunuchs and domestics devoted to the most
      inhuman tortures; and several innocent and respectable matrons,
      who were honored with her friendship, suffered death, on a false
      accusation of adultery. The empress herself, together with her
      mother Prisca, was condemned to exile; and as they were
      ignominiously hurried from place to place before they were
      confined to a sequestered village in the deserts of Syria, they
      exposed their shame and distress to the provinces of the East,
      which, during thirty years, had respected their august dignity.
      Diocletian made several ineffectual efforts to alleviate the
      misfortunes of his daughter; and, as the last return that he
      expected for the Imperial purple, which he had conferred upon
      Maximin, he entreated that Valeria might be permitted to share
      his retirement of Salona, and to close the eyes of her afflicted
      father. He entreated; but as he could no longer threaten, his
      prayers were received with coldness and disdain; and the pride of
      Maximin was gratified, in treating Diocletian as a suppliant, and
      his daughter as a criminal. The death of Maximin seemed to assure
      the empresses of a favorable alteration in their fortune. The
      public disorders relaxed the vigilance of their guard, and they
      easily found means to escape from the place of their exile, and
      to repair, though with some precaution, and in disguise, to the
      court of Licinius. His behavior, in the first days of his reign,
      and the honorable reception which he gave to young Candidianus,
      inspired Valeria with a secret satisfaction, both on her own
      account and on that of her adopted son. But these grateful
      prospects were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment; and the
      bloody executions which stained the palace of Nicomedia
      sufficiently convinced her that the throne of Maximin was filled
      by a tyrant more inhuman than himself. Valeria consulted her
      safety by a hasty flight, and, still accompanied by her mother
      Prisca, they wandered above fifteen months through the provinces,
      concealed in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were at length
      discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their death
      was already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded, and their
      bodies thrown into the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy
      spectacle; but their grief and indignation were suppressed by the
      terrors of a military guard. Such was the unworthy fate of the
      wife and daughter of Diocletian. We lament their misfortunes, we
      cannot discover their crimes; and whatever idea we may justly
      entertain of the cruelty of Licinius, it remains a matter of
      surprise that he was not contented with some more secret and
      decent method of revenge.

      The Roman world was now divided between Constantine and Licinius,
      the former of whom was master of the West, and the latter of the
      East. It might perhaps have been expected that the conquerors,
      fatigued with civil war, and connected by a private as well as
      public alliance, would have renounced, or at least would have
      suspended, any further designs of ambition. And yet a year had
      scarcely elapsed after the death of Maximin, before the
      victorious emperors turned their arms against each other. The
      genius, the success, and the aspiring temper of Constantine, may
      seem to mark him out as the aggressor; but the perfidious
      character of Licinius justifies the most unfavorable suspicions,
      and by the faint light which history reflects on this
      transaction, we may discover a conspiracy fomented by his arts
      against the authority of his colleague. Constantine had lately
      given his sister Anastasia in marriage to Bassianus, a man of a
      considerable family and fortune, and had elevated his new kinsman
      to the rank of Cæsar. According to the system of government
      instituted by Diocletian, Italy, and perhaps Africa, were
      designed for his department in the empire. But the performance of
      the promised favor was either attended with so much delay, or
      accompanied with so many unequal conditions, that the fidelity of
      Bassianus was alienated rather than secured by the honorable
      distinction which he had obtained. His nomination had been
      ratified by the consent of Licinius; and that artful prince, by
      the means of his emissaries, soon contrived to enter into a
      secret and dangerous correspondence with the new Cæsar, to
      irritate his discontents, and to urge him to the rash enterprise
      of extorting by violence what he might in vain solicit from the
      justice of Constantine. But the vigilant emperor discovered the
      conspiracy before it was ripe for execution; and after solemnly
      renouncing the alliance of Bassianus, despoiled him of the
      purple, and inflicted the deserved punishment on his treason and
      ingratitude. The haughty refusal of Licinius, when he was
      required to deliver up the criminals who had taken refuge in his
      dominions, confirmed the suspicions already entertained of his
      perfidy; and the indignities offered at Æmona, on the frontiers
      of Italy, to the statues of Constantine, became the signal of
      discord between the two princes.

      The first battle was fought near Cibalis, a city of Pannonia,
      situated on the River Save, about fifty miles above Sirmium. From
      the inconsiderable forces which in this important contest two
      such powerful monarchs brought into the field, it may be inferred
      that the one was suddenly provoked, and that the other was
      unexpectedly surprised. The emperor of the West had only twenty
      thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five and
      thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however,
      compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken
      post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep
      hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily
      expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued
      his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions
      of Illyricum rallied under the standard of a leader who had been
      trained to arms in the school of Probus and Diocletian. The
      missile weapons on both sides were soon exhausted; the two
      armies, with equal valor, rushed to a closer engagement of swords
      and spears, and the doubtful contest had already lasted from the
      dawn of the day to a late hour of the evening, when the right
      wing, which Constantine led in person, made a vigorous and
      decisive charge. The judicious retreat of Licinius saved the
      remainder of his troops from a total defeat; but when he computed
      his loss, which amounted to more than twenty thousand men, he
      thought it unsafe to pass the night in the presence of an active
      and victorious enemy. Abandoning his camp and magazines, he
      marched away with secrecy and diligence at the head of the
      greatest part of his cavalry, and was soon removed beyond the
      danger of a pursuit. His diligence preserved his wife, his son,
      and his treasures, which he had deposited at Sirmium. Licinius
      passed through that city, and breaking down the bridge on the
      Save, hastened to collect a new army in Dacia and Thrace. In his
      flight he bestowed the precarious title of Cæsar on Valens, his
      general of the Illyrian frontier.




