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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon

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Title: The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
       Volume 2

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: H. H. Milman

Release Date: November, 1996 [eBook #732]
[Most recently updated: September 23, 2023]

Language: English

Produced by: David Reed and David Widger

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




      HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

      Edward Gibbon, Esq.

      With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

      Vol. 2

      1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)

         VOLUME TWO


         Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
         Constantine.—Part I.

     The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From
     The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine.

         Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
         Constantine.—Part II.

         Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
         Constantine.—Part III.

         Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
         Constantine.—Part IV.

         Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
         Constantine.—Part V.

         Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
         Constantine.—Part VI.

         Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
         Constantine.—Part VII.

         Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
         Constantine.—Part VIII.

         Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part I.

     Foundation Of Constantinople.—Political System Constantine, And
     His Successors.—Military Discipline.—The Palace.—The Finances.

         Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part II.

         Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part III.

         Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part IV.

         Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part V.

         Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part VI.

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

     Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of
     Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian
     War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And
     Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil War.—Victory Of
     Constantius.

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

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

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

         Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part I.

     Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.— Danger
     And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian Wars.—Victories Of
     Julian In Gaul.

         Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part II.

         Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part III.

         Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part IV.

         Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part I.

     The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of
     Constantine.—Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian
     Or Catholic Church.

         Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part II.

         Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part III.

         Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part IV.

         Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
         I.

     Persecution Of Heresy.—The Schism Of The Donatists.—The Arian
     Controversy.—Athanasius.—Distracted State Of The Church And Empire
     Under Constantine And His Sons.— Toleration Of Paganism.

         Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
         II.

         Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
         III.

         Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
         IV.

         Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
         V.

         Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
         VI.

         Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
         VII.

         Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part I.

     Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His March And
     Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil Administration Of Julian.

         Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part II.

         Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part III.

         Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part IV.

         Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part I.

     The Religion Of Julian.—Universal Toleration.—He Attempts To
     Restore And Reform The Pagan Worship—To Rebuild The Temple Of
     Jerusalem—His Artful Persecution Of The Christians.—Mutual Zeal
     And Injustice.

         Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part II.

         Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part III.

         Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part IV.

         Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part V.

         Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part I.

     Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition Against
     The Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat And Death Of
     Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The Roman Army By A
     Disgraceful Treaty.

         Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part II.

         Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part III.

         Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part IV.

         Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part V.

         Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
         Empire.—Part I.

     The Government And Death Of Jovian.—Election Of Valentinian, Who
     Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The
     Eastern And Western Empires.— Revolt Of Procopius.—Civil And
     Ecclesiastical Administration.—Germany.—Britain.—Africa.—The
     East.— The Danube.—Death Of Valentinian.—His Two Sons, Gratian And
     Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.

         Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
         Empire.—Part II.

         Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
         Empire.—Part III.

         Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
         Empire.—Part IV.

         Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
         Empire.—Part V.

         Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
         Empire.—Part VI.

         Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
         Empire.—Part VII.

         Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part I.

     Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.—Progress Of The Huns, From China
     To Europe.—Flight Of The Goths.—They Pass The Danube.—Gothic
     War.—Defeat And Death Of Valens.—Gratian Invests Theodosius With
     The Eastern Empire.—His Character And Success.—Peace And
     Settlement Of The Goths.

         Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part II.

         Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part III.

         Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part IV.

         Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part V.

      VOLUME TWO




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.—Part I.

     The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From
     The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine. 1111


      1111 (return) [ The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering
      as a very ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful
      extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates
      against the Christians. It is written in the most contemptibly
      factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers; it is
      unworthy of a philosopher and of humanity. Let the narrative of
      Cyprian’s death be examined. He had to relate the murder of an
      innocent man of advanced age, and in a station deemed venerable
      by a considerable body of the provincials of Africa, put to death
      because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing
      the indignation of posterity against such an atrocious act of
      tyranny, he dwells, with visible art, on the small circumstances
      of decorum and politeness which attended this murder, and which
      he relates with as much parade as if they were the most important
      particulars of the event. Dr. Robertson has been the subject of
      much blame for his real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish
      murderers and tyrants in America. That the sixteenth chapter of
      Mr. G. did not excite the same or greater disapprobation, is a
      proof of the unphilosophical and indeed fanatical animosity
      against Christianity, which was so prevalent during the latter
      part of the eighteenth century.—_Mackintosh:_ see Life, i. p.
      244, 245.]

      If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion,
      the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as
      austere lives of the greater number of those who during the first
      ages embraced the faith of the gospel, we should naturally
      suppose, that so benevolent a doctrine would have been received
      with due reverence, even by the unbelieving world; that the
      learned and the polite, however they may deride the miracles,
      would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect; and that the
      magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an
      order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws,
      though they declined the active cares of war and government. If,
      on the other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of
      Polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the
      people, the incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the
      Roman senate and emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new
      offence the Christians had committed, what new provocation could
      exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new
      motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern
      a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their
      gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their
      subjects, who had chosen for themselves a singular but an
      inoffensive mode of faith and worship.

      The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a
      more stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of
      Christianity. About fourscore years after the death of Christ,
      his innocent disciples were punished with death by the sentence
      of a proconsul of the most amiable and philosophic character, and
      according to the laws of an emperor distinguished by the wisdom
      and justice of his general administration. The apologies which
      were repeatedly addressed to the successors of Trajan are filled
      with the most pathetic complaints, that the Christians, who
      obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty, of conscience,
      were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire, excluded
      from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
      deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and
      from the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme
      power, the governors of the church have been no less diligently
      employed in displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the
      conduct, of their Pagan adversaries. To separate (if it be
      possible) a few authentic as well as interesting facts from an
      undigested mass of fiction and error, and to relate, in a clear
      and rational manner, the causes, the extent, the duration, and
      the most important circumstances of the persecutions to which the
      first Christians were exposed, is the design of the present
      chapter. 1222

      1222 (return) [ The history of the first age of Christianity is
      only found in the Acts of the Apostles, and in order to speak of
      the first persecutions experienced by the Christians, that book
      should naturally have been consulted; those persecutions, then
      limited to individuals and to a narrow sphere, interested only
      the persecuted, and have been related by them alone. Gibbon
      making the persecutions ascend no higher than Nero, has entirely
      omitted those which preceded this epoch, and of which St. Luke
      has preserved the memory. The only way to justify this omission
      was, to attack the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles; for,
      if authentic, they must necessarily be consulted and quoted. Now,
      antiquity has left very few works of which the authenticity is so
      well established as that of the Acts of the Apostles. (See
      Lardner’s Cred. of Gospel Hist. part iii.) It is therefore,
      without sufficient reason, that Gibbon has maintained silence
      concerning the narrative of St. Luke, and this omission is not
      without importance.—G.]

      The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear
      animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are
      seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or
      candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often
      escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are
      placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A
      reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards
      the primitive Christians, which may appear the more specious and
      probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of
      Polytheism. It has already been observed, that the religious
      concord of the world was principally supported by the implicit
      assent and reverence which the nations of antiquity expressed for
      their respective traditions and ceremonies. It might therefore be
      expected, that they would unite with indignation against any sect
      or people which should separate itself from the communion of
      mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of divine
      knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except its own,
      as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by
      mutual indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the
      accustomed tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly
      refused by the Jews, and by them alone, the consideration of the
      treatment which they experienced from the Roman magistrates, will
      serve to explain how far these speculations are justified by
      facts, and will lead us to discover the true causes of the
      persecution of Christianity.

      Without repeating what has already been mentioned of the
      reverence of the Roman princes and governors for the temple of
      Jerusalem, we shall only observe, that the destruction of the
      temple and city was accompanied and followed by every
      circumstance that could exasperate the minds of the conquerors,
      and authorize religious persecution by the most specious
      arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the
      reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a
      fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke
      out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is
      shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they
      committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where
      they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting
      natives; 1 and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation
      which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of
      fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render
      them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but
      of human kind. 2 The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the
      opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an
      idolatrous master; and by the flattering promise which they
      derived from their ancient oracles, that a conquering Messiah
      would soon arise, destined to break their fetters, and to invest
      the favorites of heaven with the empire of the earth. It was by
      announcing himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by
      calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of
      Israel, that the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable army,
      with which he resisted during two years the power of the emperor
      Hadrian. 3

      1 (return) [ In Cyrene, they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus,
      240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy
      victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which
      David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews
      devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails
      like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p.
      1145. * Note: Some commentators, among them Reimar, in his notes
      on Dion Cassius think that the hatred of the Romans against the
      Jews has led the historian to exaggerate the cruelties committed
      by the latter. Don. Cass. lxviii. p. 1146.—G.]

      2 (return) [ Without repeating the well-known narratives of
      Josephus, we may learn from Dion, (l. lxix. p. 1162,) that in
      Hadrian’s war 580,000 Jews were cut off by the sword, besides an
      infinite number which perished by famine, by disease, and by
      fire.]

      3 (return) [ For the sect of the Zealots, see Basnage, Histoire
      des Juifs, l. i. c. 17; for the characters of the Messiah,
      according to the Rabbis, l. v. c. 11, 12, 13; for the actions of
      Barchochebas, l. vii. c. 12. (Hist. of Jews iii. 115, &c.)—M.]

      Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment of
      the Roman princes expired after the victory; nor were their
      apprehensions continued beyond the period of war and danger. By
      the general indulgence of polytheism, and by the mild temper of
      Antoninus Pius, the Jews were restored to their ancient
      privileges, and once more obtained the permission of circumcising
      their children, with the easy restraint, that they should never
      confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing mark of the
      Hebrew race. 4 The numerous remains of that people, though they
      were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were
      permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments
      both in Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of
      Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time
      an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of
      society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a
      legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was
      instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed
      his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his
      subordinate ministers and apostles, to exercise a domestic
      jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed brethren an
      annual contribution. 5 New synagogues were frequently erected in
      the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts,
      and the festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law,
      or enjoined by the traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in
      the most solemn and public manner. 6 Such gentle treatment
      insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews. Awakened from
      their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behavior
      of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable
      hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and
      violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifications. They
      embraced every opportunity of overreaching the idolaters in
      trade; and they pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations
      against the haughty kingdom of Edom. 7

      4 (return) [ It is to Modestinus, a Roman lawyer (l. vi.
      regular.) that we are indebted for a distinct knowledge of the
      Edict of Antoninus. See Casaubon ad Hist. August. p. 27.]

      5 (return) [ See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. iii. c. 2, 3.
      The office of Patriarch was suppressed by Theodosius the
      younger.]

      6 (return) [ We need only mention the Purim, or deliverance of
      the Jews from he rage of Haman, which, till the reign of
      Theodosius, was celebrated with insolent triumph and riotous
      intemperance. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 17, l. viii. c.
      6.]

      7 (return) [ According to the false Josephus, Tsepho, the
      grandson of Esau, conducted into Italy the army of Eneas, king of
      Carthage. Another colony of Idumæans, flying from the sword of
      David, took refuge in the dominions of Romulus. For these, or for
      other reasons of equal weight, the name of Edom was applied by
      the Jews to the Roman empire. * Note: The false Josephus is a
      romancer of very modern date, though some of these legends are
      probably more ancient. It may be worth considering whether many
      of the stories in the Talmud are not history in a figurative
      disguise, adopted from prudence. The Jews might dare to say many
      things of Rome, under the significant appellation of Edom, which
      they feared to utter publicly. Later and more ignorant ages took
      literally, and perhaps embellished, what was intelligible among
      the generation to which it was addressed. Hist. of Jews, iii.
      131. ——The false Josephus has the inauguration of the emperor,
      with the seven electors and apparently the pope assisting at the
      coronation! Pref. page xxvi.—M.]

      Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored
      by their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed,
      however, the free exercise of their unsocial religion, there must
      have existed some other cause, which exposed the disciples of
      Christ to those severities from which the posterity of Abraham
      was exempt. The difference between them is simple and obvious;
      but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the
      highest importance. The Jews were a _nation;_ the Christians were
      a _sect:_ and if it was natural for every community to respect
      the sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on
      them to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of
      oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the
      laws, unanimously enforced this national obligation. By their
      lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the
      Polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure race. By
      disdaining the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve
      their contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the most part
      frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during
      many ages by a large society, his followers were justified by the
      example of mankind; and it was universally acknowledged, that
      they had a right to practise what it would have been criminal in
      them to neglect. But this principle, which protected the Jewish
      synagogue, afforded not any favor or security to the primitive
      church. By embracing the faith of the gospel, the Christians
      incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable
      offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education,
      violated the religious institutions of their country, and
      presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as
      true, or had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we
      may use the expression) merely of a partial or local kind; since
      the pious deserter who withdrew himself from the temples of Egypt
      or Syria, would equally disdain to seek an asylum in those of
      Athens or Carthage. Every Christian rejected with contempt the
      superstitions of his family, his city, and his province. The
      whole body of Christians unanimously refused to hold any
      communion with the gods of Rome, of the empire, and of mankind.
      It was in vain that the oppressed believer asserted the
      inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though his
      situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach
      the understanding, either of the philosophic or of the believing
      part of the Pagan world. To their apprehensions, it was no less a
      matter of surprise, that any individuals should entertain
      scruples against complying with the established mode of worship,
      than if they had conceived a sudden abhorrence to the manners,
      the dress, 8111 or the language of their native country. 8

      8 (return) [ From the arguments of Celsus, as they are
      represented and refuted by Origen, (l. v. p. 247—259,) we may
      clearly discover the distinction that was made between the Jewish
      _people_ and the Christian _sect_. See, in the Dialogue of
      Minucius Felix, (c. 5, 6,) a fair and not inelegant description
      of the popular sentiments, with regard to the desertion of the
      established worship.]

      8111 (return) [ In all this there is doubtless much truth; yet
      does not the more important difference lie on the surface? The
      Christians made many converts the Jews but few. Had the Jewish
      been equally a proselyting religion would it not have encountered
      as violent persecution?—M.]

      The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment; and
      the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous
      imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in
      representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the
      most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire,
      had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate.
      They had separated themselves (they gloried in the confession)
      from every mode of superstition which was received in any part of
      the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it was not
      altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they
      had substituted to the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure
      and sublime idea which they entertained of the Supreme Being
      escaped the gross conception of the Pagan multitude, who were at
      a loss to discover a spiritual and solitary God, that was neither
      represented under any corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor was
      adored with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of
      altars and sacrifices. 9 The sages of Greece and Rome, who had
      elevated their minds to the contemplation of the existence and
      attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason or by
      vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen disciples the
      privilege of this philosophical devotion. 10 They were far from
      admitting the prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but
      they considered them as flowing from the original disposition of
      human nature; and they supposed that any popular mode of faith
      and worship which presumed to disclaim the assistance of the
      senses, would, in proportion as it receded from superstition,
      find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of the fancy,
      and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which men of
      wit and learning condescended to cast on the Christian
      revelation, served only to confirm their hasty opinion, and to
      persuade them that the principle, which they might have revered,
      of the Divine Unity, was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and
      annihilated by the airy speculations, of the new sectaries. The
      author of a celebrated dialogue, which has been attributed to
      Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of the
      Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt, betrays his own
      ignorance of the weakness of human reason, and of the inscrutable
      nature of the divine perfections. 11

      9 (return) [ Cur nullas aras habent? templa nulla? nulla nota
      simulacra!—Unde autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus,
      solitarius, desti tutus? Minucius Felix, c. 10. The Pagan
      interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favor of the Jews,
      who had once a temple, altars, victims, &c.]

      10 (return) [ It is difficult (says Plato) to attain, and
      dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God. See the
      Theologie des Philosophes, in the Abbé d’Olivet’s French
      translation of Tully de Naturâ Deorum, tom. i. p. 275.]

      11 (return) [ The author of the Philopatris perpetually treats
      the Christians as a company of dreaming enthusiasts, &c.; and in
      one place he manifestly alludes to the vision in which St. Paul
      was transported to the third heaven. In another place, Triephon,
      who personates a Christian, after deriding the gods of Paganism,
      proposes a mysterious oath.]

      It might appear less surprising, that the founder of Christianity
      should not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a
      prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. The Polytheists
      were disposed to adopt every article of faith, which seemed to
      offer any resemblance, however distant or imperfect, with the
      popular mythology; and the legends of Bacchus, of Hercules, and
      of Æsculapius, had, in some measure, prepared their imagination
      for the appearance of the Son of God under a human form. 12 But
      they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the
      temples of those ancient heroes, who, in the infancy of the
      world, had invented arts, instituted laws, and vanquished the
      tyrants or monsters who infested the earth, in order to choose
      for the exclusive object of their religious worship an obscure
      teacher, who, in a recent age, and among a barbarous people, had
      fallen a sacrifice either to the malice of his own countrymen, or
      to the jealousy of the Roman government. The Pagan multitude,
      reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone, rejected
      the inestimable present of life and immortality, which was
      offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth. His mild constancy in
      the midst of cruel and voluntary sufferings, his universal
      benevolence, and the sublime simplicity of his actions and
      character, were insufficient, in the opinion of those carnal men,
      to compensate for the want of fame, of empire, and of success;
      and whilst they refused to acknowledge his stupendous triumph
      over the powers of darkness and of the grave, they
      misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal birth, wandering
      life, and ignominious death, of the divine Author of
      Christianity. 13

      12 (return) [ According to Justin Martyr, (Apolog. Major, c.
      70-85,) the dæmon who had gained some imperfect knowledge of the
      prophecies, purposely contrived this resemblance, which might
      deter, though by different means, both the people and the
      philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ.]

      13 (return) [ In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus
      treats the birth and character of our Savior with the most
      impious contempt. The orator Libanius praises Porphyry and Julian
      for confuting the folly of a sect., which styles a dead man of
      Palestine, God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast.
      iii. 23.]

      The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus
      preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was
      aggravated in a very high degree by the number and union of the
      criminals. It is well known, and has been already observed, that
      Roman policy viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any
      association among its subjects; and that the privileges of
      private corporations, though formed for the most harmless or
      beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand. 14
      The religious assemblies of the Christians who had separated
      themselves from the public worship, appeared of a much less
      innocent nature; they were illegal in their principle, and in
      their consequences might become dangerous; nor were the emperors
      conscious that they violated the laws of justice, when, for the
      peace of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes
      nocturnal meetings. 15 The pious disobedience of the Christians
      made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much
      more serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might
      perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready
      submission, deeming their honor concerned in the execution of
      their commands, sometimes attempted, by rigorous punishments, to
      subdue this independent spirit, which boldly acknowledged an
      authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent and
      duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it
      everyday more deserving of his animadversion. We have already
      seen that the active and successful zeal of the Christians had
      insensibly diffused them through every province and almost every
      city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce their
      family and country, that they might connect themselves in an
      indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which every
      where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind.
      Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common
      business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of
      impending calamities, 16 inspired the Pagans with the
      apprehension of some danger, which would arise from the new sect,
      the more alarming as it was the more obscure. “Whatever,” says
      Pliny, “may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible
      obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment.” 17

      14 (return) [ The emperor Trajan refused to incorporate a company
      of 150 firemen, for the use of the city of Nicomedia. He disliked
      all associations. See Plin. Epist. x. 42, 43.]

      15 (return) [ The proconsul Pliny had published a general edict
      against unlawful meetings. The prudence of the Christians
      suspended their Agapæ; but it was impossible for them to omit the
      exercise of public worship.]

      16 (return) [ As the prophecies of the Antichrist, approaching
      conflagration, &c., provoked those Pagans whom they did not
      convert, they were mentioned with caution and reserve; and the
      Montanists were censured for disclosing too freely the dangerous
      secret. See Mosheim, 413.]

      17 (return) [ Neque enim dubitabam, quodcunque esset quod
      faterentur, (such are the words of Pliny,) pervicacian certe et
      inflexibilem obstinationem lebere puniri.]