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

      The plain of Mardia in Thrace was the theatre of a second battle
      no less obstinate and bloody than the former. The troops on both
      sides displayed the same valor and discipline; and the victory
      was once more decided by the superior abilities of Constantine,
      who directed a body of five thousand men to gain an advantageous
      height, from whence, during the heat of the action, they attacked
      the rear of the enemy, and made a very considerable slaughter.
      The troops of Licinius, however, presenting a double front, still
      maintained their ground, till the approach of night put an end to
      the combat, and secured their retreat towards the mountains of
      Macedonia. The loss of two battles, and of his bravest veterans,
      reduced the fierce spirit of Licinius to sue for peace. His
      ambassador Mistrianus was admitted to the audience of
      Constantine: he expatiated on the common topics of moderation and
      humanity, which are so familiar to the eloquence of the
      vanquished; represented in the most insinuating language, that
      the event of the war was still doubtful, whilst its inevitable
      calamities were alike pernicious to both the contending parties;
      and declared that he was authorized to propose a lasting and
      honorable peace in the name of the _two_ emperors his masters.
      Constantine received the mention of Valens with indignation and
      contempt. “It was not for such a purpose,” he sternly replied,
      “that we have advanced from the shores of the western ocean in an
      uninterrupted course of combats and victories, that, after
      rejecting an ungrateful kinsman, we should accept for our
      colleague a contemptible slave. The abdication of Valens is the
      first article of the treaty.” It was necessary to accept this
      humiliating condition; and the unhappy Valens, after a reign of a
      few days, was deprived of the purple and of his life. As soon as
      this obstacle was removed, the tranquillity of the Roman world
      was easily restored. The successive defeats of Licinius had
      ruined his forces, but they had displayed his courage and
      abilities. His situation was almost desperate, but the efforts of
      despair are sometimes formidable, and the good sense of
      Constantine preferred a great and certain advantage to a third
      trial of the chance of arms. He consented to leave his rival, or,
      as he again styled Licinius, his friend and brother, in the
      possession of Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt; but the
      provinces of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Macedonia, and Greece,
      were yielded to the Western empire, and the dominions of
      Constantine now extended from the confines of Caledonia to the
      extremity of Peloponnesus. It was stipulated by the same treaty,
      that three royal youths, the sons of emperors, should be called
      to the hopes of the succession. Crispus and the young Constantine
      were soon afterwards declared Cæsars in the West, while the
      younger Licinius was invested with the same dignity in the East.
      In this double proportion of honors, the conqueror asserted the
      superiority of his arms and power.

      The reconciliation of Constantine and Licinius, though it was
      imbittered by resentment and jealousy, by the remembrance of
      recent injuries, and by the apprehension of future dangers,
      maintained, however, above eight years, the tranquility of the
      Roman world. As a very regular series of the Imperial laws
      commences about this period, it would not be difficult to
      transcribe the civil regulations which employed the leisure of
      Constantine. But the most important of his institutions are
      intimately connected with the new system of policy and religion,
      which was not perfectly established till the last and peaceful
      years of his reign. There are many of his laws, which, as far as
      they concern the rights and property of individuals, and the
      practice of the bar, are more properly referred to the private
      than to the public jurisprudence of the empire; and he published
      many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, that they would
      ill deserve the notice of a general history. Two laws, however,
      may be selected from the crowd; the one for its importance, the
      other for its singularity; the former for its remarkable
      benevolence, the latter for its excessive severity. 1. The horrid
      practice, so familiar to the ancients, of exposing or murdering
      their new-born infants, was become every day more frequent in the
      provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of
      distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the
      intolerant burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel
      prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their
      insolvent debtors. The less opulent or less industrious part of
      mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it
      an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the
      impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to
      support. The humanity of Constantine, moved, perhaps, by some
      recent and extraordinary instances of despair, * engaged him to
      address an edict to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of
      Africa, directing immediate and sufficient relief to be given to
      those parents who should produce before the magistrates the
      children whom their own poverty would not allow them to educate.
      But the promise was too liberal, and the provision too vague, to
      effect any general or permanent benefit. The law, though it may
      merit some praise, served rather to display than to alleviate the
      public distress. It still remains an authentic monument to
      contradict and confound those venal orators, who were too well
      satisfied with their own situation to discover either vice or
      misery under the government of a generous sovereign. 2. The laws
      of Constantine against rapes were dictated with very little
      indulgence for the most amiable weaknesses of human nature; since
      the description of that crime was applied not only to the brutal
      violence which compelled, but even to the gentle seduction which
      might persuade, an unmarried woman, under the age of twenty-five,
      to leave the house of her parents. “The successful ravisher was
      punished with death; and as if simple death was inadequate to the
      enormity of his guilt, he was either burnt alive, or torn in
      pieces by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. The virgin’s
      declaration, that she had been carried away with her own consent,
      instead of saving her lover, exposed her to share his fate. The
      duty of a public prosecution was intrusted to the parents of the
      guilty or unfortunate maid; and if the sentiments of nature
      prevailed on them to dissemble the injury, and to repair by a
      subsequent marriage the honor of their family, they were
      themselves punished by exile and confiscation. The slaves,
      whether male or female, who were convicted of having been
      accessory to rape or seduction, were burnt alive, or put to death
      by the ingenious torture of pouring down their throats a quantity
      of melted lead. As the crime was of a public kind, the accusation
      was permitted even to strangers. The commencement of the action
      was not limited to any term of years, and the consequences of the
      sentence were extended to the innocent offspring of such an
      irregular union.” But whenever the offence inspires less horror
      than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give
      way to the common feelings of mankind. The most odious parts of
      this edict were softened or repealed in the subsequent reigns;
      and even Constantine himself very frequently alleviated, by
      partial acts of mercy, the stern temper of his general
      institutions. Such, indeed, was the singular humor of that
      emperor, who showed himself as indulgent, and even remiss, in the
      execution of his laws, as he was severe, and even cruel, in the
      enacting of them. It is scarcely possible to observe a more
      decisive symptom of weakness, either in the character of the
      prince, or in the constitution of the government.