      The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the
      offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity;
      but they were continued from choice. By imitating the awful
      secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians
      had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred
      institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world. 18
      But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtile
      policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was
      concluded, that they only concealed what they would have blushed
      to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity for
      malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to believe, the
      horrid tales which described the Christians as the most wicked of
      human kind, who practised in their dark recesses every
      abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who
      solicited the favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of
      every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or
      to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was
      asserted, “that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with
      flour, was presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to
      the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a
      secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that
      as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up
      the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and
      pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness
      of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman
      sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which
      intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the
      appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame
      was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might
      direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous
      commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers.” 19

      18 (return) [ See Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p.
      101, and Spanheim, Remarques sur les Cæsars de Julien, p. 468,
      &c.]

      19 (return) [ See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35, ii. 14.
      Athenagoras, in Legation, c. 27. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 7, 8, 9.
      Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10, 80, 31. The last of these writers
      relates the accusation in the most elegant and circumstantial
      manner. The answer of Tertullian is the boldest and most
      vigorous.]

      But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to remove
      even the slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid adversary.
      The Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal
      from the voice of rumor to the equity of the magistrates. They
      acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced of the crimes
      which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy of the most
      severe punishment. They provoke the punishment, and they
      challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal truth
      and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of probability,
      than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any one can
      seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel,
      which so frequently restrain the use of the most lawful
      enjoyments, should inculcate the practice of the most abominable
      crimes; that a large society should resolve to dishonor itself in
      the eyes of its own members; and that a great number of persons
      of either sex, and every age and character, insensible to the
      fear of death or infamy, should consent to violate those
      principles which nature and education had imprinted most deeply
      in their minds. 20 Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the
      force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification,
      unless it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists
      themselves, who betrayed the common cause of religion, to gratify
      their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the church. It was
      sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that
      the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals,
      which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in
      reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and
      by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they
      might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by
      the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of
      Christianity. 21 Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon
      the church by the schismatics who had departed from its
      communion, 22 and it was confessed on all sides, that the most
      scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among great
      numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A Pagan
      magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abilities to
      discern the almost imperceptible line which divides the orthodox
      faith from heretical pravity, might easily have imagined that
      their mutual animosity had extorted the discovery of their common
      guilt. It was fortunate for the repose, or at least for the
      reputation, of the first Christians, that the magistrates
      sometimes proceeded with more temper and moderation than is
      usually consistent with religious zeal, and that they reported,
      as the impartial result of their judicial inquiry, that the
      sectaries, who had deserted the established worship, appeared to
      them sincere in their professions, and blameless in their
      manners; however they might incur, by their absurd and excessive
      superstition, the censure of the laws. 23

      20 (return) [ In the persecution of Lyons, some Gentile slaves
      were compelled, by the fear of tortures, to accuse their
      Christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to their brethren
      of Asia, treat the horrid charge with proper indignation and
      contempt. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. i.]

      21 (return) [ See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35. Irenæus adv.
      Hæres. i. 24. Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. l. iii. p. 438.
      Euseb. iv. 8. It would be tedious and disgusting to relate all
      that the succeeding writers have imagined, all that Epiphanius
      has received, and all that Tillemont has copied. M. de Beausobre
      (Hist. du Manicheisme, l. ix. c. 8, 9) has exposed, with great
      spirit, the disingenuous arts of Augustin and Pope Leo I.]

      22 (return) [ When Tertullian became a Montanist, he aspersed the
      morals of the church which he had so resolutely defended. “Sed
      majoris est Agape, quia per hanc adolescentes tui cum sororibus
      dormiunt, appendices scilicet gulæ lascivia et luxuria.” De
      Jejuniis c. 17. The 85th canon of the council of Illiberis
      provides against the scandals which too often polluted the vigils
      of the church, and disgraced the Christian name in the eyes of
      unbelievers.]

      23 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 2) expatiates on the fair
      and honorable testimony of Pliny, with much reason and some
      declamation.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.—Part II.


      History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past,
      for the instruction of future ages, would ill deserve that
      honorable office, if she condescended to plead the cause of
      tyrants, or to justify the maxims of persecution. It must,
      however, be acknowledged, that the conduct of the emperors who
      appeared the least favorable to the primitive church, is by no
      means so criminal as that of modern sovereigns, who have employed
      the arm of violence and terror against the religious opinions of
      any part of their subjects. From their reflections, or even from
      their own feelings, a Charles V. or a Lewis XIV. might have
      acquired a just knowledge of the rights of conscience, of the
      obligation of faith, and of the innocence of error. But the
      princes and magistrates of ancient Rome were strangers to those
      principles which inspired and authorized the inflexible obstinacy
      of the Christians in the cause of truth, nor could they
      themselves discover in their own breasts any motive which would
      have prompted them to refuse a legal, and as it were a natural,
      submission to the sacred institutions of their country. The same
      reason which contributes to alleviate the guilt, must have tended
      to abate the vigor, of their persecutions. As they were actuated,
      not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by the temperate policy of
      legislators, contempt must often have relaxed, and humanity must
      frequently have suspended, the execution of those laws which they
      enacted against the humble and obscure followers of Christ. From
      the general view of their character and motives we might
      naturally conclude: I. That a considerable time elapsed before
      they considered the new sectaries as an object deserving of the
      attention of government. II. That in the conviction of any of
      their subjects who were accused of so very singular a crime, they
      proceeded with caution and reluctance. III. That they were
      moderate in the use of punishments; and, IV. That the afflicted
      church enjoyed many intervals of peace and tranquility.
      Notwithstanding the careless indifference which the most copious
      and the most minute of the Pagan writers have shown to the
      affairs of the Christians, 24 it may still be in our power to
      confirm each of these probable suppositions, by the evidence of
      authentic facts.

      24 (return) [ In the various compilation of the Augustan History,
      (a part of which was composed under the reign of Constantine,)
      there are not six lines which relate to the Christians; nor has
      the diligence of Xiphilin discovered their name in the large
      history of Dion Cassius. * Note: The greater part of the Augustan
      History is dedicated to Diocletian. This may account for the
      silence of its authors concerning Christianity. The notices that
      occur are almost all in the lives composed under the reign of
      Constantine. It may fairly be concluded, from the language which
      he had into the mouth of Mæcenas, that Dion was an enemy to all
      innovations in religion. (See Gibbon, _infra_, note 105.) In
      fact, when the silence of Pagan historians is noticed, it should
      be remembered how meagre and mutilated are all the extant
      histories of the period—M.]

      1. By the wise dispensation of Providence, a mysterious veil was
      cast over the infancy of the church, which, till the faith of the
      Christians was matured, and their numbers were multiplied, served
      to protect them not only from the malice but even from the
      knowledge of the Pagan world. The slow and gradual abolition of
      the Mosaic ceremonies afforded a safe and innocent disguise to
      the more early proselytes of the gospel. As they were, for the
      greater part, of the race of Abraham, they were distinguished by
      the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their devotions in
      the Temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and received
      both the Law and the Prophets as the genuine inspirations of the
      Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a spiritual adoption had been
      associated to the hope of Israel, were likewise confounded under
      the garb and appearance of Jews, 25 and as the Polytheists paid
      less regard to articles of faith than to the external worship,
      the new sect, which carefully concealed, or faintly announced,
      its future greatness and ambition, was permitted to shelter
      itself under the general toleration which was granted to an
      ancient and celebrated people in the Roman empire. It was not
      long, perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated with a
      fiercer zeal and a more jealous faith, perceived the gradual
      separation of their Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the
      synagogue; and they would gladly have extinguished the dangerous
      heresy in the blood of its adherents. But the decrees of Heaven
      had already disarmed their malice; and though they might
      sometimes exert the licentious privilege of sedition, they no
      longer possessed the administration of criminal justice; nor did
      they find it easy to infuse into the calm breast of a Roman
      magistrate the rancor of their own zeal and prejudice. The
      provincial governors declared themselves ready to listen to any
      accusation that might affect the public safety; but as soon as
      they were informed that it was a question not of facts but of
      words, a dispute relating only to the interpretation of the
      Jewish laws and prophecies, they deemed it unworthy of the
      majesty of Rome seriously to discuss the obscure differences
      which might arise among a barbarous and superstitious people. The
      innocence of the first Christians was protected by ignorance and
      contempt; and the tribunal of the Pagan magistrate often proved
      their most assured refuge against the fury of the synagogue. 26
      If indeed we were disposed to adopt the traditions of a too
      credulous antiquity, we might relate the distant peregrinations,
      the wonderful achievements, and the various deaths of the twelve
      apostles: but a more accurate inquiry will induce us to doubt,
      whether any of those persons who had been witnesses to the
      miracles of Christ were permitted, beyond the limits of
      Palestine, to seal with their blood the truth of their testimony.
      27 From the ordinary term of human life, it may very naturally be
      presumed that most of them were deceased before the discontent of
      the Jews broke out into that furious war, which was terminated
      only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a long period, from the
      death of Christ to that memorable rebellion, we cannot discover
      any traces of Roman intolerance, unless they are to be found in
      the sudden, the transient, but the cruel persecution, which was
      exercised by Nero against the Christians of the capital,
      thirty-five years after the former, and only two years before the
      latter, of those great events. The character of the philosophic
      historian, to whom we are principally indebted for the knowledge
      of this singular transaction, would alone be sufficient to
      recommend it to our most attentive consideration.

      25 (return) [ An obscure passage of Suetonius (in Claud. c. 25)
      may seem to offer a proof how strangely the Jews and Christians
      of Rome were confounded with each other.]

      26 (return) [ See, in the xviiith and xxvth chapters of the Acts
      of the Apostles, the behavior of Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and
      of Festus, procurator of Judea.]

      27 (return) [ In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of
      Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom was confined to St. Peter, St.
      Paul, and St. James. It was gradually bestowed on the rest of the
      apostles, by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected for
      the theatre of their preaching and sufferings some remote country
      beyond the limits of the Roman empire. See Mosheim, p. 81; and
      Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. i. part iii.]

      In the tenth year of the reign of Nero, the capital of the empire
      was afflicted by a fire which raged beyond the memory or example
      of former ages. 28 The monuments of Grecian art and of Roman
      virtue, the trophies of the Punic and Gallic wars, the most holy
      temples, and the most splendid palaces, were involved in one
      common destruction. Of the fourteen regions or quarters into
      which Rome was divided, four only subsisted entire, three were
      levelled with the ground, and the remaining seven, which had
      experienced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy
      prospect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government
      appears not to have neglected any of the precautions which might
      alleviate the sense of so dreadful a calamity. The Imperial
      gardens were thrown open to the distressed multitude, temporary
      buildings were erected for their accommodation, and a plentiful
      supply of corn and provisions was distributed at a very moderate
      price. 29 The most generous policy seemed to have dictated the
      edicts which regulated the disposition of the streets and the
      construction of private houses; and as it usually happens, in an
      age of prosperity, the conflagration of Rome, in the course of a
      few years, produced a new city, more regular and more beautiful
      than the former. But all the prudence and humanity affected by
      Nero on this occasion were insufficient to preserve him from the
      popular suspicion. Every crime might be imputed to the assassin
      of his wife and mother; nor could the prince who prostituted his
      person and dignity on the theatre be deemed incapable of the most
      extravagant folly. The voice of rumor accused the emperor as the
      incendiary of his own capital; and as the most incredible stories
      are the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was
      gravely reported, and firmly believed, that Nero, enjoying the
      calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with singing to
      his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. 30 To divert a
      suspicion, which the power of despotism was unable to suppress,
      the emperor resolved to substitute in his own place some
      fictitious criminals. “With this view,” continues Tacitus, “he
      inflicted the most exquisite tortures on those men, who, under
      the vulgar appellation of Christians, were already branded with
      deserved infamy. They derived their name and origin from Christ,
      who in the reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence
      of the procurator Pontius Pilate. 31 For a while this dire
      superstition was checked; but it again burst forth; 3111 and not
      only spread itself over Judæa, the first seat of this mischievous
      sect, but was even introduced into Rome, the common asylum which
      receives and protects whatever is impure, whatever is atrocious.
      The confessions of those who were seized discovered a great
      multitude of their accomplices, and they were all convicted, not
      so much for the crime of setting fire to the city, as for their
      hatred of human kind. 32 They died in torments, and their
      torments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed
      on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and
      exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with
      combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the
      darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the
      melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and
      honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the
      populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. The guilt of
      the Christians deserved indeed the most exemplary punishment, but
      the public abhorrence was changed into commiseration, from the
      opinion that those unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much
      to the public welfare, as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant.” 33
      Those who survey with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind,
      may observe, that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican,
      which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have
      been rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse
      of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, 34 a temple, which
      far surpasses the ancient glories of the Capitol, has been since
      erected by the Christian Pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of
      universal dominion from an humble fisherman of Galilee, have
      succeeded to the throne of the Cæsars, given laws to the
      barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended their spiritual
      jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the
      Pacific Ocean.

      28 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xv. 38—44. Sueton in Neron. c. 38.
      Dion Cassius, l. lxii. p. 1014. Orosius, vii. 7.]

      29 (return) [ The price of wheat (probably of the _modius_,) was
      reduced as low as _terni Nummi;_ which would be equivalent to
      about fifteen shillings the English quarter.]

      30 (return) [ We may observe, that the rumor is mentioned by
      Tacitus with a very becoming distrust and hesitation, whilst it
      is greedily transcribed by Suetonius, and solemnly confirmed by
      Dion.]

      31 (return) [ This testimony is alone sufficient to expose the
      anachronism of the Jews, who place the birth of Christ near a
      century sooner. (Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. v. c. 14, 15.)
      We may learn from Josephus, (Antiquitat. xviii. 3,) that the
      procuratorship of Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of
      Tiberius, A. D. 27—37. As to the particular time of the death of
      Christ, a very early tradition fixed it to the 25th of March, A.
      D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini. (Tertullian adv.
      Judæos, c. 8.) This date, which is adopted by Pagi, Cardinal
      Norris, and Le Clerc, seems at least as probable as the vulgar
      æra, which is placed (I know not from what conjectures) four
      years later.]

      3111 (return) [ This single phrase, Repressa in præsens
      exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat, proves that the
      Christians had already attracted the attention of the government;
      and that Nero was not the first to persecute them. I am surprised
      that more stress has not been laid on the confirmation which the
      Acts of the Apostles derive from these words of Tacitus, Repressa
      in præsens, and rursus erumpebat.—G. ——I have been unwilling to
      suppress this note, but surely the expression of Tacitus refers
      to the expected extirpation of the religion by the death of its
      founder, Christ.—M.]

      32 (return) [ _Odio humani generis convicti_. These words may
      either signify the hatred of mankind towards the Christians, or
      the hatred of the Christians towards mankind. I have preferred
      the latter sense, as the most agreeable to the style of Tacitus,
      and to the popular error, of which a precept of the gospel (see
      Luke xiv. 26) had been, perhaps, the innocent occasion. My
      interpretation is justified by the authority of Lipsius; of the
      Italian, the French, and the English translators of Tacitus; of
      Mosheim, (p. 102,) of Le Clerc, (Historia Ecclesiast. p. 427,) of
      Dr. Lardner, (Testimonies, vol. i. p. 345,) and of the Bishop of
      Gloucester, (Divine Legation, vol. iii. p. 38.) But as the word
      _convicti_ does not unite very happily with the rest of the
      sentence, James Gronovius has preferred the reading of
      _conjuncti_, which is authorized by the valuable MS. of
      Florence.]

      33 (return) [ Tacit. Annal xv. 44.]

      34 (return) [ Nardini Roma Antica, p. 487. Donatus de Roma
      Antiqua, l. iii. p. 449.]

      But it would be improper to dismiss this account of Nero’s
      persecution, till we have made some observations that may serve
      to remove the difficulties with which it is perplexed, and to
      throw some light on the subsequent history of the church.

      1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth
      of this extraordinary fact, and the integrity of this celebrated
      passage of Tacitus. The former is confirmed by the diligent and
      accurate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment which Nero
      inflicted on the Christians, a sect of men who had embraced a new
      and criminal superstition. 35 The latter may be proved by the
      consent of the most ancient manuscripts; by the inimitable
      character of the style of Tacitus by his reputation, which
      guarded his text from the interpolations of pious fraud; and by
      the purport of his narration, which accused the first Christians
      of the most atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they
      possessed any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of
      mankind. 36 2. Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus was
      born some years before the fire of Rome, 37 he could derive only
      from reading and conversation the knowledge of an event which
      happened during his infancy. Before he gave himself to the
      public, he calmly waited till his genius had attained its full
      maturity, and he was more than forty years of age, when a
      grateful regard for the memory of the virtuous Agricola extorted
      from him the most early of those historical compositions which
      will delight and instruct the most distant posterity. After
      making a trial of his strength in the life of Agricola and the
      description of Germany, he conceived, and at length executed, a
      more arduous work; the history of Rome, in thirty books, from the
      fall of Nero to the accession of Nerva. The administration of
      Nerva introduced an age of justice and propriety, which Tacitus
      had destined for the occupation of his old age; 38 but when he
      took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that it was
      a more honorable or a less invidious office to record the vices
      of past tyrants, than to celebrate the virtues of a reigning
      monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form of annals, the
      actions of the four immediate successors of Augustus. To collect,
      to dispose, and to adorn a series of fourscore years, in an
      immortal work, every sentence of which is pregnant with the
      deepest observations and the most lively images, was an
      undertaking sufficient to exercise the genius of Tacitus himself
      during the greatest part of his life. In the last years of the
      reign of Trajan, whilst the victorious monarch extended the power
      of Rome beyond its ancient limits, the historian was describing,
      in the second and fourth books of his annals, the tyranny of
      Tiberius; 39 and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to the
      throne, before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his work,
      could relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty of Nero
      towards the unfortunate Christians. At the distance of sixty
      years, it was the duty of the annalist to adopt the narratives of
      contemporaries; but it was natural for the philosopher to indulge
      himself in the description of the origin, the progress, and the
      character of the new sect, not so much according to the knowledge
      or prejudices of the age of Nero, as according to those of the
      time of Hadrian. 3 Tacitus very frequently trusts to the
      curiosity or reflection of his readers to supply those
      intermediate circumstances and ideas, which, in his extreme
      conciseness, he has thought proper to suppress. We may therefore
      presume to imagine some probable cause which could direct the
      cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose obscurity,
      as well as innocence, should have shielded them from his
      indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, who were
      numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their own country, were
      a much fitter object for the suspicions of the emperor and of the
      people: nor did it seem unlikely that a vanquished nation, who
      already discovered their abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have
      recourse to the most atrocious means of gratifying their
      implacable revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful
      advocates in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant; his
      wife and mistress, the beautiful Poppæa, and a favorite player of
      the race of Abraham, who had already employed their intercession
      in behalf of the obnoxious people. 40 In their room it was
      necessary to offer some other victims, and it might easily be
      suggested that, although the genuine followers of Moses were
      innocent of the fire of Rome, there had arisen among them a new
      and pernicious sect of Galilæans, which was capable of the most
      horrid crimes. Under the appellation of Galilæans, two
      distinctions of men were confounded, the most opposite to each
      other in their manners and principles; the disciples who had
      embraced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth, 41 and the zealots who
      had followed the standard of Judas the Gaulonite. 42 The former
      were the friends, the latter were the enemies, of human kind; and
      the only resemblance between them consisted in the same
      inflexible constancy, which, in the defence of their cause,
      rendered them insensible of death and tortures. The followers of
      Judas, who impelled their countrymen into rebellion, were soon
      buried under the ruins of Jerusalem; whilst those of Jesus, known
      by the more celebrated name of Christians, diffused themselves
      over the Roman empire. How natural was it for Tacitus, in the
      time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the Christians the guilt and
      the sufferings, 4211 which he might, with far greater truth and
      justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory was almost
      extinguished! 4. Whatever opinion may be entertained of this
      conjecture, (for it is no more than a conjecture,) it is evident
      that the effect, as well as the cause, of Nero’s persecution, was
      confined to the walls of Rome, 43 that the religious tenets of
      the Galilæans or Christians, 431 were never made a subject of
      punishment, or even of inquiry; and that, as the idea of their
      sufferings was for a long time connected with the idea of cruelty
      and injustice, the moderation of succeeding princes inclined them
      to spare a sect, oppressed by a tyrant, whose rage had been
      usually directed against virtue and innocence.

      35 (return) [ Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16. The epithet of
      _malefica_, which some sagacious commentators have translated
      magical, is considered by the more rational Mosheim as only
      synonymous to the _exitiabilis_ of Tacitus.]

      36 (return) [ The passage concerning Jesus Christ, which was
      inserted into the text of Josephus, between the time of Origen
      and that of Eusebius, may furnish an example of no vulgar
      forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the virtues,
      miracles, and resurrection of Jesus, are distinctly related.
      Josephus acknowledges that he was the Messiah, and hesitates
      whether he should call him a man. If any doubt can still remain
      concerning this celebrated passage, the reader may examine the
      pointed objections of Le Fevre, (Havercamp. Joseph. tom. ii. p.
      267-273), the labored answers of Daubuz, (p. 187-232, and the
      masterly reply (Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. vii. p.
      237-288) of an anonymous critic, whom I believe to have been the
      learned Abbé de Longuerue. * Note: The modern editor of Eusebius,
      Heinichen, has adopted, and ably supported, a notion, which had
      before suggested itself to the editor, that this passage is not
      altogether a forgery, but interpolated with many additional
      clauses. Heinichen has endeavored to disengage the original text
      from the foreign and more recent matter.—M.]

      37 (return) [ See the lives of Tacitus by Lipsius and the Abbé de
      la Bleterie, Dictionnaire de Bayle a l’article Particle Tacite,
      and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin tem. Latin. tom. ii. p. 386, edit.
      Ernest. Ernst.]

      38 (return) [ Principatum Divi Nervæ, et imperium Trajani,
      uberiorem, securioremque materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit. Hist.
      i.]

      39 (return) [ See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61, iv. 4. * Note: The
      perusal of this passage of Tacitus alone is sufficient, as I have
      already said, to show that the Christian sect was not so obscure
      as not already to have been repressed, (repressa,) and that it
      did not pass for innocent in the eyes of the Romans.—G.]

      40 (return) [ The player’s name was Aliturus. Through the same
      channel, Josephus, (de vitâ suâ, c. 2,) about two years before,
      had obtained the pardon and release of some Jewish priests, who
      were prisoners at Rome.]

      41 (return) [ The learned Dr. Lardner (Jewish and Heathen
      Testimonies, vol ii. p. 102, 103) has proved that the name of
      Galilæans was a very ancient, and perhaps the primitive
      appellation of the Christians.]

      42 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine
      des Juifs, p. 742 The sons of Judas were crucified in the time of
      Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after Jerusalem was taken,
      defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most desperate
      followers. When the battering ram had made a breach, they turned
      their swords against their wives their children, and at length
      against their own breasts. They dies to the last man.]

      4211 (return) [ This conjecture is entirely devoid, not merely of
      verisimilitude, but even of possibility. Tacitus could not be
      deceived in appropriating to the Christians of Rome the guilt and
      the sufferings which he might have attributed with far greater
      truth to the followers of Judas the Gaulonite, for the latter
      never went to Rome. Their revolt, their attempts, their opinions,
      their wars, their punishment, had no other theatre but Judæa
      (Basn. Hist. des. Juifs, t. i. p. 491.) Moreover the name of
      Christians had long been given in Rome to the disciples of Jesus;
      and Tacitus affirms too positively, refers too distinctly to its
      etymology, to allow us to suspect any mistake on his part.—G.
      ——M. Guizot’s expressions are not in the least too strong against
      this strange imagination of Gibbon; it may be doubted whether the
      followers of Judas were known as a sect under the name of
      Galilæans.—M.]

      43 (return) [ See Dodwell. Paucitat. Mart. l. xiii. The Spanish
      Inscription in Gruter. p. 238, No. 9, is a manifest and
      acknowledged forgery contrived by that noted imposter. Cyriacus
      of Ancona, to flatter the pride and prejudices of the Spaniards.
      See Ferreras, Histoire D’Espagne, tom. i. p. 192.]

      431 (return) [ M. Guizot, on the authority of Sulpicius Severus,
      ii. 37, and of Orosius, viii. 5, inclines to the opinion of those
      who extend the persecution to the provinces. Mosheim rather leans
      to that side on this much disputed question, (c. xxxv.) Neander
      takes the view of Gibbon, which is in general that of the most
      learned writers. There is indeed no evidence, which I can
      discover, of its reaching the provinces; and the apparent
      security, at least as regards his life, with which St. Paul
      pursued his travels during this period, affords at least a strong
      inference against a rigid and general inquisition against the
      Christians in other parts of the empire.—M.]

      It is somewhat remarkable that the flames of war consumed, almost
      at the same time, the temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol of
      Rome; 44 and it appears no less singular, that the tribute which
      devotion had destined to the former, should have been converted
      by the power of an assaulting victor to restore and adorn the
      splendor of the latter. 45 The emperors levied a general
      capitation tax on the Jewish people; and although the sum
      assessed on the head of each individual was inconsiderable, the
      use for which it was designed, and the severity with which it was
      exacted, were considered as an intolerable grievance. 46 Since
      the officers of the revenue extended their unjust claim to many
      persons who were strangers to the blood or religion of the Jews,
      it was impossible that the Christians, who had so often sheltered
      themselves under the shade of the synagogue, should now escape
      this rapacious persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the
      slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to
      contribute to the honor of that dæmon who had assumed the
      character of the Capitoline Jupiter. As a very numerous though
      declining party among the Christians still adhered to the law of
      Moses, their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were
      detected by the decisive test of circumcision; 47 nor were the
      Roman magistrates at leisure to inquire into the difference of
      their religious tenets. Among the Christians who were brought
      before the tribunal of the emperor, or, as it seems more
      probable, before that of the procurator of Judæa, two persons are
      said to have appeared, distinguished by their extraction, which
      was more truly noble than that of the greatest monarchs. These
      were the grandsons of St. Jude the apostle, who himself was the
      brother of Jesus Christ. 48 Their natural pretensions to the
      throne of David might perhaps attract the respect of the people,
      and excite the jealousy of the governor; but the meanness of
      their garb, and the simplicity of their answers, soon convinced
      him that they were neither desirous nor capable of disturbing the
      peace of the Roman empire. They frankly confessed their royal
      origin, and their near relation to the Messiah; but they
      disclaimed any temporal views, and professed that his kingdom,
      which they devoutly expected, was purely of a spiritual and
      angelic nature. When they were examined concerning their fortune
      and occupation, they showed their hands, hardened with daily
      labor, and declared that they derived their whole subsistence
      from the cultivation of a farm near the village of Cocaba, of the
      extent of about twenty-four English acres, 49 and of the value of
      nine thousand drachms, or three hundred pounds sterling. The
      grandsons of St. Jude were dismissed with compassion and
      contempt. 50

      44 (return) [ The Capitol was burnt during the civil war between
      Vitellius and Vespasian, the 19th of December, A. D. 69. On the
      10th of August, A. D. 70, the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed
      by the hands of the Jews themselves, rather than by those of the
      Romans.]

      45 (return) [ The new Capitol was dedicated by Domitian. Sueton.
      in Domitian. c. 5. Plutarch in Poplicola, tom. i. p. 230, edit.
      Bryant. The gilding alone cost 12,000 talents (above two millions
      and a half.) It was the opinion of Martial, (l. ix. Epigram 3,)
      that if the emperor had called in his debts, Jupiter himself,
      even though he had made a general auction of Olympus, would have
      been unable to pay two shillings in the pound.]

      46 (return) [ With regard to the tribute, see Dion Cassius, l.
      lxvi. p. 1082, with Reimarus’s notes. Spanheim, de Usu
      Numismatum, tom. ii. p. 571; and Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l.
      vii. c. 2.]

      47 (return) [ Suetonius (in Domitian. c. 12) had seen an old man
      of ninety publicly examined before the procurator’s tribunal.
      This is what Martial calls, Mentula tributis damnata.]

      48 (return) [ This appellation was at first understood in the
      most obvious sense, and it was supposed, that the brothers of
      Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and Mary. A devout respect
      for the virginity of the mother of God suggested to the Gnostics,
      and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expedient of bestowing
      a second wife on Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome)
      improved on that hint, asserted the perpetual celibacy of Joseph,
      and justified by many similar examples the new interpretation
      that Jude, as well as Simon and James, who were styled the
      brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first cousins. See
      Tillemont, Mém. Ecclesiast. tom. i. part iii.: and Beausobre,
      Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, l. ii. c. 2.]

      49 (return) [ Thirty-nine, squares of a hundred feet each, which,
      if strictly computed, would scarcely amount to nine acres.]

      50 (return) [ Eusebius, iii. 20. The story is taken from
      Hegesippus.]

      But although the obscurity of the house of David might protect
      them from the suspicions of a tyrant, the present greatness of
      his own family alarmed the pusillanimous temper of Domitian,
      which could only be appeased by the blood of those Romans whom he
      either feared, or hated, or esteemed. Of the two sons of his
      uncle Flavius Sabinus, 51 the elder was soon convicted of
      treasonable intentions, and the younger, who bore the name of
      Flavius Clemens, was indebted for his safety to his want of
      courage and ability. 52 The emperor for a long time,
      distinguished so harmless a kinsman by his favor and protection,
      bestowed on him his own niece Domitilla, adopted the children of
      that marriage to the hope of the succession, and invested their
      father with the honors of the consulship.

      51 (return) [ See the death and character of Sabinus in Tacitus,
      (Hist. iii. 74 ) Sabinus was the elder brother, and, till the
      accession of Vespasian, had been considered as the principal
      support of the Flavium family]

      52 (return) [ Flavium Clementem patruelem suum _contemptissimæ
      inertiæ_.. ex tenuissimâ suspicione interemit. Sueton. in
      Domitian. c. 15.]

      But he had scarcely finished the term of his annual magistracy,
      when, on a slight pretence, he was condemned and executed;
      Domitilla was banished to a desolate island on the coast of
      Campania; 53 and sentences either of death or of confiscation
      were pronounced against a great number of who were involved in
      the same accusation. The guilt imputed to their charge was that
      of _Atheism_ and _Jewish manners;_ 54 a singular association of
      ideas, which cannot with any propriety be applied except to the
      Christians, as they were obscurely and imperfectly viewed by the
      magistrates and by the writers of that period. On the strength of
      so probable an interpretation, and too eagerly admitting the
      suspicions of a tyrant as an evidence of their honorable crime,
      the church has placed both Clemens and Domitilla among its first
      martyrs, and has branded the cruelty of Domitian with the name of
      the second persecution. But this persecution (if it deserves that
      epithet) was of no long duration. A few months after the death of
      Clemens, and the banishment of Domitilla, Stephen, a freedman
      belonging to the latter, who had enjoyed the favor, but who had
      not surely embraced the faith, of his mistress, 5411 assassinated
      the emperor in his palace. 55 The memory of Domitian was
      condemned by the senate; his acts were rescinded; his exiles
      recalled; and under the gentle administration of Nerva, while the
      innocent were restored to their rank and fortunes, even the most
      guilty either obtained pardon or escaped punishment. 56

      53 (return) [ The Isle of Pandataria, according to Dion. Bruttius
      Præsens (apud Euseb. iii. 18) banishes her to that of Pontia,
      which was not far distant from the other. That difference, and a
      mistake, either of Eusebius or of his transcribers, have given
      occasion to suppose two Domitillas, the wife and the niece of
      Clemens. See Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. ii. p.
      224.]

      54 (return) [ Dion. l. lxvii. p. 1112. If the Bruttius Præsens,
      from whom it is probable that he collected this account, was the
      correspondent of Pliny, (Epistol. vii. 3,) we may consider him as
      a contemporary writer.]

      5411 (return) [ This is an uncandid sarcasm. There is nothing to
      connect Stephen with the religion of Domitilla. He was a knave
      detected in the malversation of money—interceptarum pecuniaram
      reus.—M.]

      55 (return) [ Suet. in Domit. c. 17. Philostratus in Vit.
      Apollon. l. viii.]

      56 (return) [ Dion. l. lxviii. p. 1118. Plin. Epistol. iv. 22.]

      II. About ten years afterwards, under the reign of Trajan, the
      younger Pliny was intrusted by his friend and master with the
      government of Bithynia and Pontus. He soon found himself at a
      loss to determine by what rule of justice or of law he should
      direct his conduct in the execution of an office the most
      repugnant to his humanity. Pliny had never assisted at any
      judicial proceedings against the Christians, with whose name
      alone he seems to be acquainted; and he was totally uninformed
      with regard to the nature of their guilt, the method of their
      conviction, and the degree of their punishment. In this
      perplexity he had recourse to his usual expedient, of submitting
      to the wisdom of Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a
      favorable account of the new superstition, requesting the
      emperor, that he would condescend to resolve his doubts, and to
      instruct his ignorance. 57 The life of Pliny had been employed in
      the acquisition of learning, and in the business of the world.

      Since the age of nineteen he had pleaded with distinction in the
      tribunals of Rome, 58 filled a place in the senate, had been
      invested with the honors of the consulship, and had formed very
      numerous connections with every order of men, both in Italy and
      in the provinces. From _his_ ignorance therefore we may derive
      some useful information. We may assure ourselves, that when he
      accepted the government of Bithynia, there were no general laws
      or decrees of the senate in force against the Christians; that
      neither Trajan nor any of his virtuous predecessors, whose edicts
      were received into the civil and criminal jurisprudence, had
      publicly declared their intentions concerning the new sect; and
      that whatever proceedings had been carried on against the
      Christians, there were none of sufficient weight and authority to
      establish a precedent for the conduct of a Roman magistrate.

      57 (return) [ Plin. Epistol. x. 97. The learned Mosheim expresses
      himself (p. 147, 232) with the highest approbation of Pliny’s
      moderate and candid temper. Notwithstanding Dr. Lardner’s
      suspicions (see Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. p. 46,)
      I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or
      proceedings. * Note: Yet the humane Pliny put two female
      attendants, probably deaconesses to the torture, in order to
      ascertain the real nature of these suspicious meetings:
      necessarium credidi, ex duabus ancillis, quæ ministræ dicebantor
      quid asset veri et _per tormenta_ quærere.—M.]

      58 (return) [ Plin. Epist. v. 8. He pleaded his first cause A. D.
      81; the year after the famous eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, in
      which his uncle lost his life.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.—Part III.


      The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians of the succeeding
      age have frequently appealed, discovers as much regard for
      justice and humanity as could be reconciled with his mistaken
      notions of religious policy. 59 Instead of displaying the
      implacable zeal of an inquisitor, anxious to discover the most
      minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the number of his
      victims, the emperor expresses much more solicitude to protect
      the security of the innocent, than to prevent the escape of the
      guilty. He acknowledged the difficulty of fixing any general
      plan; but he lays down two salutary rules, which often afforded
      relief and support to the distressed Christians. Though he
      directs the magistrates to punish such persons as are legally
      convicted, he prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency,
      from making any inquiries concerning the supposed criminals. Nor
      was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind of
      information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, as too
      repugnant to the equity of his government; and he strictly
      requires, for the conviction of those to whom the guilt of
      Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a fair and open
      accuser. It is likewise probable, that the persons who assumed so
      invidiuous an office, were obliged to declare the grounds of
      their suspicions, to specify (both in respect to time and place)
      the secret assemblies, which their Christian adversary had
      frequented, and to disclose a great number of circumstances,
      which were concealed with the most vigilant jealousy from the eye
      of the profane. If they succeeded in their prosecution, they were
      exposed to the resentment of a considerable and active party, to
      the censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and to the
      ignominy which, in every age and country, has attended the
      character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they failed in
      their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps capital
      penalty, which, according to a law published by the emperor
      Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely attributed to their
      fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. The violence of
      personal or superstitious animosity might sometimes prevail over
      the most natural apprehensions of disgrace and danger but it
      cannot surely be imagined, 60 that accusations of so unpromising
      an appearance were either lightly or frequently undertaken by the
      Pagan subjects of the Roman empire. 6011

      59 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 98. Tertullian (Apolog. c. 5)
      considers this rescript as a relaxation of the ancient penal
      laws, “quas Trajanus exparte frustratus est:” and yet Tertullian,
      in another part of his Apology, exposes the inconsistency of
      prohibiting inquiries, and enjoining punishments.]

      60 (return) [ Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 9) has
      preserved the edict of Hadrian. He has likewise (c. 13) given us
      one still more favorable, under the name of Antoninus; the
      authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The second
      Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to
      the accusations of Christians. * Note: Professor Hegelmayer has
      proved the authenticity of the edict of Antoninus, in his Comm.
      Hist. Theol. in Edict. Imp. Antonini. Tubing. 1777, in 4to.—G.
      ——Neander doubts its authenticity, (vol. i. p. 152.) In my
      opinion, the internal evidence is decisive against it.—M]

      6011 (return) [ The enactment of this law affords strong
      presumption, that accusations of the “crime of Christianity,”
      were by no means so uncommon, nor received with so much mistrust
      and caution by the ruling authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate.
      —M.]

      The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the
      laws, affords a sufficient proof how effectually they
      disappointed the mischievous designs of private malice or
      superstitious zeal. In a large and tumultuous assembly, the
      restraints of fear and shame, so forcible on the minds of
      individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
      influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or
      to escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with
      impatience or with terror, the stated returns of the public games
      and festivals. On those occasions the inhabitants of the great
      cities of the empire were collected in the circus or the theatre,
      where every circumstance of the place, as well as of the
      ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and to extinguish
      their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators, crowned with
      garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood of
      victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their
      tutelar deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of
      pleasures, which they considered as an essential part of their
      religious worship, they recollected, that the Christians alone
      abhorred the gods of mankind, and by their absence and melancholy
      on these solemn festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the
      public felicity. If the empire had been afflicted by any recent
      calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the
      Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the
      earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had
      been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that
      the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by
      the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked
      the divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated
      populace, that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed;
      it was not in an amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild
      beasts and gladiators, that the voice of compassion could be
      heard. The impatient clamors of the multitude denounced the
      Christians as the enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the
      severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name some of the
      most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
      irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended
      and cast to the lions. 61 The provincial governors and
      magistrates who presided in the public spectacles were usually
      inclined to gratify the inclinations, and to appease the rage, of
      the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. But the
      wisdom of the emperors protected the church from the danger of
      these tumultuous clamors and irregular accusations, which they
      justly censured as repugnant both to the firmness and to the
      equity of their administration. The edicts of Hadrian and of
      Antoninus Pius expressly declared, that the voice of the
      multitude should never be admitted as legal evidence to convict
      or to punish those unfortunate persons who had embraced the
      enthusiasm of the Christians. 62

      61 (return) [ See Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 40.) The acts of the
      martyrdom of Polycarp exhibit a lively picture of these tumults,
      which were usually fomented by the malice of the Jews.]

      62 (return) [ These regulations are inserted in the above
      mentioned document of Hadrian and Pius. See the apology of
      Melito, (apud Euseb. l iv 26)]

      III. Punishment was not the inevitable consequence of conviction,
      and the Christians, whose guilt was the most clearly proved by
      the testimony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary
      confession, still retained in their own power the alternative of
      life or death. It was not so much the past offence, as the actual
      resistance, which excited the indignation of the magistrate. He
      was persuaded that he offered them an easy pardon, since, if they
      consented to cast a few grains of incense upon the altar, they
      were dismissed from the tribunal in safety and with applause. It
      was esteemed the duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim,
      rather than to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his
      tone according to the age, the sex, or the situation of the
      prisoners, he frequently condescended to set before their eyes
      every circumstance which could render life more pleasing, or
      death more terrible; and to solicit, nay, to entreat, them, that
      they would show some compassion to themselves, to their families,
      and to their friends. 63 If threats and persuasions proved
      ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence; the scourge and
      the rack were called in to supply the deficiency of argument, and
      every art of cruelty was employed to subdue such inflexible, and,
      as it appeared to the Pagans, such criminal, obstinacy. The
      ancient apologists of Christianity have censured, with equal
      truth and severity, the irregular conduct of their persecutors
      who, contrary to every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted
      the use of torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a
      denial, of the crime which was the object of their inquiry. 64
      The monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful solitudes,
      entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and
      sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented
      torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In
      particular, it has pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the
      Roman magistrates, disdaining every consideration of moral virtue
      or public decency, endeavored to seduce those whom they were
      unable to vanquish, and that by their orders the most brutal
      violence was offered to those whom they found it impossible to
      seduce. It is related, that females, who were prepared to despise
      death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe trial, 6411 and
      called upon to determine whether they set a higher value on their
      religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious
      embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation from
      the judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the
      honor of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn
      incense on her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly
      disappointed, and the seasonable interposition of some miraculous
      power preserved the chaste spouses of Christ from the dishonor
      even of an involuntary defeat. We should not indeed neglect to
      remark, that the more ancient as well as authentic memorials of
      the church are seldom polluted with these extravagant and
      indecent fictions. 65

      63 (return) [ See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of
      Pliny. The most authentic acts of the martyrs abound in these
      exhortations. Note: Pliny’s test was the worship of the gods,
      offerings to the statue of the emperor, and blaspheming
      Christ—præterea maledicerent Christo.—M.]