      The civil administration was sometimes interrupted by the
      military defence of the empire. Crispus, a youth of the most
      amiable character, who had received with the title of Cæsar the
      command of the Rhine, distinguished his conduct, as well as
      valor, in several victories over the Franks and Alemanni, and
      taught the barbarians of that frontier to dread the eldest son of
      Constantine, and the grandson of Constantius. The emperor himself
      had assumed the more difficult and important province of the
      Danube. The Goths, who in the time of Claudius and Aurelian had
      felt the weight of the Roman arms, respected the power of the
      empire, even in the midst of its intestine divisions. But the
      strength of that warlike nation was now restored by a peace of
      near fifty years; a new generation had arisen, who no longer
      remembered the misfortunes of ancient days; the Sarmatians of the
      Lake Mæotis followed the Gothic standard either as subjects or as
      allies, and their united force was poured upon the countries of
      Illyricum. Campona, Margus, and Benonia, appear to have been the
      scenes of several memorable sieges and battles; and though
      Constantine encountered a very obstinate resistance, he prevailed
      at length in the contest, and the Goths were compelled to
      purchase an ignominious retreat, by restoring the booty and
      prisoners which they had taken. Nor was this advantage sufficient
      to satisfy the indignation of the emperor. He resolved to
      chastise as well as to repulse the insolent barbarians who had
      dared to invade the territories of Rome. At the head of his
      legions he passed the Danube, after repairing the bridge which
      had been constructed by Trajan, penetrated into the strongest
      recesses of Dacia, and when he had inflicted a severe revenge,
      condescended to give peace to the suppliant Goths, on condition
      that, as often as they were required, they should supply his
      armies with a body of forty thousand soldiers. Exploits like
      these were no doubt honorable to Constantine, and beneficial to
      the state; but it may surely be questioned, whether they can
      justify the exaggerated assertion of Eusebius, that all Scythia,
      as far as the extremity of the North, divided as it was into so
      many names and nations of the most various and savage manners,
      had been added by his victorious arms to the Roman empire.

      In this exalted state of glory, it was impossible that
      Constantine should any longer endure a partner in the empire.
      Confiding in the superiority of his genius and military power, he
      determined, without any previous injury, to exert them for the
      destruction of Licinius, whose advanced age and unpopular vices
      seemed to offer a very easy conquest. But the old emperor,
      awakened by the approaching danger, deceived the expectations of
      his friends, as well as of his enemies. Calling forth that spirit
      and those abilities by which he had deserved the friendship of
      Galerius and the Imperial purple, he prepared himself for the
      contest, collected the forces of the East, and soon filled the
      plains of Hadrianople with his troops, and the straits of the
      Hellespont with his fleet. The army consisted of one hundred and
      fifty thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse; and as the
      cavalry was drawn, for the most part, from Phrygia and
      Cappadocia, we may conceive a more favorable opinion of the
      beauty of the horses, than of the courage and dexterity of their
      riders. The fleet was composed of three hundred and fifty galleys
      of three ranks of oars. A hundred and thirty of these were
      furnished by Egypt and the adjacent coast of Africa. A hundred
      and ten sailed from the ports of Phœnicia and the isle of Cyprus;
      and the maritime countries of Bithynia, Ionia, and Caria were
      likewise obliged to provide a hundred and ten galleys. The troops
      of Constantine were ordered to a rendezvous at Thessalonica; they
      amounted to above a hundred and twenty thousand horse and foot.
      Their emperor was satisfied with their martial appearance, and
      his army contained more soldiers, though fewer men, than that of
      his eastern competitor. The legions of Constantine were levied in
      the warlike provinces of Europe; action had confirmed their
      discipline, victory had elevated their hopes, and there were
      among them a great number of veterans, who, after seventeen
      glorious campaigns under the same leader, prepared themselves to
      deserve an honorable dismission by a last effort of their valor.
      But the naval preparations of Constantine were in every respect
      much inferior to those of Licinius. The maritime cities of Greece
      sent their respective quotas of men and ships to the celebrated
      harbor of Piræus, and their united forces consisted of no more
      than two hundred small vessels—a very feeble armament, if it is
      compared with those formidable fleets which were equipped and
      maintained by the republic of Athens during the Peloponnesian
      war. Since Italy was no longer the seat of government, the naval
      establishments of Misenum and Ravenna had been gradually
      neglected; and as the shipping and mariners of the empire were
      supported by commerce rather than by war, it was natural that
      they should the most abound in the industrious provinces of Egypt
      and Asia. It is only surprising that the eastern emperor, who
      possessed so great a superiority at sea, should have neglected
      the opportunity of carrying an offensive war into the centre of
      his rival’s dominions.

      Instead of embracing such an active resolution, which might have
      changed the whole face of the war, the prudent Licinius expected
      the approach of his rival in a camp near Hadrianople, which he
      had fortified with an anxious care that betrayed his apprehension
      of the event. Constantine directed his march from Thessalonica
      towards that part of Thrace, till he found himself stopped by the
      broad and rapid stream of the Hebrus, and discovered the numerous
      army of Licinius, which filled the steep ascent of the hill, from
      the river to the city of Hadrianople. Many days were spent in
      doubtful and distant skirmishes; but at length the obstacles of
      the passage and of the attack were removed by the intrepid
      conduct of Constantine. In this place we might relate a wonderful
      exploit of Constantine, which, though it can scarcely be
      paralleled either in poetry or romance, is celebrated, not by a
      venal orator devoted to his fortune, but by an historian, the
      partial enemy of his fame. We are assured that the valiant
      emperor threw himself into the River Hebrus, accompanied only by
      twelve horsemen, and that by the effort or terror of his
      invincible arm, he broke, slaughtered, and put to flight a host
      of a hundred and fifty thousand men. The credulity of Zosimus
      prevailed so strongly over his passion, that among the events of
      the memorable battle of Hadrianople, he seems to have selected
      and embellished, not the most important, but the most marvellous.
      The valor and danger of Constantine are attested by a slight
      wound which he received in the thigh; but it may be discovered
      even from an imperfect narration, and perhaps a corrupted text,
      that the victory was obtained no less by the conduct of the
      general than by the courage of the hero; that a body of five
      thousand archers marched round to occupy a thick wood in the rear
      of the enemy, whose attention was diverted by the construction of
      a bridge, and that Licinius, perplexed by so many artful
      evolutions, was reluctantly drawn from his advantageous post to
      combat on equal ground on the plain. The contest was no longer
      equal. His confused multitude of new levies was easily vanquished
      by the experienced veterans of the West. Thirty-four thousand men
      are reported to have been slain. The fortified camp of Licinius
      was taken by assault the evening of the battle; the greater part
      of the fugitives, who had retired to the mountains, surrendered
      themselves the next day to the discretion of the conqueror; and
      his rival, who could no longer keep the field, confined himself
      within the walls of Byzantium.

      The siege of Byzantium, which was immediately undertaken by
      Constantine, was attended with great labor and uncertainty. In
      the late civil wars, the fortifications of that place, so justly
      considered as the key of Europe and Asia, had been repaired and
      strengthened; and as long as Licinius remained master of the sea,
      the garrison was much less exposed to the danger of famine than
      the army of the besiegers. The naval commanders of Constantine
      were summoned to his camp, and received his positive orders to
      force the passage of the Hellespont, as the fleet of Licinius,
      instead of seeking and destroying their feeble enemy, continued
      inactive in those narrow straits, where its superiority of
      numbers was of little use or advantage. Crispus, the emperor’s
      eldest son, was intrusted with the execution of this daring
      enterprise, which he performed with so much courage and success,
      that he deserved the esteem, and most probably excited the
      jealousy, of his father. The engagement lasted two days; and in
      the evening of the first, the contending fleets, after a
      considerable and mutual loss, retired into their respective
      harbors of Europe and Asia. The second day, about noon, a strong
      south wind sprang up, which carried the vessels of Crispus
      against the enemy; and as the casual advantage was improved by
      his skilful intrepidity, he soon obtained a complete victory. A
      hundred and thirty vessels were destroyed, five thousand men were
      slain, and Amandus, the admiral of the Asiatic fleet, escaped
      with the utmost difficulty to the shores of Chalcedon. As soon as
      the Hellespont was open, a plentiful convoy of provisions flowed
      into the camp of Constantine, who had already advanced the
      operations of the siege. He constructed artificial mounds of
      earth of an equal height with the ramparts of Byzantium. The
      lofty towers which were erected on that foundation galled the
      besieged with large stones and darts from the military engines,
      and the battering rams had shaken the walls in several places. If
      Licinius persisted much longer in the defence, he exposed himself
      to be involved in the ruin of the place. Before he was
      surrounded, he prudently removed his person and treasures to
      Chalcedon in Asia; and as he was always desirous of associating
      companions to the hopes and dangers of his fortune, he now
      bestowed the title of Cæsar on Martinianus, who exercised one of
      the most important offices of the empire.