      64 (return) [ In particular, see Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 2, 3,)
      and Lactantius, (Institut. Divin. v. 9.) Their reasonings are
      almost the same; but we may discover, that one of these
      apologists had been a lawyer, and the other a rhetorician.]

      6411 (return) [ The more ancient as well as authentic memorials
      of the church, relate many examples of the fact, (of these
      _severe trials_,) which there is nothing to contradict.
      Tertullian, among others, says, Nam proxime ad lenonem damnando
      Christianam, potius quam ad leonem, confessi estis labem
      pudicitiæ apud nos atrociorem omni pœna et omni morte reputari,
      Apol. cap. ult. Eusebius likewise says, “Other virgins, dragged
      to brothels, have lost their life rather than defile their
      virtue.” Euseb. Hist. Ecc. viii. 14.—G. The miraculous
      interpositions were the offspring of the coarse imaginations of
      the monks.—M.]

      65 (return) [ See two instances of this kind of torture in the
      Acta Sincere Martyrum, published by Ruinart, p. 160, 399. Jerome,
      in his Legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a strange story of a
      young man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and
      assaulted by a beautiful and wanton courtesan. He quelled the
      rising temptation by biting off his tongue.]

      The total disregard of truth and probability in the
      representation of these primitive martyrdoms was occasioned by a
      very natural mistake. The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or
      fifth centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same
      degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their own
      breasts against the heretics or the idolaters of their own times.

      It is not improbable that some of those persons who were raised
      to the dignities of the empire, might have imbibed the prejudices
      of the populace, and that the cruel disposition of others might
      occasionally be stimulated by motives of avarice or of personal
      resentment. 66 But it is certain, and we may appeal to the
      grateful confessions of the first Christians, that the greatest
      part of those magistrates who exercised in the provinces the
      authority of the emperor, or of the senate, and to whose hands
      alone the jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved
      like men of polished manners and liberal education, who respected
      the rules of justice, and who were conversant with the precepts
      of philosophy. They frequently declined the odious task of
      persecution, dismissed the charge with contempt, or suggested to
      the accused Christian some legal evasion, by which he might elude
      the severity of the laws. 67 Whenever they were invested with a
      discretionary power, 68 they used it much less for the
      oppression, than for the relief and benefit of the afflicted
      church. They were far from condemning all the Christians who were
      accused before their tribunal, and very far from punishing with
      death all those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence to
      the new superstition. Contenting themselves, for the most part,
      with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or slavery
      in the mines, 69 they left the unhappy victims of their justice
      some reason to hope, that a prosperous event, the accession, the
      marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might speedily restore
      them, by a general pardon, to their former state. The martyrs,
      devoted to immediate execution by the Roman magistrates, appear
      to have been selected from the most opposite extremes. They were
      either bishops and presbyters, the persons the most distinguished
      among the Christians by their rank and influence, and whose
      example might strike terror into the whole sect; 70 or else they
      were the meanest and most abject among them, particularly those
      of the servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of little
      value, and whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients with too
      careless an indifference. 71 The learned Origen, who, from his
      experience as well as reading, was intimately acquainted with the
      history of the Christians, declares, in the most express terms,
      that the number of martyrs was very inconsiderable. 72 His
      authority would alone be sufficient to annihilate that formidable
      army of martyrs, whose relics, drawn for the most part from the
      catacombs of Rome, have replenished so many churches, 73 and
      whose marvellous achievements have been the subject of so many
      volumes of Holy Romance. 74 But the general assertion of Origen
      may be explained and confirmed by the particular testimony of his
      friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexandria, and
      under the rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons only ten men
      and seven women who suffered for the profession of the Christian
      name. 75

      66 (return) [ The conversion of his wife provoked Claudius
      Herminianus, governor of Cappadocia, to treat the Christians with
      uncommon severity. Tertullian ad Scapulam, c. 3.]

      67 (return) [ Tertullian, in his epistle to the governor of
      Africa, mentions several remarkable instances of lenity and
      forbearance, which had happened within his knowledge.]

      68 (return) [ Neque enim in universum aliquid quod quasi certam
      formam habeat, constitui potest; an expression of Trajan, which
      gave a very great latitude to the governors of provinces. * Note:
      Gibbon altogether forgets that Trajan fully approved of the
      course pursued by Pliny. That course was, to order all who
      persevered in their faith to be led to execution: perseverantes
      duci jussi.—M.]

      69 (return) [ In Metalla damnamur, in insulas relegamur.
      Tertullian, Apolog. c. 12. The mines of Numidia contained nine
      bishops, with a proportionable number of their clergy and people,
      to whom Cyprian addressed a pious epistle of praise and comfort.
      See Cyprian. Epistol. 76, 77.]

      70 (return) [ Though we cannot receive with entire confidence
      either the epistles, or the acts, of Ignatius, (they may be found
      in the 2d volume of the Apostolic Fathers,) yet we may quote that
      bishop of Antioch as one of these _exemplary_ martyrs. He was
      sent in chains to Rome as a public spectacle, and when he arrived
      at Troas, he received the pleasing intelligence, that the
      persecution of Antioch was already at an end. * Note: The acts of
      Ignatius are generally received as authentic, as are seven of his
      letters. Eusebius and St. Jerome mention them: there are two
      editions; in one, the letters are longer, and many passages
      appear to have been interpolated; the other edition is that which
      contains the real letters of St. Ignatius; such at least is the
      opinion of the wisest and most enlightened critics. (See Lardner.
      Cred. of Gospel Hist.) Less, uber dis Religion, v. i. p. 529.
      Usser. Diss. de Ign. Epist. Pearson, Vindic, Ignatianæ. It should
      be remarked, that it was under the reign of Trajan that the
      bishop Ignatius was carried from Antioch to Rome, to be exposed
      to the lions in the amphitheatre, the year of J. C. 107,
      according to some; of 116, according to others.—G.]

      71 (return) [ Among the martyrs of Lyons, (Euseb. l. v. c. 1,)
      the slave Blandina was distinguished by more exquisite tortures.
      Of the five martyrs so much celebrated in the acts of Felicitas
      and Perpetua, two were of a servile, and two others of a very
      mean, condition.]

      72 (return) [ Origen. advers. Celsum, l. iii. p. 116. His words
      deserve to be transcribed. * Note: The words that follow should
      be quoted. “God not permitting that all his class of men should
      be exterminated:” which appears to indicate that Origen thought
      the number put to death inconsiderable only when compared to the
      numbers who had survived. Besides this, he is speaking of the
      state of the religion under Caracalla, Elagabalus, Alexander
      Severus, and Philip, who had not persecuted the Christians. It
      was during the reign of the latter that Origen wrote his books
      against Celsus.—G.]

      73 (return) [ If we recollect that all the Plebeians of Rome were
      not Christians, and that all the Christians were not saints and
      martyrs, we may judge with how much safety religious honors can
      be ascribed to bones or urns, indiscriminately taken from the
      public burial-place. After ten centuries of a very free and open
      trade, some suspicions have arisen among the more learned
      Catholics. They now require as a proof of sanctity and martyrdom,
      the letters B.M., a vial full of red liquor supposed to be blood,
      or the figure of a palm-tree. But the two former signs are of
      little weight, and with regard to the last, it is observed by the
      critics, 1. That the figure, as it is called, of a palm, is
      perhaps a cypress, and perhaps only a stop, the flourish of a
      comma used in the monumental inscriptions. 2. That the palm was
      the symbol of victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the
      Christians it served as the emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in
      general of a joyful resurrection. See the epistle of P. Mabillon,
      on the worship of unknown saints, and Muratori sopra le Antichita
      Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.]

      74 (return) [ As a specimen of these legends, we may be satisfied
      with 10,000 Christian soldiers crucified in one day, either by
      Trajan or Hadrian on Mount Ararat. See Baronius ad Martyrologium
      Romanum; Tille mont, Mém. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. part ii. p. 438;
      and Geddes’s Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203. The abbreviation of
      Mil., which may signify either _soldiers_ or _thousands_, is said
      to have occasioned some extraordinary mistakes.]

      75 (return) [ Dionysius ap. Euseb l. vi. c. 41 One of the
      seventeen was likewise accused of robbery. * Note: Gibbon ought
      to have said, was falsely accused of robbery, for so it is in the
      Greek text. This Christian, named Nemesion, falsely accused of
      robbery before the centurion, was acquitted of a crime altogether
      foreign to his character, but he was led before the governor as
      guilty of being a Christian, and the governor inflicted upon him
      a double torture. (Euseb. loc. cit.) It must be added, that Saint
      Dionysius only makes particular mention of the principal martyrs,
      [this is very doubtful.—M.] and that he says, in general, that
      the fury of the Pagans against the Christians gave to Alexandria
      the appearance of a city taken by storm. [This refers to plunder
      and ill usage, not to actual slaughter.—M.] Finally it should be
      observed that Origen wrote before the persecution of the emperor
      Decius.—G.]

      During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent,
      the ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage,
      but even of Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage
      the reverence of the faithful, or provoke the suspicions and
      resentment of the Pagan magistrates. His character as well as his
      station seemed to mark out that holy prelate as the most
      distinguished object of envy and danger. 76 The experience,
      however, of the life of Cyprian, is sufficient to prove that our
      fancy has exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian
      bishop; and the dangers to which he was exposed were less
      imminent than those which temporal ambition is always prepared to
      encounter in the pursuit of honors. Four Roman emperors, with
      their families, their favorites, and their adherents, perished by
      the sword in the space of ten years, during which the bishop of
      Carthage guided by his authority and eloquence the councils of
      the African church. It was only in the third year of his
      administration, that he had reason, during a few months, to
      apprehend the severe edicts of Decius, the vigilance of the
      magistrate and the clamors of the multitude, who loudly demanded,
      that Cyprian, the leader of the Christians, should be thrown to
      the lions. Prudence suggested the necessity of a temporary
      retreat, and the voice of prudence was obeyed. He withdrew
      himself into an obscure solitude, from whence he could maintain a
      constant correspondence with the clergy and people of Carthage;
      and, concealing himself till the tempest was past, he preserved
      his life, without relinquishing either his power or his
      reputation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the
      censure of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the
      reproaches of his personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct which
      they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal desertion of the
      most sacred duty. 77 The propriety of reserving himself for the
      future exigencies of the church, the example of several holy
      bishops, 78 and the divine admonitions, which, as he declares
      himself, he frequently received in visions and ecstacies, were
      the reasons alleged in his justification. 79 But his best apology
      may be found in the cheerful resolution, with which, about eight
      years afterwards, he suffered death in the cause of religion. The
      authentic history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual
      candor and impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its most
      important circumstances, will convey the clearest information of
      the spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman persecutions. 80

      76 (return) [ The letters of Cyprian exhibit a very curious and
      original picture both of the _man_ and of the _times_. See
      likewise the two lives of Cyprian, composed with equal accuracy,
      though with very different views; the one by Le Clerc
      (Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. xii. p. 208-378,) the other by
      Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. iv part i. p. 76-459.]

      77 (return) [ See the polite but severe epistle of the clergy of
      Rome to the bishop of Carthage. (Cyprian. Epist. 8, 9.) Pontius
      labors with the greatest care and diligence to justify his master
      against the general censure.]

      78 (return) [ In particular those of Dionysius of Alexandria, and
      Gregory Thaumaturgus, of Neo-Cæsarea. See Euseb. Hist.
      Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 40; and Mémoires de Tillemont, tom. iv.
      part ii. p. 685.]

      79 (return) [ See Cyprian. Epist. 16, and his life by Pontius.]

      80 (return) [ We have an original life of Cyprian by the deacon
      Pontius, the companion of his exile, and the spectator of his
      death; and we likewise possess the ancient proconsular acts of
      his martyrdom. These two relations are consistent with each
      other, and with probability; and what is somewhat remarkable,
      they are both unsullied by any miraculous circumstances.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.—Part IV.


      When Valerian was consul for the third, and Gallienus for the
      fourth time, Paternus, proconsul of Africa, summoned Cyprian to
      appear in his private council-chamber. He there acquainted him
      with the Imperial mandate which he had just received, 81 that
      those who had abandoned the Roman religion should immediately
      return to the practice of the ceremonies of their ancestors.
      Cyprian replied without hesitation, that he was a Christian and a
      bishop, devoted to the worship of the true and only Deity, to
      whom he offered up his daily supplications for the safety and
      prosperity of the two emperors, his lawful sovereigns.

      With modest confidence he pleaded the privilege of a citizen, in
      refusing to give any answer to some invidious and indeed illegal
      questions which the proconsul had proposed. A sentence of
      banishment was pronounced as the penalty of Cyprian’s
      disobedience; and he was conducted without delay to Curubis, a
      free and maritime city of Zeugitania, in a pleasant situation, a
      fertile territory, and at the distance of about forty miles from
      Carthage. 82 The exiled bishop enjoyed the conveniences of life
      and the consciousness of virtue. His reputation was diffused over
      Africa and Italy; an account of his behavior was published for
      the edification of the Christian world; 83 and his solitude was
      frequently interrupted by the letters, the visits, and the
      congratulations of the faithful. On the arrival of a new
      proconsul in the province the fortune of Cyprian appeared for
      some time to wear a still more favorable aspect. He was recalled
      from banishment; and though not yet permitted to return to
      Carthage, his own gardens in the neighborhood of the capital were
      assigned for the place of his residence. 84

      81 (return) [ It should seem that these were circular orders,
      sent at the same time to all the governors. Dionysius (ap. Euseb.
      l. vii. c. 11) relates the history of his own banishment from
      Alexandria almost in the same manner. But as he escaped and
      survived the persecution, we must account him either more or less
      fortunate than Cyprian.]

      82 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 3. Cellarius, Geograph.
      Antiq. part iii. p. 96. Shaw’s Travels, p. 90; and for the
      adjacent country, (which is terminated by Cape Bona, or the
      promontory of Mercury,) l’Afrique de Marmol. tom. ii. p. 494.
      There are the remains of an aqueduct near Curubis, or Curbis, at
      present altered into Gurbes; and Dr. Shaw read an inscription,
      which styles that city _Colonia Fulvia_. The deacon Pontius (in
      Vit. Cyprian. c. 12) calls it “Apricum et competentem locum,
      hospitium pro voluntate secretum, et quicquid apponi eis ante
      promissum est, qui regnum et justitiam Dei quærunt.”]

      83 (return) [ See Cyprian. Epistol. 77, edit. Fell.]

      84 (return) [ Upon his conversion, he had sold those gardens for
      the benefit of the poor. The indulgence of God (most probably the
      liberality of some Christian friend) restored them to Cyprian.
      See Pontius, c. 15.]

      At length, exactly one year 85 after Cyprian was first
      apprehended, Galerius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, received the
      Imperial warrant for the execution of the Christian teachers. The
      bishop of Carthage was sensible that he should be singled out for
      one of the first victims; and the frailty of nature tempted him
      to withdraw himself, by a secret flight, from the danger and the
      honor of martyrdom; 8511 but soon recovering that fortitude which
      his character required, he returned to his gardens, and patiently
      expected the ministers of death. Two officers of rank, who were
      intrusted with that commission, placed Cyprian between them in a
      chariot, and as the proconsul was not then at leisure, they
      conducted him, not to a prison, but to a private house in
      Carthage, which belonged to one of them. An elegant supper was
      provided for the entertainment of the bishop, and his Christian
      friends were permitted for the last time to enjoy his society,
      whilst the streets were filled with a multitude of the faithful,
      anxious and alarmed at the approaching fate of their spiritual
      father. 86 In the morning he appeared before the tribunal of the
      proconsul, who, after informing himself of the name and situation
      of Cyprian, commanded him to offer sacrifice, and pressed him to
      reflect on the consequences of his disobedience. The refusal of
      Cyprian was firm and decisive; and the magistrate, when he had
      taken the opinion of his council, pronounced with some reluctance
      the sentence of death. It was conceived in the following terms:
      “That Thascius Cyprianus should be immediately beheaded, as the
      enemy of the gods of Rome, and as the chief and ringleader of a
      criminal association, which he had seduced into an impious
      resistance against the laws of the most holy emperors, Valerian
      and Gallienus.” 87 The manner of his execution was the mildest
      and least painful that could be inflicted on a person convicted
      of any capital offence; nor was the use of torture admitted to
      obtain from the bishop of Carthage either the recantation of his
      principles or the discovery of his accomplices.

      85 (return) [ When Cyprian; a twelvemonth before, was sent into
      exile, he dreamt that he should be put to death the next day. The
      event made it necessary to explain that word, as signifying a
      year. Pontius, c. 12.]

      8511 (return) [ This was not, as it appears, the motive which
      induced St. Cyprian to conceal himself for a short time; he was
      threatened to be carried to Utica; he preferred remaining at
      Carthage, in order to suffer martyrdom in the midst of his flock,
      and in order that his death might conduce to the edification of
      those whom he had guided during life. Such, at least, is his own
      explanation of his conduct in one of his letters: Cum perlatum ad
      nos fuisset, fratres carissimi, frumentarios esse missos qui me
      Uticam per ducerent, consilioque carissimorum persuasum est, ut
      de hortis interim recederemus, justa interveniente causâ,
      consensi; eo quod congruat episcopum in eâ civitate, in quâ
      Ecclesiæ dominicæ præest, illie. Dominum confiteri et plebem
      universam præpositi præsentis confessione clarificari Ep. 83.—G]

      86 (return) [ Pontius (c. 15) acknowledges that Cyprian, with
      whom he supped, passed the night custodia delicata. The bishop
      exercised a last and very proper act of jurisdiction, by
      directing that the younger females, who watched in the streets,
      should be removed from the dangers and temptations of a nocturnal
      crowd. Act. Preconsularia, c. 2.]

      87 (return) [ See the original sentence in the Acts, c. 4; and in
      Pontius, c. 17 The latter expresses it in a more rhetorical
      manner.]

      As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a general cry of “We will
      die with him,” arose at once among the listening multitude of
      Christians who waited before the palace gates. The generous
      effusions of their zeal and their affection were neither
      serviceable to Cyprian nor dangerous to themselves. He was led
      away under a guard of tribunes and centurions, without resistance
      and without insult, to the place of his execution, a spacious and
      level plain near the city, which was already filled with great
      numbers of spectators. His faithful presbyters and deacons were
      permitted to accompany their holy bishop. 8711 They assisted him
      in laying aside his upper garment, spread linen on the ground to
      catch the precious relics of his blood, and received his orders
      to bestow five-and-twenty pieces of gold on the executioner. The
      martyr then covered his face with his hands, and at one blow his
      head was separated from his body. His corpse remained during some
      hours exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles: but in the night
      it was removed, and transported in a triumphal procession, and
      with a splendid illumination, to the burial-place of the
      Christians. The funeral of Cyprian was publicly celebrated
      without receiving any interruption from the Roman magistrates;
      and those among the faithful, who had performed the last offices
      to his person and his memory, were secure from the danger of
      inquiry or of punishment. It is remarkable, that of so great a
      multitude of bishops in the province of Africa, Cyprian was the
      first who was esteemed worthy to obtain the crown of martyrdom.
      88

      8711 (return) [ There is nothing in the life of St. Cyprian, by
      Pontius, nor in the ancient manuscripts, which can make us
      suppose that the presbyters and deacons in their clerical
      character, and known to be such, had the permission to attend
      their holy bishop. Setting aside all religious considerations, it
      is impossible not to be surprised at the kind of complaisance
      with which the historian here insists, in favor of the
      persecutors, on some mitigating circumstances allowed at the
      death of a man whose only crime was maintaining his own opinions
      with frankness and courage.—G.]