      Such were still the resources, and such the abilities, of
      Licinius, that, after so many successive defeats, he collected in
      Bithynia a new army of fifty or sixty thousand men, while the
      activity of Constantine was employed in the siege of Byzantium.
      The vigilant emperor did not, however, neglect the last struggles
      of his antagonist. A considerable part of his victorious army was
      transported over the Bosphorus in small vessels, and the decisive
      engagement was fought soon after their landing on the heights of
      Chrysopolis, or, as it is now called, of Scutari. The troops of
      Licinius, though they were lately raised, ill armed, and worse
      disciplined, made head against their conquerors with fruitless
      but desperate valor, till a total defeat, and a slaughter of five
      and twenty thousand men, irretrievably determined the fate of
      their leader. He retired to Nicomedia, rather with the view of
      gaining some time for negotiation, than with the hope of any
      effectual defence. Constantia, his wife, and the sister of
      Constantine, interceded with her brother in favor of her husband,
      and obtained from his policy, rather than from his compassion, a
      solemn promise, confirmed by an oath, that after the sacrifice of
      Martinianus, and the resignation of the purple, Licinius himself
      should be permitted to pass the remainder of this life in peace
      and affluence. The behavior of Constantia, and her relation to
      the contending parties, naturally recalls the remembrance of that
      virtuous matron who was the sister of Augustus, and the wife of
      Antony. But the temper of mankind was altered, and it was no
      longer esteemed infamous for a Roman to survive his honor and
      independence. Licinius solicited and accepted the pardon of his
      offences, laid himself and his purple at the feet of his lord and
      master, was raised from the ground with insulting pity, was
      admitted the same day to the Imperial banquet, and soon
      afterwards was sent away to Thessalonica, which had been chosen
      for the place of his confinement. His confinement was soon
      terminated by death, and it is doubtful whether a tumult of the
      soldiers, or a decree of the senate, was suggested as the motive
      for his execution. According to the rules of tyranny, he was
      accused of forming a conspiracy, and of holding a treasonable
      correspondence with the barbarians; but as he was never
      convicted, either by his own conduct or by any legal evidence, we
      may perhaps be allowed, from his weakness, to presume his
      innocence. The memory of Licinius was branded with infamy, his
      statues were thrown down, and by a hasty edict, of such
      mischievous tendency that it was almost immediately corrected,
      all his laws, and all the judicial proceedings of his reign, were
      at once abolished. By this victory of Constantine, the Roman
      world was again united under the authority of one emperor,
      thirty-seven years after Diocletian had divided his power and
      provinces with his associate Maximian.

      The successive steps of the elevation of Constantine, from his
      first assuming the purple at York, to the resignation of
      Licinius, at Nicomedia, have been related with some minuteness
      and precision, not only as the events are in themselves both
      interesting and important, but still more, as they contributed to
      the decline of the empire by the expense of blood and treasure,
      and by the perpetual increase, as well of the taxes, as of the
      military establishment. The foundation of Constantinople, and the
      establishment of the Christian religion, were the immediate and
      memorable consequences of this revolution.




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

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

      A candid but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment
      of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the
      history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by
      open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble
      religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up
      in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and
      finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins
      of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to
      the period or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a
      revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is
      still professed by the nations of Europe, the most distinguished
      portion of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By
      the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely
      diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa; and by
      the means of their colonies has been firmly established from
      Canada to Chili, in a world unknown to the ancients.

      But this inquiry, however useful or entertaining, is attended
      with two peculiar difficulties. The scanty and suspicious
      materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel
      the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church. The
      great law of impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the
      imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the
      gospel; and, to a careless observer, their _faults_ may seem to
      cast a shade on the faith which they professed. But the scandal
      of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of the
      Infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only _by
      whom_, but likewise _to whom_, the Divine Revelation was given.
      The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing
      Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native
      purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He
      must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption,
      which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak
      and degenerate race of beings. *

      Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the
      Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the
      established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious
      but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the
      convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling
      providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom
      find so favorable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of
      Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the
      human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as
      instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted,
      though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the
      first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of
      the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most
      effectually favored and assisted by the five following causes: I.
      The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the intolerant
      zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish
      religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit,
      which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from
      embracing the law of Moses. II. The doctrine of a future life,
      improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight
      and efficacy to that important truth. III. The miraculous powers
      ascribed to the primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals
      of the Christians. V. The union and discipline of the Christian
      republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing
      state in the heart of the Roman empire.

      I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient
      world, and the facility * with which the most different and even
      hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other’s
      superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common
      intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who, under the Assyrian and
      Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most
      despised portion of their slaves, emerged from obscurity under
      the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a
      surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they
      soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. The
      sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites
      and unsocial manners seemed to mark them out as a distinct
      species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised,
      their implacable habits to the rest of human kind. Neither the
      violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of
      the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to
      associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mythology of
      the Greeks. According to the maxims of universal toleration, the
      Romans protected a superstition which they despised. The polite
      Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should be
      offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem; whilst the
      meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have paid the
      same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have been an
      object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren. But the
      moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the
      jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and
      scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily
      introduced themselves into a Roman province. The mad attempt of
      Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem was
      defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded
      death much less than such an idolatrous profanation. Their
      attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of
      foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was
      contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and
      sometimes with the fury, of a torrent.

      This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so
      ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character,
      since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious
      history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous
      attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews
      who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising,
      if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their
      forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai,
      when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were
      suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when
      temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences
      of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into
      rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King,
      placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and
      imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents
      of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phœnicia. As the protection of
      Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race, their
      faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity. The
      contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless
      indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of
      every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the
      Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry;
      and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind,
      that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more
      ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to
      the evidence of their own senses.

      The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was
      never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the
      number of proselytes was never much superior to that of
      apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the
      distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single
      family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the
      sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a
      system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as
      it were the national God of Israel; and with the most jealous
      care separated his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The
      conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many
      wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the
      victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility
      with all their neighbors. They had been commanded to extirpate
      some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the
      divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of humanity.
      With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any
      marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them
      into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost
      always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the
      tenth generation. The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the
      faith of Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law,
      nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a
      voluntary duty.

      In the admission of new citizens that unsocial people was
      actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the
      generous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were
      flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the
      covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of
      their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of
      the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their
      knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the
      God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more
      indebted to the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the active
      zeal of his own missionaries. The religion of Moses seems to be
      instituted for a particular country as well as for a single
      nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order,
      that every male, three times in the year, should present himself
      before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the
      Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits
      of the promised land. That obstacle was indeed removed by the
      destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable
      part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and
      the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an
      empty sanctuary, were at a loss to discover what could be the
      object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was
      destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices.
      Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their
      lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the
      society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor
      on those parts of the law which it was in their power to
      practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a
      variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many
      objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose
      habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The
      painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable
      of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.

      Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the
      world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered
      from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth
      of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in
      the new as in the ancient system; and whatever was now revealed
      to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being
      was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious
      doctrine. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was
      admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of
      Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted
      series of predictions had announced and prepared the
      long-expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the
      gross apprehensions of the Jews, had been more frequently
      represented under the character of a King and Conqueror, than
      under that of a Prophet, a Martyr, and the Son of God. By his
      expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were
      at once consummated and abolished. The ceremonial law, which
      consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and
      spiritual worship equally adapted to all climates, as well as to
      every condition of mankind; and to the initiation of blood was
      substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of
      divine favor, instead of being partially confined to the
      posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and
      the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to
      the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from
      earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his
      happiness, or even gratify that secret pride which, under the
      semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart,
      was still reserved for the members of the Christian church; but
      at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited,
      to accept the glorious distinction, which was not only proffered
      as a favor, but imposed as an obligation. It became the most
      sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and
      relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to
      warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a
      criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but
      all-powerful Deity.




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

      The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue
      was a work, however, of some time and of some difficulty. The
      Jewish converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the
      Messiah foretold by their ancient oracles, respected him as a
      prophetic teacher of virtue and religion; but they obstinately
      adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and were desirous
      of imposing them on the Gentiles, who continually augmented the
      number of believers. These Judaizing Christians seem to have
      argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine origin of
      the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections of its great
      Author. They affirmed, _that_ if the Being, who is the same
      through all eternity, had designed to abolish those sacred rites
      which had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of
      them would have been no less clear and solemn than their first
      promulgation: _that_, instead of those frequent declarations,
      which either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic
      religion, it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme
      intended to last only to the coming of the Messiah, who should
      instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship:
      that the Messiah himself, and his disciples who conversed with
      him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the most
      minute observances of the Mosaic law, would have published to the
      world the abolition of those useless and obsolete ceremonies,
      without suffering Christianity to remain during so many years
      obscurely confounded among the sects of the Jewish church.
      Arguments like these appear to have been used in the defence of
      the expiring cause of the Mosaic law; but the industry of our
      learned divines has abundantly explained the ambiguous language
      of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous conduct of the apostolic
      teachers. It was proper gradually to unfold the system of the
      gospel, and to pronounce, with the utmost caution and tenderness,
      a sentence of condemnation so repugnant to the inclination and
      prejudices of the believing Jews.

      The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof of
      the necessity of those precautions, and of the deep impression
      which the Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries.
      The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews;
      and the congregation over which they presided united the law of
      Moses with the doctrine of Christ. It was natural that the
      primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days
      after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years
      under the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received
      as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very
      frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent,
      and relieved her distresses by a liberal contribution of alms.
      But when numerous and opulent societies were established in the
      great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus,
      Corinth, and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to
      all the Christian colonies insensibly diminished. The Jewish
      converts, or, as they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who
      had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves
      overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes, that from all the
      various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of
      Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of their
      peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of the
      Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous
      brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly
      solicited for their own practice. The ruin of the temple of the
      city, and of the public religion of the Jews, was severely felt
      by the Nazarenes; as in their manners, though not in their faith,
      they maintained so intimate a connection with their impious
      countrymen, whose misfortunes were attributed by the Pagans to
      the contempt, and more justly ascribed by the Christians to the
      wrath, of the Supreme Deity. The Nazarenes retired from the ruins
      of Jerusalem * to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan,
      where that ancient church languished above sixty years in
      solitude and obscurity. They still enjoyed the comfort of making
      frequent and devout visits to the _Holy City_, and the hope of
      being one day restored to those seats which both nature and
      religion taught them to love as well as to revere. But at length,
      under the reign of Hadrian, the desperate fanaticism of the Jews
      filled up the measure of their calamities; and the Romans,
      exasperated by their repeated rebellions, exercised the rights of
      victory with unusual rigor. The emperor founded, under the name
      of Ælia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, to which he gave
      the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the severest penalties
      against any of the Jewish people who should dare to approach its
      precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a Roman cohort to
      enforce the execution of his orders. The Nazarenes had only one
      way left to escape the common proscription, and the force of
      truth was on this occasion assisted by the influence of temporal
      advantages. They elected Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of
      the race of the Gentiles, and most probably a native either of
      Italy or of some of the Latin provinces. At his persuasion, the
      most considerable part of the congregation renounced the Mosaic
      law, in the practice of which they had persevered above a
      century. By this sacrifice of their habits and prejudices, they
      purchased a free admission into the colony of Hadrian, and more
      firmly cemented their union with the Catholic church.