      88 (return) [ Pontius, c. 19. M. de Tillemont (Mémoires, tom. iv.
      part i. p. 450, note 50) is not pleased with so positive an
      exclusion of any former martyr of the episcopal rank. * Note: M.
      de. Tillemont, as an honest writer, explains the difficulties
      which he felt about the text of Pontius, and concludes by
      distinctly stating, that without doubt there is some mistake, and
      that Pontius must have meant only Africa Minor or Carthage; for
      St. Cyprian, in his 58th (69th) letter addressed to Pupianus,
      speaks expressly of many bishops his colleagues, qui proscripti
      sunt, vel apprehensi in carcere et catenis fuerunt; aut qui in
      exilium relegati, illustri itinere ed Dominum profecti sunt; aut
      qui quibusdam locis animadversi, cœlestes coronas de Domini
      clarificatione sumpserunt.—G.]

      It was in the choice of Cyprian, either to die a martyr, or to
      live an apostate; but on the choice depended the alternative of
      honor or infamy. Could we suppose that the bishop of Carthage had
      employed the profession of the Christian faith only as the
      instrument of his avarice or ambition, it was still incumbent on
      him to support the character he had assumed; 89 and if he
      possessed the smallest degree of manly fortitude, rather to
      expose himself to the most cruel tortures, than by a single act
      to exchange the reputation of a whole life, for the abhorrence of
      his Christian brethren, and the contempt of the Gentile world.
      But if the zeal of Cyprian was supported by the sincere
      conviction of the truth of those doctrines which he preached, the
      crown of martyrdom must have appeared to him as an object of
      desire rather than of terror. It is not easy to extract any
      distinct ideas from the vague though eloquent declamations of the
      Fathers, or to ascertain the degree of immortal glory and
      happiness which they confidently promised to those who were so
      fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of religion. 90
      They inculcated with becoming diligence, that the fire of
      martyrdom supplied every defect and expiated every sin; that
      while the souls of ordinary Christians were obliged to pass
      through a slow and painful purification, the triumphant sufferers
      entered into the immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where, in
      the society of the patriarchs, the apostles, and the prophets,
      they reigned with Christ, and acted as his assessors in the
      universal judgment of mankind. The assurance of a lasting
      reputation upon earth, a motive so congenial to the vanity of
      human nature, often served to animate the courage of the martyrs.

      The honors which Rome or Athens bestowed on those citizens who
      had fallen in the cause of their country, were cold and unmeaning
      demonstrations of respect, when compared with the ardent
      gratitude and devotion which the primitive church expressed
      towards the victorious champions of the faith. The annual
      commemoration of their virtues and sufferings was observed as a
      sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in religious worship.
      Among the Christians who had publicly confessed their religious
      principles, those who (as it very frequently happened) had been
      dismissed from the tribunal or the prisons of the Pagan
      magistrates, obtained such honors as were justly due to their
      imperfect martyrdom and their generous resolution. The most pious
      females courted the permission of imprinting kisses on the
      fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they had
      received. Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were
      admitted with deference, and they too often abused, by their
      spiritual pride and licentious manners, the preëminence which
      their zeal and intrepidity had acquired. 91 Distinctions like
      these, whilst they display the exalted merit, betray the
      inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who
      died, for the profession of Christianity.

      89 (return) [ Whatever opinion we may entertain of the character
      or principles of Thomas Becket, we must acknowledge that he
      suffered death with a constancy not unworthy of the primitive
      martyrs. See Lord Lyttleton’s History of Henry II. vol. ii. p.
      592, &c.]

      90 (return) [ See in particular the treatise of Cyprian de
      Lapsis, p. 87-98, edit. Fell. The learning of Dodwell (Dissertat.
      Cyprianic. xii. xiii.,) and the ingenuity of Middleton, (Free
      Inquiry, p. 162, &c.,) have left scarcely any thing to add
      concerning the merit, the honors, and the motives of the
      martyrs.]

      91 (return) [ Cyprian. Epistol. 5, 6, 7, 22, 24; and de Unitat.
      Ecclesiæ. The number of pretended martyrs has been very much
      multiplied, by the custom which was introduced of bestowing that
      honorable name on confessors. Note: M. Guizot denies that the
      letters of Cyprian, to which he refers, bear out the statement in
      the text. I cannot scruple to admit the accuracy of Gibbon’s
      quotation. To take only the fifth letter, we find this passage:
      Doleo enim quando audio quosdam improbe et insolenter discurrere,
      et ad ineptian vel ad discordias vacare, Christi membra et jam
      Christum confessa per concubitûs illicitos inquinari, nec a
      diaconis aut presbyteris regi posse, sed id agere ut per paucorum
      pravos et malos mores, multorum et bonorum confessorum gloria
      honesta maculetur. Gibbon’s misrepresentation lies in the
      ambiguous expression “too often.” Were the epistles arranged in a
      different manner in the edition consulted by M. Guizot?—M.]

      The sober discretion of the present age will more readily censure
      than admire, but can more easily admire than imitate, the fervor
      of the first Christians, who, according to the lively expressions
      of Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more eagerness than
      his own contemporaries solicited a bishopric. 92 The epistles
      which Ignatius composed as he was carried in chains through the
      cities of Asia, breathe sentiments the most repugnant to the
      ordinary feelings of human nature. He earnestly beseeches the
      Romans, that when he should be exposed in the amphitheatre, they
      would not, by their kind but unseasonable intercession, deprive
      him of the crown of glory; and he declares his resolution to
      provoke and irritate the wild beasts which might be employed as
      the instruments of his death. 93 Some stories are related of the
      courage of martyrs, who actually performed what Ignatius had
      intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the
      executioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the
      fires which were kindled to consume them, and discovered a
      sensation of joy and pleasure in the midst of the most exquisite
      tortures. Several examples have been preserved of a zeal
      impatient of those restraints which the emperors had provided for
      the security of the church. The Christians sometimes supplied by
      their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely
      disturbed the public service of paganism, 94 and rushing in
      crowds round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to
      pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior of
      the Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice of the
      ancient philosophers; but they seem to have considered it with
      much less admiration than astonishment. Incapable of conceiving
      the motives which sometimes transported the fortitude of
      believers beyond the bounds of prudence or reason, they treated
      such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate
      despair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy. 95
      “Unhappy men!” exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the
      Christians of Asia; “unhappy men! if you are thus weary of your
      lives, is it so difficult for you to find ropes and precipices?”
      96 He was extremely cautious (as it is observed by a learned and
      picus historian) of punishing men who had found no accusers but
      themselves, the Imperial laws not having made any provision for
      so unexpected a case: condemning therefore a few as a warning to
      their brethren, he dismissed the multitude with indignation and
      contempt. 97 Notwithstanding this real or affected disdain, the
      intrepid constancy of the faithful was productive of more
      salutary effects on those minds which nature or grace had
      disposed for the easy reception of religious truth. On these
      melancholy occasions, there were many among the Gentiles who
      pitied, who admired, and who were converted. The generous
      enthusiasm was communicated from the sufferer to the spectators;
      and the blood of martyrs, according to a well-known observation,
      became the seed of the church.

      92 (return) [ Certatim gloriosa in certamina ruebatur; multique
      avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus quærebantur, quam nunc
      Episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur. Sulpicius Severus, l.
      ii. He might have omitted the word _nunc_.]

      93 (return) [ See Epist. ad Roman. c. 4, 5, ap. Patres Apostol.
      tom. ii. p. 27. It suited the purpose of Bishop Pearson (see
      Vindiciæ Ignatianæ, part ii. c. 9) to justify, by a profusion of
      examples and authorities, the sentiments of Ignatius.]

      94 (return) [ The story of Polyeuctes, on which Corneille has
      founded a very beautiful tragedy, is one of the most celebrated,
      though not perhaps the most authentic, instances of this
      excessive zeal. We should observe, that the 60th canon of the
      council of Illiberis refuses the title of martyrs to those who
      exposed themselves to death, by publicly destroying the idols.]

      95 (return) [ See Epictetus, l. iv. c. 7, (though there is some
      doubt whether he alludes to the Christians.) Marcus Antoninus de
      Rebus suis, l. xi. c. 3 Lucian in Peregrin.]

      96 (return) [ Tertullian ad Scapul. c. 5. The learned are divided
      between three persons of the same name, who were all proconsuls
      of Asia. I am inclined to ascribe this story to Antoninus Pius,
      who was afterwards emperor; and who may have governed Asia under
      the reign of Trajan.]

      97 (return) [ Mosheim, de Rebus Christ, ante Constantin. p. 235.]

      But although devotion had raised, and eloquence continued to
      inflame, this fever of the mind, it insensibly gave way to the
      more natural hopes and fears of the human heart, to the love of
      life, the apprehension of pain, and the horror of dissolution.
      The more prudent rulers of the church found themselves obliged to
      restrain the indiscreet ardor of their followers, and to distrust
      a constancy which too often abandoned them in the hour of trial.
      98 As the lives of the faithful became less mortified and
      austere, they were every day less ambitious of the honors of
      martyrdom; and the soldiers of Christ, instead of distinguishing
      themselves by voluntary deeds of heroism, frequently deserted
      their post, and fled in confusion before the enemy whom it was
      their duty to resist. There were three methods, however, of
      escaping the flames of persecution, which were not attended with
      an equal degree of guilt: first, indeed, was generally allowed to
      be innocent; the second was of a doubtful, or at least of a
      venial, nature; but the third implied a direct and criminal
      apostasy from the Christian faith.

      98 (return) [ See the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, ap. Euseb.
      Hist. Eccles. Liv. c. 15 * Note: The 15th chapter of the 10th
      book of the Eccles. History of Eusebius treats principally of the
      martyrdom of St. Polycarp, and mentions some other martyrs. A
      single example of weakness is related; it is that of a Phrygian
      named Quintus, who, appalled at the sight of the wild beasts and
      the tortures, renounced his faith. This example proves little
      against the mass of Christians, and this chapter of Eusebius
      furnished much stronger evidence of their courage than of their
      timidity.—G——This Quintus had, however, rashly and of his own
      accord appeared before the tribunal; and the church of Smyrna
      condemn “_his indiscreet ardor_,” coupled as it was with weakness
      in the hour of trial.—M.]

      I. A modern inquisitor would hear with surprise, that whenever an
      information was given to a Roman magistrate of any person within
      his jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the Christians, the
      charge was communicated to the party accused, and that a
      convenient time was allowed him to settle his domestic concerns,
      and to prepare an answer to the crime which was imputed to him.
      99 If he entertained any doubt of his own constancy, such a delay
      afforded him the opportunity of preserving his life and honor by
      flight, of withdrawing himself into some obscure retirement or
      some distant province, and of patiently expecting the return of
      peace and security. A measure so consonant to reason was soon
      authorized by the advice and example of the most holy prelates;
      and seems to have been censured by few except by the Montanists,
      who deviated into heresy by their strict and obstinate adherence
      to the rigor of ancient discipline. 100

      II.The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent than
      their avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling
      certificates, (or libels, as they were called,) which attested,
      that the persons therein mentioned had complied with the laws,
      and sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing these false
      declarations, the opulent and timid Christians were enabled to
      silence the malice of an informer, and to reconcile in some
      measure their safety with their religion.101 A slight penance
      atoned for this profane dissimulation. 1011

      III. In every persecution there were great numbers of unworthy
      Christians who publicly disowned or renounced the faith which
      they had professed; and who confirmed the sincerity of their
      abjuration, by the legal acts of burning incense or of offering
      sacrifices. Some of these apostates had yielded on the first
      menace or exhortation of the magistrate; whilst the patience of
      others had been subdued by the length and repetition of tortures.
      The affrighted countenances of some betrayed their inward
      remorse, while others advanced with confidence and alacrity to
      the altars of the gods. 102 But the disguise which fear had
      imposed, subsisted no longer than the present danger. As soon as
      the severity of the persecution was abated, the doors of the
      churches were assailed by the returning multitude of penitents
      who detested their idolatrous submission, and who solicited with
      equal ardor, but with various success, their readmission into the
      society of Christians. 103 1031

      99 (return) [ In the second apology of Justin, there is a
      particular and very curious instance of this legal delay. The
      same indulgence was granted to accused Christians, in the
      persecution of Decius: and Cyprian (de Lapsis) expressly mentions
      the “Dies negantibus præstitutus.” * Note: The examples drawn by
      the historian from Justin Martyr and Cyprian relate altogether to
      particular cases, and prove nothing as to the general practice
      adopted towards the accused; it is evident, on the contrary, from
      the same apology of St. Justin, that they hardly ever obtained
      delay. “A man named Lucius, himself a Christian, present at an
      unjust sentence passed against a Christian by the judge Urbicus,
      asked him why he thus punished a man who was neither adulterer
      nor robber, nor guilty of any other crime but that of avowing
      himself a Christian.” Urbicus answered only in these words: “Thou
      also hast the appearance of being a Christian.” “Yes, without
      doubt,” replied Lucius. The judge ordered that he should be put
      to death on the instant. A third, who came up, was condemned to
      be beaten with rods. Here, then, are three examples where no
      delay was granted.——[Surely these acts of a single passionate and
      irritated judge prove the general practice as little as those
      quoted by Gibbon.—M.] There exist a multitude of others, such as
      those of Ptolemy, Marcellus, &c. Justin expressly charges the
      judges with ordering the accused to be executed without hearing
      the cause. The words of St. Cyprian are as particular, and simply
      say, that he had appointed a day by which the Christians must
      have renounced their faith; those who had not done it by that
      time were condemned.—G. This confirms the statement in the
      text.—M.]

      100 (return) [ Tertullian considers flight from persecution as an
      imperfect, but very criminal, apostasy, as an impious attempt to
      elude the will of God, &c., &c. He has written a treatise on this
      subject, (see p. 536—544, edit. Rigalt.,) which is filled with
      the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent declamation. It
      is, however, somewhat remarkable, that Tertullian did not suffer
      martyrdom himself.]

      101 (return) [ The _libellatici_, who are chiefly known by the
      writings of Cyprian, are described with the utmost precision, in
      the copious commentary of Mosheim, p. 483—489.]

      1011 (return) [ The penance was not so slight, for it was exactly
      the same with that of apostates who had sacrificed to idols; it
      lasted several years. See Fleun Hist. Ecc. v. ii. p. 171.—G.]

      102 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. Dionysius Alexandrin. ap.
      Euseb. l. vi. c. 41. Ad prima statim verba minantis inimici
      maximus fratrum numerus fidem suam prodidit: nec prostratus est
      persecutionis impetu, sed voluntario lapsu seipsum prostravit.
      Cyprian. Opera, p. 89. Among these deserters were many priests,
      and even bishops.]

      103 (return) [ It was on this occasion that Cyprian wrote his
      treatise De Lapsis, and many of his epistles. The controversy
      concerning the treatment of penitent apostates, does not occur
      among the Christians of the preceding century. Shall we ascribe
      this to the superiority of their faith and courage, or to our
      less intimate knowledge of their history!]

      1031 (return) [ Pliny says, that the greater part of the
      Christians persisted in avowing themselves to be so; the reason
      for his consulting Trajan was the periclitantium numerus.
      Eusebius (l. vi. c. 41) does not permit us to doubt that the
      number of those who renounced their faith was infinitely below
      the number of those who boldly confessed it. The prefect, he says
      and his assessors present at the council, were alarmed at seeing
      the crowd of Christians; the judges themselves trembled. Lastly,
      St. Cyprian informs us, that the greater part of those who had
      appeared weak brethren in the persecution of Decius, signalized
      their courage in that of Gallius. Steterunt fortes, et ipso
      dolore pœnitentiæ facti ad prælium fortiores Epist. lx. p.
      142.—G.]

      IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for the
      conviction and punishment of the Christians, the fate of those
      sectaries, in an extensive and arbitrary government, must still
      in a great measure, have depended on their own behavior, the
      circumstances of the times, and the temper of their supreme as
      well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might sometimes provoke, and
      prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the superstitious fury
      of the Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the provincial
      governors either to enforce or to relax the execution of the
      laws; and of these motives the most forcible was their regard not
      only for the public edicts, but for the secret intentions of the
      emperor, a glance from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or to
      extinguish the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional
      severities were exercised in the different parts of the empire,
      the primitive Christians lamented and perhaps magnified their own
      sufferings; but the celebrated number of _ten_ persecutions has
      been determined by the ecclesiastical writers of the fifth
      century, who possessed a more distinct view of the prosperous or
      adverse fortunes of the church, from the age of Nero to that of
      Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of the _ten_ plagues of
      Egypt, and of the _ten_ horns of the Apocalypse, first suggested
      this calculation to their minds; and in their application of the
      faith of prophecy to the truth of history, they were careful to
      select those reigns which were indeed the most hostile to the
      Christian cause. 104 But these transient persecutions served only
      to revive the zeal and to restore the discipline of the faithful;
      and the moments of extraordinary rigor were compensated by much
      longer intervals of peace and security. The indifference of some
      princes, and the indulgence of others, permitted the Christians
      to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an actual and public,
      toleration of their religion.

      104 (return) [ See Mosheim, p. 97. Sulpicius Severus was the
      first author of this computation; though he seemed desirous of
      reserving the tenth and greatest persecution for the coming of
      the Antichrist.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.—Part V.


      The apology of Tertullian contains two very ancient, very
      singular, but at the same time very suspicious, instances of
      Imperial clemency; the edicts published by Tiberius, and by
      Marcus Antoninus, and designed not only to protect the innocence
      of the Christians, but even to proclaim those stupendous miracles
      which had attested the truth of their doctrine. The first of
      these examples is attended with some difficulties which might
      perplex a sceptical mind. 105 We are required to believe, _that_
      Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of
      death which he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it
      appeared, a divine, person; and that, without acquiring the
      merit, he exposed himself to the danger of martyrdom; _that_
      Tiberius, who avowed his contempt for all religion, immediately
      conceived the design of placing the Jewish Messiah among the gods
      of Rome; _that_ his servile senate ventured to disobey the
      commands of their master; _that_ Tiberius, instead of resenting
      their refusal, contented himself with protecting the Christians
      from the severity of the laws, many years before such laws were
      enacted, or before the church had assumed any distinct name or
      existence; and lastly, _that_ the memory of this extraordinary
      transaction was preserved in the most public and authentic
      records, which escaped the knowledge of the historians of Greece
      and Rome, and were only visible to the eyes of an African
      Christian, who composed his apology one hundred and sixty years
      after the death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus Antoninus is
      supposed to have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude
      for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the
      Marcomannic war. The distress of the legions, the seasonable
      tempest of rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, and the
      dismay and defeat of the barbarians, have been celebrated by the
      eloquence of several Pagan writers. If there were any Christians
      in that army, it was natural that they should ascribe some merit
      to the fervent prayers, which, in the moment of danger, they had
      offered up for their own and the public safety. But we are still
      assured by monuments of brass and marble, by the Imperial medals,
      and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince nor the
      people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, since
      they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the providence of
      Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. 106 During the
      whole course of his reign, Marcus despised the Christians as a
      philosopher, and punished them as a sovereign. 1061

      105 (return) [ The testimony given by Pontius Pilate is first
      mentioned by Justin. The successive improvements which the story
      acquired (as if has passed through the hands of Tertullian,
      Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of Tours, and
      the authors of the several editions of the acts of Pilate) are
      very fairly stated by Dom Calmet Dissertat. sur l’Ecriture, tom.
      iii. p. 651, &c.]

      106 (return) [ On this miracle, as it is commonly called, of the
      thundering legion, see the admirable criticism of Mr. Moyle, in
      his Works, vol. ii. p. 81—390.]