      When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been
      restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were
      imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to
      accompany their Latin bishop. They still preserved their former
      habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent
      to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of
      Berœa, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in Syria. The name of
      Nazarenes was deemed too honorable for those Christian Jews, and
      they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their
      understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous
      epithet of Ebionites. In a few years after the return of the
      church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy,
      whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah,
      but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could
      possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr
      inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and
      though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he
      ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect Christian, if
      he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without
      pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when
      Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he
      confessed that there were very many among the orthodox
      Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing brethren from
      the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them
      in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social
      life. The more rigorous opinion prevailed, as it was natural to
      expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of separation was
      fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The
      unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates,
      and from the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to
      assume a more decided character; and although some traces of that
      obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century,
      they insensibly melted away, either into the church or the
      synagogue.

      While the orthodox church preserved a just medium between
      excessive veneration and improper contempt for the law of Moses,
      the various heretics deviated into equal but opposite extremes of
      error and extravagance. From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish
      religion, the Ebionites had concluded that it could never be
      abolished. From its supposed imperfections, the Gnostics as
      hastily inferred that it never was instituted by the wisdom of
      the Deity. There are some objections against the authority of
      Moses and the prophets, which too readily present themselves to
      the sceptical mind; though they can only be derived from our
      ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an
      adequate judgment of the divine economy. These objections were
      eagerly embraced and as petulantly urged by the vain science of
      the Gnostics. As those heretics were, for the most part, averse
      to the pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the polygamy
      of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio of
      Solomon. The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the extirpation
      of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss how to reconcile
      with the common notions of humanity and justice. * But when they
      recollected the sanguinary list of murders, of executions, and of
      massacres, which stain almost every page of the Jewish annals,
      they acknowledged that the barbarians of Palestine had exercised
      as much compassion towards their idolatrous enemies, as they had
      ever shown to their friends or countrymen. Passing from the
      sectaries of the law to the law itself, they asserted that it was
      impossible that a religion which consisted only of bloody
      sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as
      punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could
      inspire the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity of
      passion. The Mosaic account of the creation and fall of man was
      treated with profane derision by the Gnostics, who would not
      listen with patience to the repose of the Deity after six days’
      labor, to the rib of Adam, the garden of Eden, the trees of life
      and of knowledge, the speaking serpent, the forbidden fruit, and
      the condemnation pronounced against human kind for the venial
      offence of their first progenitors. The God of Israel was
      impiously represented by the Gnostics as a being liable to
      passion and to error, capricious in his favor, implacable in his
      resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious worship, and
      confining his partial providence to a single people, and to this
      transitory life. In such a character they could discover none of
      the features of the wise and omnipotent Father of the universe.
      They allowed that the religion of the Jews was somewhat less
      criminal than the idolatry of the Gentiles; but it was their
      fundamental doctrine that the Christ whom they adored as the
      first and brightest emanation of the Deity appeared upon earth to
      rescue mankind from their various errors, and to reveal a new
      system of truth and perfection. The most learned of the fathers,
      by a very singular condescension, have imprudently admitted the
      sophistry of the Gnostics. * Acknowledging that the literal sense
      is repugnant to every principle of faith as well as reason, they
      deem themselves secure and invulnerable behind the ample veil of
      allegory, which they carefully spread over every tender part of
      the Mosaic dispensation.

      It has been remarked with more ingenuity than truth, that the
      virgin purity of the church was never violated by schism or
      heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred
      years after the death of Christ. We may observe with much more
      propriety, that, during that period, the disciples of the Messiah
      were indulged in a freer latitude, both of faith and practice,
      than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages. As the terms of
      communion were insensibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority
      of the prevailing party was exercised with increasing severity,
      many of its most respectable adherents, who were called upon to
      renounce, were provoked to assert their private opinions, to
      pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and openly
      to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the
      church. The Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the
      most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name; and
      that general appellation, which expressed a superiority of
      knowledge, was either assumed by their own pride, or ironically
      bestowed by the envy of their adversaries. They were almost
      without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their
      principal founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egypt,
      where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the
      body to indolent and contemplative devotion. The Gnostics blended
      with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which
      they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion
      of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence of
      two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible
      world. As soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they
      delivered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagination;
      and as the paths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics
      were imperceptibly divided into more than fifty particular sects,
      of whom the most celebrated appear to have been the Basilidians,
      the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a still later period,
      the Manichæans. Each of these sects could boast of its bishops
      and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs; and, instead of
      the Four Gospels adopted by the church, the heretics produced a
      multitude of histories, in which the actions and discourses of
      Christ and of his apostles were adapted to their respective
      tenets. The success of the Gnostics was rapid and extensive. They
      covered Asia and Egypt, established themselves in Rome, and
      sometimes penetrated into the provinces of the West. For the most
      part they arose in the second century, flourished during the
      third, and were suppressed in the fourth or fifth, by the
      prevalence of more fashionable controversies, and by the superior
      ascendant of the reigning power. Though they constantly disturbed
      the peace, and frequently disgraced the name, of religion, they
      contributed to assist rather than to retard the progress of
      Christianity. The Gentile converts, whose strongest objections
      and prejudices were directed against the law of Moses, could find
      admission into many Christian societies, which required not from
      their untutored mind any belief of an antecedent revelation.
      Their faith was insensibly fortified and enlarged, and the church
      was ultimately benefited by the conquests of its most inveterate
      enemies.