      1061 (return) [ Gibbon, with this phrase, and that below, which
      admits the injustice of Marcus, has dexterously glossed over one
      of the most remarkable facts in the early Christian history, that
      the reign of the wisest and most humane of the heathen emperors
      was the most fatal to the Christians. Most writers have ascribed
      the persecutions under Marcus to the latent bigotry of his
      character; Mosheim, to the influence of the philosophic party;
      but the fact is admitted by all. A late writer (Mr. Waddington,
      Hist. of the Church, p. 47) has not scrupled to assert, that
      “this prince polluted every year of a long reign with innocent
      blood;” but the causes as well as the date of the persecutions
      authorized or permitted by Marcus are equally uncertain. Of the
      Asiatic edict recorded by Melito. the date is unknown, nor is it
      quite clear that it was an Imperial edict. If it was the act
      under which Polycarp suffered, his martyrdom is placed by Ruinart
      in the sixth, by Mosheim in the ninth, year of the reign of
      Marcus. The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons are assigned by Dodwell
      to the seventh, by most writers to the seventeenth. In fact, the
      commencement of the persecutions of the Christians appears to
      synchronize exactly with the period of the breaking out of the
      Marcomannic war, which seems to have alarmed the whole empire,
      and the emperor himself, into a paroxysm of returning piety to
      their gods, of which the Christians were the victims. See Jul,
      Capit. Script. Hist August. p. 181, edit. 1661. It is remarkable
      that Tertullian (Apologet. c. v.) distinctly asserts that Verus
      (M. Aurelius) issued no edicts against the Christians, and almost
      positively exempts him from the charge of persecution.—M. This
      remarkable synchronism, which explains the persecutions under M
      Aurelius, is shown at length in Milman’s History of Christianity,
      book ii. v.—M. 1845.]

      By a singular fatality, the hardships which they had endured
      under the government of a virtuous prince, immediately ceased on
      the accession of a tyrant; and as none except themselves had
      experienced the injustice of Marcus, so they alone were protected
      by the lenity of Commodus. The celebrated Marcia, the most
      favored of his concubines, and who at length contrived the murder
      of her Imperial lover, entertained a singular affection for the
      oppressed church; and though it was impossible that she could
      reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the gospel,
      she might hope to atone for the frailties of her sex and
      profession by declaring herself the patroness of the Christians.
      107 Under the gracious protection of Marcia, they passed in
      safety the thirteen years of a cruel tyranny; and when the empire
      was established in the house of Severus, they formed a domestic
      but more honorable connection with the new court. The emperor was
      persuaded, that in a dangerous sickness, he had derived some
      benefit, either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil, with
      which one of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated with
      peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who had
      embraced the new religion. The nurse as well as the preceptor of
      Caracalla were Christians; 1071 and if that young prince ever
      betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was occasioned by an
      incident, which, however trifling, bore some relation to the
      cause of Christianity. 108 Under the reign of Severus, the fury
      of the populace was checked; the rigor of ancient laws was for
      some time suspended; and the provincial governors were satisfied
      with receiving an annual present from the churches within their
      jurisdiction, as the price, or as the reward, of their
      moderation. 109 The controversy concerning the precise time of
      the celebration of Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and Italy
      against each other, and was considered as the most important
      business of this period of leisure and tranquillity. 110 Nor was
      the peace of the church interrupted, till the increasing numbers
      of proselytes seem at length to have attracted the attention, and
      to have alienated the mind of Severus. With the design of
      restraining the progress of Christianity, he published an edict,
      which, though it was designed to affect only the new converts,
      could not be carried into strict execution, without exposing to
      danger and punishment the most zealous of their teachers and
      missionaries. In this mitigated persecution we may still discover
      the indulgent spirit of Rome and of Polytheism, which so readily
      admitted every excuse in favor of those who practised the
      religious ceremonies of their fathers. 111

      107 (return) [ Dion Cassius, or rather his abbreviator Xiphilin,
      l. lxxii. p. 1206. Mr. Moyle (p. 266) has explained the condition
      of the church under the reign of Commodus.]

      1071 (return) [ The Jews and Christians contest the honor of
      having furnished a nurse is the fratricide son of Severus
      Caracalla. Hist. of Jews, iii. 158.—M.]

      108 (return) [ Compare the life of Caracalla in the Augustan
      History, with the epistle of Tertullian to Scapula. Dr. Jortin
      (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 5, &c.) considers
      the cure of Severus by the means of holy oil, with a strong
      desire to convert it into a miracle.]

      109 (return) [ Tertullian de Fuga, c. 13. The present was made
      during the feast of the Saturnalia; and it is a matter of serious
      concern to Tertullian, that the faithful should be confounded
      with the most infamous professions which purchased the connivance
      of the government.]

      110 (return) [ Euseb. l. v. c. 23, 24. Mosheim, p. 435—447.]

      111 (return) [ Judæos fieri sub gravi pœna vetuit. Idem etiam de
      Christianis sanxit. Hist. August. p. 70.]

      But the laws which Severus had enacted soon expired with the
      authority of that emperor; and the Christians, after this
      accidental tempest, enjoyed a calm of thirty-eight years. 112
      Till this period they had usually held their assemblies in
      private houses and sequestered places. They were now permitted to
      erect and consecrate convenient edifices for the purpose of
      religious worship; 113 to purchase lands, even at Rome itself,
      for the use of the community; and to conduct the elections of
      their ecclesiastical ministers in so public, but at the same time
      in so exemplary a manner, as to deserve the respectful attention
      of the Gentiles. 114 This long repose of the church was
      accompanied with dignity. The reigns of those princes who derived
      their extraction from the Asiatic provinces, proved the most
      favorable to the Christians; the eminent persons of the sect,
      instead of being reduced to implore the protection of a slave or
      concubine, were admitted into the palace in the honorable
      characters of priests and philosophers; and their mysterious
      doctrines, which were already diffused among the people,
      insensibly attracted the curiosity of their sovereign. When the
      empress Mammæa passed through Antioch, she expressed a desire of
      conversing with the celebrated Origen, the fame of whose piety
      and learning was spread over the East. Origen obeyed so
      flattering an invitation, and though he could not expect to
      succeed in the conversion of an artful and ambitious woman, she
      listened with pleasure to his eloquent exhortations, and
      honorably dismissed him to his retirement in Palestine. 115 The
      sentiments of Mammæa were adopted by her son Alexander, and the
      philosophic devotion of that emperor was marked by a singular but
      injudicious regard for the Christian religion. In his domestic
      chapel he placed the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of
      Apollonius, and of Christ, as an honor justly due to those
      respectable sages who had instructed mankind in the various modes
      of addressing their homage to the supreme and universal Deity.
      116 A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly professed and
      practised among his household. Bishops, perhaps for the first
      time, were seen at court; and, after the death of Alexander, when
      the inhuman Maximin discharged his fury on the favorites and
      servants of his unfortunate benefactor, a great number of
      Christians of every rank and of both sexes, were involved in the
      promiscuous massacre, which, on their account, has improperly
      received the name of Persecution. 117 1171

      112 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 384. This computation
      (allowing for a single exception) is confirmed by the history of
      Eusebius, and by the writings of Cyprian.]

      113 (return) [ The antiquity of Christian churches is discussed
      by Tillemont, (Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. iii. part ii. p.
      68-72,) and by Mr. Moyle, (vol. i. p. 378-398.) The former refers
      the first construction of them to the peace of Alexander Severus;
      the latter, to the peace of Gallienus.]

      114 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 130. The emperor
      Alexander adopted their method of publicly proposing the names of
      those persons who were candidates for ordination. It is true that
      the honor of this practice is likewise attributed to the Jews.]

      115 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vi. c. 21. Hieronym.
      de Script. Eccles. c. 54. Mammæa was styled a holy and pious
      woman, both by the Christians and the Pagans. From the former,
      therefore, it was impossible that she should deserve that
      honorable epithet.]

      116 (return) [ See the Augustan History, p. 123. Mosheim (p. 465)
      seems to refine too much on the domestic religion of Alexander.
      His design of building a public temple to Christ, (Hist. August.
      p. 129,) and the objection which was suggested either to him, or
      in similar circumstances to Hadrian, appear to have no other
      foundation than an improbable report, invented by the Christians,
      and credulously adopted by an historian of the age of
      Constantine.]

      117 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 28. It may be presumed that the
      success of the Christians had exasperated the increasing bigotry
      of the Pagans. Dion Cassius, who composed his history under the
      former reign, had most probably intended for the use of his
      master those counsels of persecution, which he ascribes to a
      better age, and to and to the favorite of Augustus. Concerning
      this oration of Mæcenas, or rather of Dion, I may refer to my own
      unbiased opinion, (vol. i. c. 1, note 25,) and to the Abbé de la
      Bleterie (Mémoires de l’Académie, tom. xxiv. p. 303 tom xxv. p.
      432.) * Note: If this be the case, Dion Cassius must have known
      the Christians they must have been the subject of his particular
      attention, since the author supposes that he wished his master to
      profit by these “counsels of persecution.” How are we to
      reconcile this necessary consequence with what Gibbon has said of
      the ignorance of Dion Cassius even of the name of the Christians?
      (c. xvi. n. 24.) (Gibbon speaks of Dion’s _silence_, not of his
      _ignorance_.—M) The supposition in this note is supported by no
      proof; it is probable that Dion Cassius has often designated the
      Christians by the name of Jews. See Dion Cassius, l. lxvii. c 14,
      lxviii. l—G. On this point I should adopt the view of Gibbon
      rather than that of M Guizot.—M]

      1171 (return) [ It is with good reason that this massacre has
      been called a persecution, for it lasted during the whole reign
      of Maximin, as may be seen in Eusebius. (l. vi. c. 28.) Rufinus
      expressly confirms it: Tribus annis a Maximino persecutione
      commota, in quibus finem et persecutionis fecit et vitas Hist. l.
      vi. c. 19.—G.]

      Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Maximin, the effects of
      his resentment against the Christians were of a very local and
      temporary nature, and the pious Origen, who had been proscribed
      as a devoted victim, was still reserved to convey the truths of
      the gospel to the ear of monarchs. 118 He addressed several
      edifying letters to the emperor Philip, to his wife, and to his
      mother; and as soon as that prince, who was born in the
      neighborhood of Palestine, had usurped the Imperial sceptre, the
      Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public and even
      partial favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the new
      religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers of the
      church, gave some color to the suspicion, which prevailed in his
      own times, that the emperor himself was become a convert to the
      faith; 119 and afforded some grounds for a fable which was
      afterwards invented, that he had been purified by confession and
      penance from the guilt contracted by the murder of his innocent
      predecessor. 120 The fall of Philip introduced, with the change
      of masters, a new system of government, so oppressive to the
      Christians, that their former condition, ever since the time of
      Domitian, was represented as a state of perfect freedom and
      security, if compared with the rigorous treatment which they
      experienced under the short reign of Decius. 121 The virtues of
      that prince will scarcely allow us to suspect that he was
      actuated by a mean resentment against the favorites of his
      predecessor; and it is more reasonable to believe, that in the
      prosecution of his general design to restore the purity of Roman
      manners, he was desirous of delivering the empire from what he
      condemned as a recent and criminal superstition. The bishops of
      the most considerable cities were removed by exile or death: the
      vigilance of the magistrates prevented the clergy of Rome during
      sixteen months from proceeding to a new election; and it was the
      opinion of the Christians, that the emperor would more patiently
      endure a competitor for the purple, than a bishop in the capital.
      122 Were it possible to suppose that the penetration of Decius
      had discovered pride under the disguise of humility, or that he
      could foresee the temporal dominion which might insensibly arise
      from the claims of spiritual authority, we might be less
      surprised, that he should consider the successors of St. Peter,
      as the most formidable rivals to those of Augustus.

      118 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 19, mentions Origen as the
      object of Maximin’s resentment; and Firmilianus, a Cappadocian
      bishop of that age, gives a just and confined idea of this
      persecution, (apud Cyprian Epist. 75.)]

      119 (return) [ The mention of those princes who were publicly
      supposed to be Christians, as we find it in an epistle of
      Dionysius of Alexandria, (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 10,) evidently
      alludes to Philip and his family, and forms a contemporary
      evidence, that such a report had prevailed; but the Egyptian
      bishop, who lived at an humble distance from the court of Rome,
      expresses himself with a becoming diffidence concerning the truth
      of the fact. The epistles of Origen (which were extant in the
      time of Eusebius, see l. vi. c. 36) would most probably decide
      this curious rather than important question.]

      120 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 34. The story, as is usual, has
      been embellished by succeeding writers, and is confuted, with
      much superfluous learning, by Frederick Spanheim, (Opera Varia,
      tom. ii. p. 400, &c.)]

      121 (return) [ Lactantius, de Mortibus Persecutorum, c. 3, 4.
      After celebrating the felicity and increase of the church, under
      a long succession of good princes, he adds, “Extitit post annos
      plurimos, execrabile animal, Decius, qui vexaret Ecclesiam.”]

      122 (return) [ Euseb. l. vi. c. 39. Cyprian. Epistol. 55. The see
      of Rome remained vacant from the martyrdom of Fabianus, the 20th
      of January, A. D. 259, till the election of Cornelius, the 4th of
      June, A. D. 251 Decius had probably left Rome, since he was
      killed before the end of that year.]

      The administration of Valerian was distinguished by a levity and
      inconstancy ill suited to the gravity of the _Roman Censor_. In
      the first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency those
      princes who had been suspected of an attachment to the Christian
      faith. In the last three years and a half, listening to the
      insinuations of a minister addicted to the superstitions of
      Egypt, he adopted the maxims, and imitated the severity, of his
      predecessor Decius. 123 The accession of Gallienus, which
      increased the calamities of the empire, restored peace to the
      church; and the Christians obtained the free exercise of their
      religion by an edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in
      such terms as seemed to acknowledge their office and public
      character. 124 The ancient laws, without being formally repealed,
      were suffered to sink into oblivion; and (excepting only some
      hostile intentions which are attributed to the emperor Aurelian
      125 the disciples of Christ passed above forty years in a state
      of prosperity, far more dangerous to their virtue than the
      severest trials of persecution.

      123 (return) [ Euseb. l. vii. c. 10. Mosheim (p. 548) has very
      clearly shown that the præfect Macrianus, and the Egyptian
      _Magus_, are one and the same person.]

      124 (return) [ Eusebius (l. vii. c. 13) gives us a Greek version
      of this Latin edict, which seems to have been very concise. By
      another edict, he directed that the _Cæmeteria_ should be
      restored to the Christians.]

      125 (return) [ Euseb. l. vii. c. 30. Lactantius de M. P. c. 6.
      Hieronym. in Chron. p. 177. Orosius, l. vii. c. 23. Their
      language is in general so ambiguous and incorrect, that we are at
      a loss to determine how far Aurelian had carried his intentions
      before he was assassinated. Most of the moderns (except Dodwell,
      Dissertat. Cyprian. vi. 64) have seized the occasion of gaining a
      few extraordinary martyrs. * Note: Dr. Lardner has detailed, with
      his usual impartiality, all that has come down to us relating to
      the persecution of Aurelian, and concludes by saying, “Upon more
      carefully examining the words of Eusebius, and observing the
      accounts of other authors, learned men have generally, and, as I
      think, very judiciously, determined, that Aurelian not only
      intended, but did actually persecute: but his persecution was
      short, he having died soon after the publication of his edicts.”
      Heathen Test. c. xxxvi.—Basmage positively pronounces the same
      opinion: Non intentatum modo, sed executum quoque brevissimo
      tempore mandatum, nobis infixum est in aniasis. Basn. Ann. 275,
      No. 2 and compare Pagi Ann. 272, Nos. 4, 12, 27—G.]

      The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the metropolitan see of
      Antioch, while the East was in the hands of Odenathus and
      Zenobia, may serve to illustrate the condition and character of
      the times. The wealth of that prelate was a sufficient evidence
      of his guilt, since it was neither derived from the inheritance
      of his fathers, nor acquired by the arts of honest industry. But
      Paul considered the service of the church as a very lucrative
      profession. 126 His ecclesiastical jurisdiction was venal and
      rapacious; he extorted frequent contributions from the most
      opulent of the faithful, and converted to his own use a
      considerable part of the public revenue. By his pride and luxury,
      the Christian religion was rendered odious in the eyes of the
      Gentiles. His council chamber and his throne, the splendor with
      which he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who solicited
      his attention, the multitude of letters and petitions to which he
      dictated his answers, and the perpetual hurry of business in
      which he was involved, were circumstances much better suited to
      the state of a civil magistrate, 127 than to the humility of a
      primitive bishop. When he harangued his people from the pulpit,
      Paul affected the figurative style and the theatrical gestures of
      an Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral resounded with the
      loudest and most extravagant acclamations in the praise of his
      divine eloquence. Against those who resisted his power, or
      refused to flatter his vanity, the prelate of Antioch was
      arrogant, rigid, and inexorable; but he relaxed the discipline,
      and lavished the treasures of the church on his dependent clergy,
      who were permitted to imitate their master in the gratification
      of every sensual appetite. For Paul indulged himself very freely
      in the pleasures of the table, and he had received into the
      episcopal palace two young and beautiful women as the constant
      companions of his leisure moments. 128

      126 (return) [ Paul was better pleased with the title of
      _Ducenarius_, than with that of bishop. The _Ducenarius_ was an
      Imperial procurator, so called from his salary of two hundred
      _Sestertia_, or 1600_l_. a year. (See Salmatius ad Hist. August.
      p. 124.) Some critics suppose that the bishop of Antioch had
      actually obtained such an office from Zenobia, while others
      consider it only as a figurative expression of his pomp and
      insolence.]

      127 (return) [ Simony was not unknown in those times; and the
      clergy some times bought what they intended to sell. It appears
      that the bishopric of Carthage was purchased by a wealthy matron,
      named Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The price was 400
      _Folles_. (Monument. Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every
      _Follis_ contained 125 pieces of silver, and the whole sum may be
      computed at about 2400_l_.]

      128 (return) [ If we are desirous of extenuating the vices of
      Paul, we must suspect the assembled bishops of the East of
      publishing the most malicious calumnies in circular epistles
      addressed to all the churches of the empire, (ap. Euseb. l. vii.
      c. 30.)]

      Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if Paul of Samosata had
      preserved the purity of the orthodox faith, his reign over the
      capital of Syria would have ended only with his life; and had a
      seasonable persecution intervened, an effort of courage might
      perhaps have placed him in the rank of saints and martyrs. 1281

      Some nice and subtle errors, which he imprudently adopted and
      obstinately maintained, concerning the doctrine of the Trinity,
      excited the zeal and indignation of the Eastern churches. 129

      From Egypt to the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and in
      motion. Several councils were held, confutations were published,
      excommunications were pronounced, ambiguous explanations were by
      turns accepted and refused, treaties were concluded and violated,
      and at length Paul of Samosata was degraded from his episcopal
      character, by the sentence of seventy or eighty bishops, who
      assembled for that purpose at Antioch, and who, without
      consulting the rights of the clergy or people, appointed a
      successor by their own authority. The manifest irregularity of
      this proceeding increased the numbers of the discontented
      faction; and as Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts,
      had insinuated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained
      above four years the possession of the episcopal house and
      office. 1291 The victory of Aurelian changed the face of the
      East, and the two contending parties, who applied to each other
      the epithets of schism and heresy, were either commanded or
      permitted to plead their cause before the tribunal of the
      conqueror. This public and very singular trial affords a
      convincing proof that the existence, the property, the
      privileges, and the internal policy of the Christians, were
      acknowledged, if not by the laws, at least by the magistrates, of
      the empire. As a Pagan and as a soldier, it could scarcely be
      expected that Aurelian should enter into the discussion, whether
      the sentiments of Paul or those of his adversaries were most
      agreeable to the true standard of the orthodox faith. His
      determination, however, was founded on the general principles of
      equity and reason. He considered the bishops of Italy as the most
      impartial and respectable judges among the Christians, and as
      soon as he was informed that they had unanimously approved the
      sentence of the council, he acquiesced in their opinion, and
      immediately gave orders that Paul should be compelled to
      relinquish the temporal possessions belonging to an office, of
      which, in the judgment of his brethren, he had been regularly
      deprived. But while we applaud the justice, we should not
      overlook the policy, of Aurelian, who was desirous of restoring
      and cementing the dependence of the provinces on the capital, by
      every means which could bind the interest or prejudices of any
      part of his subjects. 130

      1281 (return) [ It appears, nevertheless, that the vices and
      immoralities of Paul of Samosata had much weight in the sentence
      pronounced against him by the bishops. The object of the letter,
      addressed by the synod to the bishops of Rome and Alexandria, was
      to inform them of the change in the faith of Paul, the
      altercations and discussions to which it had given rise, as well
      as of his morals and the whole of his conduct. Euseb. Hist. Eccl.
      l. vii c. xxx—G.]

      129 (return) [ His heresy (like those of Noetus and Sabellius, in
      the same century) tended to confound the mysterious distinction
      of the divine persons. See Mosheim, p. 702, &c.]

      1291 (return) [ “Her favorite, (Zenobia’s,) Paul of Samosata,
      seems to have entertained some views of attempting a union
      between Judaism and Christianity; both parties rejected the
      unnatural alliance.” Hist. of Jews, iii. 175, and Jost.
      Geschichte der Israeliter, iv. 167. The protection of the severe
      Zenobia is the only circumstance which may raise a doubt of the
      notorious immorality of Paul.—M.]

      130 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vii. c. 30. We are
      entirely indebted to him for the curious story of Paul of
      Samosata.]

      Amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, the Christians
      still flourished in peace and prosperity; and notwithstanding a
      celebrated æra of martyrs has been deduced from the accession of
      Diocletian, 131 the new system of policy, introduced and
      maintained by the wisdom of that prince, continued, during more
      than eighteen years, to breathe the mildest and most liberal
      spirit of religious toleration. The mind of Diocletian himself
      was less adapted indeed to speculative inquiries, than to the
      active labors of war and government. His prudence rendered him
      averse to any great innovation, and though his temper was not
      very susceptible of zeal or enthusiasm, he always maintained an
      habitual regard for the ancient deities of the empire. But the
      leisure of the two empresses, of his wife Prisca, and of Valeria,
      his daughter, permitted them to listen with more attention and
      respect to the truths of Christianity, which in every age has
      acknowledged its important obligations to female devotion. 132
      The principal eunuchs, Lucian 133 and Dorotheus, Gorgonius and
      Andrew, who attended the person, possessed the favor, and
      governed the household of Diocletian, protected by their powerful
      influence the faith which they had embraced. Their example was
      imitated by many of the most considerable officers of the palace,
      who, in their respective stations, had the care of the Imperial
      ornaments, of the robes, of the furniture, of the jewels, and
      even of the private treasury; and, though it might sometimes be
      incumbent on them to accompany the emperor when he sacrificed in
      the temple, 134 they enjoyed, with their wives, their children,
      and their slaves, the free exercise of the Christian religion.
      Diocletian and his colleagues frequently conferred the most
      important offices on those persons who avowed their abhorrence
      for the worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities
      proper for the service of the state. The bishops held an
      honorable rank in their respective provinces, and were treated
      with distinction and respect, not only by the people, but by the
      magistrates themselves. Almost in every city, the ancient
      churches were found insufficient to contain the increasing
      multitude of proselytes; and in their place more stately and
      capacious edifices were erected for the public worship of the
      faithful. The corruption of manners and principles, so forcibly
      lamented by Eusebius, 135 may be considered, not only as a
      consequence, but as a proof, of the liberty which the Christians
      enjoyed and abused under the reign of Diocletian. Prosperity had
      relaxed the nerves of discipline. Fraud, envy, and malice
      prevailed in every congregation. The presbyters aspired to the
      episcopal office, which every day became an object more worthy of
      their ambition. The bishops, who contended with each other for
      ecclesiastical preëminence, appeared by their conduct to claim a
      secular and tyrannical power in the church; and the lively faith
      which still distinguished the Christians from the Gentiles, was
      shown much less in their lives, than in their controversial
      writings.

      131 (return) [ The Æra of Martyrs, which is still in use among
      the Copts and the Abyssinians, must be reckoned from the 29th of
      August, A. D. 284; as the beginning of the Egyptian year was
      nineteen days earlier than the real accession of Diocletian. See
      Dissertation Preliminaire a l’Art de verifier les Dates. * Note:
      On the æra of martyrs see the very curious dissertations of Mons
      Letronne on some recently discovered inscriptions in Egypt and
      Nubis, p. 102, &c.—M.]

      132 (return) [ The expression of Lactantius, (de M. P. c. 15,)
      “sacrificio pollui coegit,” implies their antecedent conversion
      to the faith, but does not seem to justify the assertion of
      Mosheim, (p. 912,) that they had been privately baptized.]

      133 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. v.
      part i. p. 11, 12) has quoted from the Spicilegium of Dom Luc
      d’Archeri a very curious instruction which Bishop Theonas
      composed for the use of Lucian.]

      134 (return) [ Lactantius, de M. P. c. 10.]

      135 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. viii. c. 1. The
      reader who consults the original will not accuse me of
      heightening the picture. Eusebius was about sixteen years of age
      at the accession of the emperor Diocletian.]

      Notwithstanding this seeming security, an attentive observer
      might discern some symptoms that threatened the church with a
      more violent persecution than any which she had yet endured. The
      zeal and rapid progress of the Christians awakened the
      Polytheists from their supine indifference in the cause of those
      deities, whom custom and education had taught them to revere. The
      mutual provocations of a religious war, which had already
      continued above two hundred years, exasperated the animosity of
      the contending parties. The Pagans were incensed at the rashness
      of a recent and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their
      countrymen of error, and to devote their ancestors to eternal
      misery. The habits of justifying the popular mythology against
      the invectives of an implacable enemy, produced in their minds
      some sentiments of faith and reverence for a system which they
      had been accustomed to consider with the most careless levity.
      The supernatural powers assumed by the church inspired at the
      same time terror and emulation. The followers of the established
      religion intrenched themselves behind a similar fortification of
      prodigies; invented new modes of sacrifice, of expiation, and of
      initiation; 136 attempted to revive the credit of their expiring
      oracles; 137 and listened with eager credulity to every impostor,
      who flattered their prejudices by a tale of wonders. 138 Both
      parties seemed to acknowledge the truth of those miracles which
      were claimed by their adversaries; and while they were contented
      with ascribing them to the arts of magic, and to the power of
      dæmons, they mutually concurred in restoring and establishing the
      reign of superstition. 139 Philosophy, her most dangerous enemy,
      was now converted into her most useful ally. The groves of the
      academy, the gardens of Epicurus, and even the portico of the
      Stoics, were almost deserted, as so many different schools of
      scepticism or impiety; 140 and many among the Romans were
      desirous that the writings of Cicero should be condemned and
      suppressed by the authority of the senate. 141 The prevailing
      sect of the new Platonicians judged it prudent to connect
      themselves with the priests, whom perhaps they despised, against
      the Christians, whom they had reason to fear. These fashionable
      Philosophers prosecuted the design of extracting allegorical
      wisdom from the fictions of the Greek poets; instituted
      mysterious rites of devotion for the use of their chosen
      disciples; recommended the worship of the ancient gods as the
      emblems or ministers of the Supreme Deity, and composed against
      the faith of the gospel many elaborate treatises, 142 which have
      since been committed to the flames by the prudence of orthodox
      emperors. 143

      136 (return) [ We might quote, among a great number of instances,
      the mysterious worship of Mythras, and the Taurobolia; the latter
      of which became fashionable in the time of the Antonines, (see a
      Dissertation of M. de Boze, in the Mémoires de l’Académie des
      Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 443.) The romance of Apuleius is as
      full of devotion as of satire. * Note: On the extraordinary
      progress of the Mahriac rites, in the West, see De Guigniaud’s
      translation of Creuzer, vol. i. p. 365, and Note 9, tom. i. part
      2, p. 738, &c.—M.]

      137 (return) [ The impostor Alexander very strongly recommended
      the oracle of Trophonius at Mallos, and those of Apollo at Claros
      and Miletus, (Lucian, tom. ii. p. 236, edit. Reitz.) The last of
      these, whose singular history would furnish a very curious
      episode, was consulted by Diocletian before he published his
      edicts of persecution, (Lactantius, de M. P. c. 11.)]

      138 (return) [ Besides the ancient stories of Pythagoras and
      Aristeas, the cures performed at the shrine of Æsculapius, and
      the fables related of Apollonius of Tyana, were frequently
      opposed to the miracles of Christ; though I agree with Dr.
      Lardner, (see Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 253, 352,) that when
      Philostratus composed the life of Apollonius, he had no such
      intention.]

      139 (return) [ It is seriously to be lamented, that the Christian
      fathers, by acknowledging the supernatural, or, as they deem it,
      the infernal part of Paganism, destroy with their own hands the
      great advantage which we might otherwise derive from the liberal
      concessions of our adversaries.]

      140 (return) [ Julian (p. 301, edit. Spanheim) expresses a pious
      joy, that the providence of the gods had extinguished the impious
      sects, and for the most part destroyed the books of the
      Pyrrhonians and Epicuræans, which had been very numerous, since
      Epicurus himself composed no less than 300 volumes. See Diogenes
      Laertius, l. x. c. 26.]

      141 (return) [ Cumque alios audiam mussitare indignanter, et
      dicere opportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut hæc scripta,
      quibus Christiana Religio comprobetur, et vetustatis opprimatur
      auctoritas. Arnobius adversus Gentes, l. iii. p. 103, 104. He
      adds very properly, Erroris convincite Ciceronem... nam
      intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem,
      non est Deum defendere sed veritatis testificationem timere.]

      142 (return) [ Lactantius (Divin. Institut. l. v. c. 2, 3) gives
      a very clear and spirited account of two of these philosophic
      adversaries of the faith. The large treatise of Porphyry against
      the Christians consisted of thirty books, and was composed in
      Sicily about the year 270.]

      143 (return) [ See Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 9, and
      Codex Justinian. l. i. i. l. s.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.—Part VI.


      Although the policy of Diocletian and the humanity of Constantius
      inclined them to preserve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it
      was soon discovered that their two associates, Maximian and
      Galerius, entertained the most implacable aversion for the name
      and religion of the Christians. The minds of those princes had
      never been enlightened by science; education had never softened
      their temper. They owed their greatness to their swords, and in
      their most elevated fortune they still retained their
      superstitious prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the general
      administration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which their
      benefactor had established; but they frequently found occasions
      of exercising within their camp and palaces a secret persecution,
      144 for which the imprudent zeal of the Christians sometimes
      offered the most specious pretences. A sentence of death was
      executed upon Maximilianus, an African youth, who had been
      produced by his own father 1441 before the magistrate as a
      sufficient and legal recruit, but who obstinately persisted in
      declaring, that his conscience would not permit him to embrace
      the profession of a soldier. 145 It could scarcely be expected
      that any government should suffer the action of Marcellus the
      Centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public festival,
      that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the ensigns of
      his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice, that he would obey
      none but Jesus Christ the eternal King, and that he renounced
      forever the use of carnal weapons, and the service of an
      idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon as they recovered from
      their astonishment, secured the person of Marcellus. He was
      examined in the city of Tingi by the president of that part of
      Mauritania; and as he was convicted by his own confession, he was
      condemned and beheaded for the crime of desertion. 146 Examples
      of such a nature savor much less of religious persecution than of
      martial or even civil law; but they served to alienate the mind
      of the emperors, to justify the severity of Galerius, who
      dismissed a great number of Christian officers from their
      employments; and to authorize the opinion, that a sect of
      enthusiastics, which avowed principles so repugnant to the public
      safety, must either remain useless, or would soon become
      dangerous, subjects of the empire.

      144 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 4, c. 17. He limits the
      number of military martyrs, by a remarkable expression, of which
      neither his Latin nor French translator have rendered the energy.
      Notwithstanding the authority of Eusebius, and the silence of
      Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius, Orosius, &c., it has been long
      believed, that the Thebæan legion, consisting of 6000 Christians,
      suffered martyrdom by the order of Maximian, in the valley of the
      Pennine Alps. The story was first published about the middle of
      the 5th century, by Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who received it
      from certain persons, who received it from Isaac, bishop of
      Geneva, who is said to have received it from Theodore, bishop of
      Octodurum. The abbey of St. Maurice still subsists, a rich
      monument of the credulity of Sigismund, king of Burgundy. See an
      excellent Dissertation in xxxvith volume of the Bibliothèque
      Raisonnée, p. 427-454.]

      1441 (return) [ M. Guizot criticizes Gibbon’s account of this
      incident. He supposes that Maximilian was not “produced by his
      father as a recruit,” but was obliged to appear by the law, which
      compelled the sons of soldiers to serve at 21 years old. Was not
      this a law of Constantine? Neither does this circumstance appear
      in the acts. His father had clearly expected him to serve, as he
      had bought him a new dress for the occasion; yet he refused to
      force the conscience of his son. and when Maximilian was
      condemned to death, the father returned home in joy, blessing God
      for having bestowed upon him such a son.—M.]

      145 (return) [ See the Acta Sincera, p. 299. The accounts of his
      martyrdom and that of Marcellus, bear every mark of truth and
      authenticity.]

      146 (return) [ Acta Sincera, p. 302. * Note: M. Guizot here
      justly observes, that it was the necessity of sacrificing to the
      gods, which induced Marcellus to act in this manner.—M.]

      After the success of the Persian war had raised the hopes and the
      reputation of Galerius, he passed a winter with Diocletian in the
      palace of Nicomedia; and the fate of Christianity became the
      object of their secret consultations. 147 The experienced emperor
      was still inclined to pursue measures of lenity; and though he
      readily consented to exclude the Christians from holding any
      employments in the household or the army, he urged in the
      strongest terms the danger as well as cruelty of shedding the
      blood of those deluded fanatics. Galerius at length extorted 1471
      from him the permission of summoning a council, composed of a few
      persons the most distinguished in the civil and military
      departments of the state.

      The important question was agitated in their presence, and those
      ambitious courtiers easily discerned, that it was incumbent on
      them to second, by their eloquence, the importunate violence of
      the Cæsar. It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic
      which might interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their
      sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they
      represented, that the glorious work of the deliverance of the
      empire was left imperfect, as long as an independent people was
      permitted to subsist and multiply in the heart of the provinces.
      The Christians, (it might specially be alleged,) renouncing the
      gods and the institutions of Rome, had constituted a distinct
      republic, which might yet be suppressed before it had acquired
      any military force; but which was already governed by its own
      laws and magistrates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was
      intimately connected in all its parts by the frequent assemblies
      of the bishops, to whose decrees their numerous and opulent
      congregations yielded an implicit obedience. Arguments like these
      may seem to have determined the reluctant mind of Diocletian to
      embrace a new system of persecution; but though we may suspect,
      it is not in our power to relate, the secret intrigues of the
      palace, the private views and resentments, the jealousy of women
      or eunuchs, and all those trifling but decisive causes which so
      often influence the fate of empires, and the councils of the
      wisest monarchs. 148

      147 (return) [ De M. P. c. 11. Lactantius (or whoever was the
      author of this little treatise) was, at that time, an inhabitant
      of Nicomedia; but it seems difficult to conceive how he could
      acquire so accurate a knowledge of what passed in the Imperial
      cabinet. Note: * Lactantius, who was subsequently chosen by
      Constantine to educate Crispus, might easily have learned these
      details from Constantine himself, already of sufficient age to
      interest himself in the affairs of the government, and in a
      position to obtain the best information.—G. This assumes the
      doubtful point of the authorship of the Treatise.—M.]

      1471 (return) [ This permission was not extorted from Diocletian;
      he took the step of his own accord. Lactantius says, in truth,
      Nec tamen deflectere potuit (Diocletianus) præcipitis hominis
      insaniam; placuit ergo amicorum sententiam experiri. (De Mort.
      Pers. c. 11.) But this measure was in accordance with the
      artificial character of Diocletian, who wished to have the
      appearance of doing good by his own impulse and evil by the
      impulse of others. Nam erat hujus malitiæ, cum bonum quid facere
      decrevisse sine consilio faciebat, ut ipse laudaretur. Cum autem
      malum. quoniam id reprehendendum sciebat, in consilium multos
      advocabat, ut alioram culpæ adscriberetur quicquid ipse
      deliquerat. Lact. ib. Eutropius says likewise, Miratus callide
      fuit, sagax præterea et admodum subtilis ingenio, et qui
      severitatem suam aliena invidia vellet explere. Eutrop. ix. c.
      26.—G.——The manner in which the coarse and unfriendly pencil of
      the author of the Treatise de Mort. Pers. has drawn the character
      of Diocletian, seems inconsistent with this profound subtilty.
      Many readers will perhaps agree with Gibbon.—M.]

      148 (return) [ The only circumstance which we can discover, is
      the devotion and jealousy of the mother of Galerius. She is
      described by Lactantius, as Deorum montium cultrix; mulier
      admodum superstitiosa. She had a great influence over her son,
      and was offended by the disregard of some of her Christian
      servants. * Note: This disregard consisted in the Christians
      fasting and praying instead of participating in the banquets and
      sacrifices which she celebrated with the Pagans. Dapibus
      sacrificabat pœne quotidie ac vicariis suis epulis exhibebat.
      Christiani abstinebant, et illa cum gentibus epulante, jejuniis
      hi et oratiomibus insisteban; hine concepit odium Lact de Hist.
      Pers. c. 11.—G.]

      The pleasure of the emperors was at length signified to the
      Christians, who, during the course of this melancholy winter, had
      expected, with anxiety, the result of so many secret
      consultations. The twenty-third of February, which coincided with
      the Roman festival of the Terminalia, 149 was appointed (whether
      from accident or design) to set bounds to the progress of
      Christianity. At the earliest dawn of day, the Prætorian præfect,
      150 accompanied by several generals, tribunes, and officers of
      the revenue, repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which
      was situated on an eminence in the most populous and beautiful
      part of the city. The doors were instantly broke open; they
      rushed into the sanctuary; and as they searched in vain for some
      visible object of worship, they were obliged to content
      themselves with committing to the flames the volumes of the holy
      Scripture. The ministers of Diocletian were followed by a
      numerous body of guards and pioneers, who marched in order of
      battle, and were provided with all the instruments used in the
      destruction of fortified cities. By their incessant labor, a
      sacred edifice, which towered above the Imperial palace, and had
      long excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in a
      few hours levelled with the ground. 151

      149 (return) [ The worship and festival of the god Terminus are
      elegantly illustrated by M. de Boze, Mém. de l’Académie des
      Inscriptions, tom. i. p. 50.]

      150 (return) [ In our only MS. of Lactantius, we read
      _profectus;_ but reason, and the authority of all the critics,
      allow us, instead of that word, which destroys the sense of the
      passage, to substitute _prœfectus_.]

      151 (return) [ Lactantius, de M. P. c. 12, gives a very lively
      picture of the destruction of the church.]

      The next day the general edict of persecution was published; 152
      and though Diocletian, still averse to the effusion of blood, had
      moderated the fury of Galerius, who proposed, that every one
      refusing to offer sacrifice should immediately be burnt alive,
      the penalties inflicted on the obstinacy of the Christians might
      be deemed sufficiently rigorous and effectual. It was enacted,
      that their churches, in all the provinces of the empire, should
      be demolished to their foundations; and the punishment of death
      was denounced against all who should presume to hold any secret
      assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The
      philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of directing
      the blind zeal of persecution, had diligently studied the nature
      and genius of the Christian religion; and as they were not
      ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith were
      supposed to be contained in the writings of the prophets, of the
      evangelists, and of the apostles, they most probably suggested
      the order, that the bishops and presbyters should deliver all
      their sacred books into the hands of the magistrates; who were
      commanded, under the severest penalties, to burn them in a public
      and solemn manner. By the same edict, the property of the church
      was at once confiscated; and the several parts of which it might
      consist were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the
      Imperial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or
      granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After taking
      such effectual measures to abolish the worship, and to dissolve
      the government of the Christians, it was thought necessary to
      subject to the most intolerable hardships the condition of those
      perverse individuals who should still reject the religion of
      nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. Persons of a liberal
      birth were declared incapable of holding any honors or
      employments; slaves were forever deprived of the hopes of
      freedom, and the whole body of the people were put out of the
      protection of the law. The judges were authorized to hear and to
      determine every action that was brought against a Christian. But
      the Christians were not permitted to complain of any injury which
      they themselves had suffered; and thus those unfortunate
      sectaries were exposed to the severity, while they were excluded
      from the benefits, of public justice. This new species of
      martyrdom, so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious,
      was, perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the
      faithful: nor can it be doubted that the passions and interest of
      mankind were disposed on this occasion to second the designs of
      the emperors. But the policy of a well-ordered government must
      sometimes have interposed in behalf of the oppressed Christians;
      1521 nor was it possible for the Roman princes entirely to remove
      the apprehension of punishment, or to connive at every act of
      fraud and violence, without exposing their own authority and the
      rest of their subjects to the most alarming dangers. 153

      152 (return) [ Mosheim, (p. 922—926,) from man scattered passages
      of Lactantius and Eusebius, has collected a very just and
      accurate notion of this edict though he sometimes deviates into
      conjecture and refinement.]