      But whatever difference of opinion might subsist between the
      Orthodox, the Ebionites, and the Gnostics, concerning the
      divinity or the obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all
      equally animated by the same exclusive zeal, and by the same
      abhorrence for idolatry, which had distinguished the Jews from
      the other nations of the ancient world. The philosopher, who
      considered the system of polytheism as a composition of human
      fraud and error, could disguise a smile of contempt under the
      mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery,
      or the compliance, would expose him to the resentment of any
      invisible, or, as he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the
      established religions of Paganism were seen by the primitive
      Christians in a much more odious and formidable light. It was the
      universal sentiment both of the church and of heretics, that the
      dæmons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of
      idolatry. Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded from the
      rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were still
      permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to
      seduce the minds, of sinful men. The dæmons soon discovered and
      abused the natural propensity of the human heart towards
      devotion, and artfully withdrawing the adoration of mankind from
      their Creator, they usurped the place and honors of the Supreme
      Deity. By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at
      once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the
      only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope of
      involving the human species in the participation of their guilt
      and misery. It was confessed, or at least it was imagined, that
      they had distributed among themselves the most important
      characters of polytheism, one dæmon assuming the name and
      attributes of Jupiter, another of Æsculapius, a third of Venus,
      and a fourth perhaps of Apollo; and that, by the advantage of
      their long experience and ærial nature, they were enabled to
      execute, with sufficient skill and dignity, the parts which they
      had undertaken. They lurked in the temples, instituted festivals
      and sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced oracles, and were
      frequently allowed to perform miracles. The Christians, who, by
      the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily explain every
      præternatural appearance, were disposed and even desirous to
      admit the most extravagant fictions of the Pagan mythology. But
      the belief of the Christian was accompanied with horror. The most
      trifling mark of respect to the national worship he considered as
      a direct homage yielded to the dæmon, and as an act of rebellion
      against the majesty of God.




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

      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. 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. 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. 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. When the
      bride, struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced in
      hymenæal pomp over the threshold of her new habitation, or when
      the sad procession of the dead slowly moved towards the funeral
      pile, 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; 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. 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.

      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.

      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 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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, 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. 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. 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.

      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. * 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.




      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. By the same
      analogy it was inferred, that this long period of labor and
      contention, which was now almost elapsed, 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. The
      assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a
      succession of fathers from Justin Martyr, and Irenæus, who
      conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to
      Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. 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. 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.

      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. 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.

      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.
      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. 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. 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.” * 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.

      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, 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. 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. 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 apologists, 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. 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. 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.

      The miracles of the primitive church, after obtaining the
      sanction of ages, have been lately attacked in a very free and
      ingenious inquiry, 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. 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. 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, 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 Raphael or of Correggio, the
      insolent fraud would be soon discovered, and indignantly
      rejected.

      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. *

      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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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.

      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. *

      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. 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; 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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. 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; but the primitive church was filled
      with a number of persons of either sex, who had devoted
      themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. A few of
      these, among whom we may reckon the learned Origen, judged it the
      most prudent to disarm the tempter. 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. 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. Such are the
      early traces of monastic principles and institutions, which, in a
      subsequent age, have counterbalanced all the temporal advantages
      of Christianity.

      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. 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; but it was impossible that the Christians, without
      renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume the character of
      soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes. 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. 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.




      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 to the respective
      standards of their own policy. The few who have pursued this
      inquiry with more candor and impartiality, are of opinion, 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_, who were
      called to that function without distinction of age, of sex, * 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. 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.

      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.
      The advantages of this episcopal form of government, which
      appears to have been introduced before the end of the first
      century, 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, 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. 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. 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.

      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, * 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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. 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; 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.
      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. 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. 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.

      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. 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.




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

      I. The community of goods, which had so agreeably amused the
      imagination of Plato, and which subsisted in some degree among
      the austere sect of the Essenians, 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. 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. 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, and to
      acquire some merit by resigning a superfluous treasure, which
      must so soon be annihilated with the world itself. 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. 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. 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. 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; 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. 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.

      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. 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.
      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. 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.
      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. 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.

      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. A milder
      sentiment was embraced, in practice as well as in theory, by the
      purest and most respectable of the Christian churches. 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. 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.

      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; 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.

      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 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, 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.

      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. 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. 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.




      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, 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. 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_. Within fourscore years after
      the death of Christ, 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.

      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. 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,
      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. 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.

      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. 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. 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.
      The body of the natives, a people distinguished by a sullen
      inflexibility of temper, 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. 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.

      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, 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. 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
      acolythes, 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. 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.

      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; 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. 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. 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.
      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. 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.

      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.” 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. Before that time, the
      various accidents of war and commerce might indeed diffuse an
      imperfect knowledge of the gospel among the tribes of Caledonia,
      and among the borderers of the Rhine, the Danube, and the
      Euphrates. Beyond the last-mentioned river, Edessa was
      distinguished by a firm and early adherence to the faith. 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.




      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, 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 fraction of the
      population placed 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.

      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.

      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. 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. 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.”

      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. 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. 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. 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.

      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. * 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.

      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.

      It is at least doubtful whether any of these philosophers perused
      the apologies * 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. 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, 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.

      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, or at least a celebrated province of
      the Roman empire, 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. 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. 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 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 and historians of that memorable
      age.

      END OF VOL. I.




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