      1521 (return) [ This wants proof. The edict of Diocletian was
      executed in all its right during the rest of his reign. Euseb.
      Hist. Eccl. l viii. c. 13.—G.]

      153 (return) [ Many ages afterwards, Edward J. practised, with
      great success, the same mode of persecution against the clergy of
      England. See Hume’s History of England, vol. ii. p. 300, last 4to
      edition.]

      This edict was scarcely exhibited to the public view, in the most
      conspicuous place of Nicomedia, before it was torn down by the
      hands of a Christian, who expressed at the same time, by the
      bitterest invectives, his contempt as well as abhorrence for such
      impious and tyrannical governors. His offence, according to the
      mildest laws, amounted to treason, and deserved death. And if it
      be true that he was a person of rank and education, those
      circumstances could serve only to aggravate his guilt. He was
      burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his executioners,
      zealous to revenge the personal insult which had been offered to
      the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty, without
      being able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and
      insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved in
      his countenance. The Christians, though they confessed that his
      conduct had not been strictly conformable to the laws of
      prudence, admired the divine fervor of his zeal; and the
      excessive commendations which they lavished on the memory of
      their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep impression of
      terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian. 154

      154 (return) [ Lactantius only calls him quidam, et si non recte,
      magno tamer animo, &c., c. 12. Eusebius (l. viii. c. 5) adorns
      him with secular honora Neither have condescended to mention his
      name; but the Greeks celebrate his memory under that of John. See
      Tillemont, Memones Ecclésiastiques, tom. v. part ii. p. 320.]

      His fears were soon alarmed by the view of a danger from which he
      very narrowly escaped. Within fifteen days the palace of
      Nicomedia, and even the bed-chamber of Diocletian, were twice in
      flames; and though both times they were extinguished without any
      material damage, the singular repetition of the fire was justly
      considered as an evident proof that it had not been the effect of
      chance or negligence. The suspicion naturally fell on the
      Christians; and it was suggested, with some degree of
      probability, that those desperate fanatics, provoked by their
      present sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, had
      entered into a conspiracy with their faithful brethren, the
      eunuchs of the palace, against the lives of two emperors, whom
      they detested as the irreconcilable enemies of the church of God.

      Jealousy and resentment prevailed in every breast, but especially
      in that of Diocletian. A great number of persons, distinguished
      either by the offices which they had filled, or by the favor
      which they had enjoyed, were thrown into prison. Every mode of
      torture was put in practice, and the court, as well as city, was
      polluted with many bloody executions. 155 But as it was found
      impossible to extort any discovery of this mysterious
      transaction, it seems incumbent on us either to presume the
      innocence, or to admire the resolution, of the sufferers. A few
      days afterwards Galerius hastily withdrew himself from Nicomedia,
      declaring, that if he delayed his departure from that devoted
      palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the rage of the Christians.

      The ecclesiastical historians, from whom alone we derive a
      partial and imperfect knowledge of this persecution, are at a
      loss how to account for the fears and dangers of the emperors.
      Two of these writers, a prince and a rhetorician, were
      eye-witnesses of the fire of Nicomedia. The one ascribes it to
      lightning, and the divine wrath; the other affirms, that it was
      kindled by the malice of Galerius himself. 156

      155 (return) [ Lactantius de M. P. c. 13, 14. Potentissimi
      quondam Eunuchi necati, per quos Palatium et ipse constabat.
      Eusebius (l. viii. c. 6) mentions the cruel executions of the
      eunuchs, Gorgonius and Dorotheus, and of Anthimius, bishop of
      Nicomedia; and both those writers describe, in a vague but
      tragical manner, the horrid scenes which were acted even in the
      Imperial presence.]

      156 (return) [ See Lactantius, Eusebius, and Constantine, ad
      Cœtum Sanctorum, c. xxv. Eusebius confesses his ignorance of the
      cause of this fire. Note: As the history of these times affords
      us no example of any attempts made by the Christians against
      their persecutors, we have no reason, not the slightest
      probability, to attribute to them the fire in the palace; and the
      authority of Constantine and Lactantius remains to explain it. M.
      de Tillemont has shown how they can be reconciled. Hist. des
      Empereurs, Vie de Diocletian, xix.—G. Had it been done by a
      Christian, it would probably have been a fanatic, who would have
      avowed and gloried in it. Tillemont’s supposition that the fire
      was first caused by lightning, and fed and increased by the
      malice of Galerius, seems singularly improbable.—M.]

      As the edict against the Christians was designed for a general
      law of the whole empire, and as Diocletian and Galerius, though
      they might not wait for the consent, were assured of the
      concurrence, of the Western princes, it would appear more
      consonant to our ideas of policy, that the governors of all the
      provinces should have received secret instructions to publish, on
      one and the same day, this declaration of war within their
      respective departments. It was at least to be expected, that the
      convenience of the public highways and established posts would
      have enabled the emperors to transmit their orders with the
      utmost despatch from the palace of Nicomedia to the extremities
      of the Roman world; and that they would not have suffered fifty
      days to elapse, before the edict was published in Syria, and near
      four months before it was signified to the cities of Africa. 157

      This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious temper of
      Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the measures
      of persecution, and who was desirous of trying the experiment
      under his more immediate eye, before he gave way to the disorders
      and discontent which it must inevitably occasion in the distant
      provinces. At first, indeed, the magistrates were restrained from
      the effusion of blood; but the use of every other severity was
      permitted, and even recommended to their zeal; nor could the
      Christians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of
      their churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assemblies,
      or to deliver their sacred books to the flames. The pious
      obstinacy of Felix, an African bishop, appears to have
      embarrassed the subordinate ministers of the government. The
      curator of his city sent him in chains to the proconsul. The
      proconsul transmitted him to the Prætorian præfect of Italy; and
      Felix, who disdained even to give an evasive answer, was at
      length beheaded at Venusia, in Lucania, a place on which the
      birth of Horace has conferred fame. 158 This precedent, and
      perhaps some Imperial rescript, which was issued in consequence
      of it, appeared to authorize the governors of provinces, in
      punishing with death the refusal of the Christians to deliver up
      their sacred books. There were undoubtedly many persons who
      embraced this opportunity of obtaining the crown of martyrdom;
      but there were likewise too many who purchased an ignominious
      life, by discovering and betraying the holy Scripture into the
      hands of infidels. A great number even of bishops and presbyters
      acquired, by this criminal compliance, the opprobrious epithet of
      _Traditors;_ and their offence was productive of much present
      scandal and of much future discord in the African church. 159

      157 (return) [ Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclesiast. tom. v. part i. p.
      43.]

      158 (return) [ See the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 353; those of
      Felix of Thibara, or Tibiur, appear much less corrupted than in
      the other editions, which afford a lively specimen of legendary
      license.]

      159 (return) [ See the first book of Optatus of Milevis against
      the Donatiste, Paris, 1700, edit. Dupin. He lived under the reign
      of Valens.]

      The copies as well as the versions of Scripture, were already so
      multiplied in the empire, that the most severe inquisition could
      no longer be attended with any fatal consequences; and even the
      sacrifice of those volumes, which, in every congregation, were
      preserved for public use, required the consent of some
      treacherous and unworthy Christians. But the ruin of the churches
      was easily effected by the authority of the government, and by
      the labor of the Pagans. In some provinces, however, the
      magistrates contented themselves with shutting up the places of
      religious worship. In others, they more literally complied with
      the terms of the edict; and after taking away the doors, the
      benches, and the pulpit, which they burnt as it were in a funeral
      pile, they completely demolished the remainder of the edifice.
      160 It is perhaps to this melancholy occasion that we should
      apply a very remarkable story, which is related with so many
      circumstances of variety and improbability, that it serves rather
      to excite than to satisfy our curiosity. In a small town in
      Phrygia, of whose name as well as situation we are left ignorant,
      it should seem that the magistrates and the body of the people
      had embraced the Christian faith; and as some resistance might be
      apprehended to the execution of the edict, the governor of the
      province was supported by a numerous detachment of legionaries.
      On their approach the citizens threw themselves into the church,
      with the resolution either of defending by arms that sacred
      edifice, or of perishing in its ruins. They indignantly rejected
      the notice and permission which was given them to retire, till
      the soldiers, provoked by their obstinate refusal, set fire to
      the building on all sides, and consumed, by this extraordinary
      kind of martyrdom, a great number of Phrygians, with their wives
      and children. 161

      160 (return) [ The ancient monuments, published at the end of
      Optatus, p. 261, &c. describe, in a very circumstantial manner,
      the proceedings of the governors in the destruction of churches.
      They made a minute inventory of the plate, &c., which they found
      in them. That of the church of Cirta, in Numidia, is still
      extant. It consisted of two chalices of gold, and six of silver;
      six urns, one kettle, seven lamps, all likewise of silver;
      besides a large quantity of brass utensils, and wearing apparel.]

      161 (return) [ Lactantius (Institut. Divin. v. 11) confines the
      calamity to the _conventiculum_, with its congregation. Eusebius
      (viii. 11) extends it to a whole city, and introduces something
      very like a regular siege. His ancient Latin translator, Rufinus,
      adds the important circumstance of the permission given to the
      inhabitants of retiring from thence. As Phrygia reached to the
      confines of Isauria, it is possible that the restless temper of
      those independent barbarians may have contributed to this
      misfortune. Note: Universum populum. Lact. Inst. Div. v. 11.—G.]

      Some slight disturbances, though they were suppressed almost as
      soon as excited, in Syria and the frontiers of Armenia, afforded
      the enemies of the church a very plausible occasion to insinuate,
      that those troubles had been secretly fomented by the intrigues
      of the bishops, who had already forgotten their ostentatious
      professions of passive and unlimited obedience. 162

      The resentment, or the fears, of Diocletian, at length
      transported him beyond the bounds of moderation, which he had
      hitherto preserved, and he declared, in a series of cruel edicts,
      1621 his intention of abolishing the Christian name. By the first
      of these edicts, the governors of the provinces were directed to
      apprehend all persons of the ecclesiastical order; and the
      prisons, destined for the vilest criminals, were soon filled with
      a multitude of bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and
      exorcists. By a second edict, the magistrates were commanded to
      employ every method of severity, which might reclaim them from
      their odious superstition, and oblige them to return to the
      established worship of the gods. This rigorous order was
      extended, by a subsequent edict, to the whole body of Christians,
      who were exposed to a violent and general persecution. 163

      Instead of those salutary restraints, which had required the
      direct and solemn testimony of an accuser, it became the duty as
      well as the interest of the Imperial officers to discover, to
      pursue, and to torment the most obnoxious among the faithful.
      Heavy penalties were denounced against all who should presume to
      save a prescribed sectary from the just indignation of the gods,
      and of the emperors. Yet, notwithstanding the severity of this
      law, the virtuous courage of many of the Pagans, in concealing
      their friends or relations, affords an honorable proof, that the
      rage of superstition had not extinguished in their minds the
      sentiments of nature and humanity. 164

      162 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 6. M. de Valois (with some
      probability) thinks that he has discovered the Syrian rebellion
      in an oration of Libanius; and that it was a rash attempt of the
      tribune Eugenius, who with only five hundred men seized Antioch,
      and might perhaps allure the Christians by the promise of
      religious toleration. From Eusebius, (l. ix. c. 8,) as well as
      from Moses of Chorene, (Hist. Armen. l. ii. 77, &c.,) it may be
      inferred, that Christianity was already introduced into Armenia.]

      1621 (return) [ He had already passed them in his first edict. It
      does not appear that resentment or fear had any share in the new
      persecutions: perhaps they originated in superstition, and a
      specious apparent respect for its ministers. The oracle of
      Apollo, consulted by Diocletian, gave no answer; and said that
      just men hindered it from speaking. Constantine, who assisted at
      the ceremony, affirms, with an oath, that when questioned about
      these men, the high priest named the Christians. “The Emperor
      eagerly seized on this answer; and drew against the innocent a
      sword, destined only to punish the guilty: he instantly issued
      edicts, written, if I may use the expression, with a poniard; and
      ordered the judges to employ all their skill to invent new modes
      of punishment. Euseb. Vit Constant. l. ii c 54.”—G.]

      163 (return) [ See Mosheim, p. 938: the text of Eusebius very
      plainly shows that the governors, whose powers were enlarged, not
      restrained, by the new laws, could punish with death the most
      obstinate Christians as an example to their brethren.]

      164 (return) [ Athanasius, p. 833, ap. Tillemont, Mém.
      Ecclesiast. tom v part i. 90.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.—Part VII.


      Diocletian had no sooner published his edicts against the
      Christians, than, as if he had been desirous of committing to
      other hands the work of persecution, he divested himself of the
      Imperial purple. The character and situation of his colleagues
      and successors sometimes urged them to enforce and sometimes
      inclined them to suspend, the execution of these rigorous laws;
      nor can we acquire a just and distinct idea of this important
      period of ecclesiastical history, unless we separately consider
      the state of Christianity, in the different parts of the empire,
      during the space of ten years, which elapsed between the first
      edicts of Diocletian and the final peace of the church.

      The mild and humane temper of Constantius was averse to the
      oppression of any part of his subjects. The principal offices of
      his palace were exercised by Christians. He loved their persons,
      esteemed their fidelity, and entertained not any dislike to their
      religious principles. But as long as Constantius remained in the
      subordinate station of Cæsar, it was not in his power openly to
      reject the edicts of Diocletian, or to disobey the commands of
      Maximian. His authority contributed, however, to alleviate the
      sufferings which he pitied and abhorred. He consented with
      reluctance to the ruin of the churches; but he ventured to
      protect the Christians themselves from the fury of the populace,
      and from the rigor of the laws. The provinces of Gaul (under
      which we may probably include those of Britain) were indebted for
      the singular tranquillity which they enjoyed, to the gentle
      interposition of their sovereign. 165 But Datianus, the president
      or governor of Spain, actuated either by zeal or policy, chose
      rather to execute the public edicts of the emperors, than to
      understand the secret intentions of Constantius; and it can
      scarcely be doubted, that his provincial administration was
      stained with the blood of a few martyrs. 166

      The elevation of Constantius to the supreme and independent
      dignity of Augustus, gave a free scope to the exercise of his
      virtues, and the shortness of his reign did not prevent him from
      establishing a system of toleration, of which he left the precept
      and the example to his son Constantine. His fortunate son, from
      the first moment of his accession, declaring himself the
      protector of the church, at length deserved the appellation of
      the first emperor who publicly professed and established the
      Christian religion. The motives of his conversion, as they may
      variously be deduced from benevolence, from policy, from
      conviction, or from remorse, and the progress of the revolution,
      which, under his powerful influence and that of his sons,
      rendered Christianity the reigning religion of the Roman empire,
      will form a very interesting and important chapter in the present
      volume of this history. At present it may be sufficient to
      observe, that every victory of Constantine was productive of some
      relief or benefit to the church.

      165 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 13. Lactantius de M. P. c.
      15. Dodwell (Dissertat. Cyprian. xi. 75) represents them as
      inconsistent with each other. But the former evidently speaks of
      Constantius in the station of Cæsar, and the latter of the same
      prince in the rank of Augustus.]

      166 (return) [ Datianus is mentioned, in Gruter’s Inscriptions,
      as having determined the limits between the territories of Pax
      Julia, and those of Ebora, both cities in the southern part of
      Lusitania. If we recollect the neighborhood of those places to
      Cape St. Vincent, we may suspect that the celebrated deacon and
      martyr of that name had been inaccurately assigned by Prudentius,
      &c., to Saragossa, or Valentia. See the pompous history of his
      sufferings, in the Mémoires de Tillemont, tom. v. part ii. p.
      58-85. Some critics are of opinion, that the department of
      Constantius, as Cæsar, did not include Spain, which still
      continued under the immediate jurisdiction of Maximian.]

      The provinces of Italy and Africa experienced a short but violent
      persecution. The rigorous edicts of Diocletian were strictly and
      cheerfully executed by his associate Maximian, who had long hated
      the Christians, and who delighted in acts of blood and violence.
      In the autumn of the first year of the persecution, the two
      emperors met at Rome to celebrate their triumph; several
      oppressive laws appear to have issued from their secret
      consultations, and the diligence of the magistrates was animated
      by the presence of their sovereigns. After Diocletian had
      divested himself of the purple, Italy and Africa were
      administered under the name of Severus, and were exposed, without
      defence, to the implacable resentment of his master Galerius.
      Among the martyrs of Rome, Adauctus deserves the notice of
      posterity. He was of a noble family in Italy, and had raised
      himself, through the successive honors of the palace, to the
      important office of treasurer of the private Jemesnes. Adauctus
      is the more remarkable for being the only person of rank and
      distinction who appears to have suffered death, during the whole
      course of this general persecution. 167

      167 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 11. Gruter, Inscrip. p.
      1171, No. 18. Rufinus has mistaken the office of Adauctus, as
      well as the place of his martyrdom. * Note: M. Guizot suggests
      the powerful cunuchs of the palace. Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and
      Andrew, admitted by Gibbon himself to have been put to death, p.
      66.]

      The revolt of Maxentius immediately restored peace to the
      churches of Italy and Africa; and the same tyrant who oppressed
      every other class of his subjects, showed himself just, humane,
      and even partial, towards the afflicted Christians. He depended
      on their gratitude and affection, and very naturally presumed,
      that the injuries which they had suffered, and the dangers which
      they still apprehended from his most inveterate enemy, would
      secure the fidelity of a party already considerable by their
      numbers and opulence. 168 Even the conduct of Maxentius towards
      the bishops of Rome and Carthage may be considered as the proof
      of his toleration, since it is probable that the most orthodox
      princes would adopt the same measures with regard to their
      established clergy. Marcellus, the former of these prelates, had
      thrown the capital into confusion, by the severe penance which he
      imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during the late
      persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. The rage
      of faction broke out in frequent and violent seditions; the blood
      of the faithful was shed by each other’s hands, and the exile of
      Marcellus, whose prudence seems to have been less eminent than
      his zeal, was found to be the only measure capable of restoring
      peace to the distracted church of Rome. 169 The behavior of
      Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, appears to have been still more
      reprehensible. A deacon of that city had published a libel
      against the emperor. The offender took refuge in the episcopal
      palace; and though it was somewhat early to advance any claims of
      ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused to deliver him up
      to the officers of justice. For this treasonable resistance,
      Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead of receiving a legal
      sentence of death or banishment, he was permitted, after a short
      examination, to return to his diocese. 170 Such was the happy
      condition of the Christian subjects of Maxentius, that whenever
      they were desirous of procuring for their own use any bodies of
      martyrs, they were obliged to purchase them from the most distant
      provinces of the East. A story is related of Aglae, a Roman lady,
      descended from a consular family, and possessed of so ample an
      estate, that it required the management of seventy-three
      stewards. Among these Boniface was the favorite of his mistress;
      and as Aglae mixed love with devotion, it is reported that he was
      admitted to share her bed. Her fortune enabled her to gratify the
      pious desire of obtaining some sacred relics from the East. She
      intrusted Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large
      quantity of aromatics; and her lover, attended by twelve horsemen
      and three covered chariots, undertook a remote pilgrimage, as far
      as Tarsus in Cilicia. 171

      168 (return) [ Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14. But as Maxentius was
      vanquished by Constantine, it suited the purpose of Lactantius to
      place his death among those of the persecutors. * Note: M. Guizot
      directly contradicts this statement of Gibbon, and appeals to
      Eusebius. Maxentius, who assumed the power in Italy, pretended at
      first to be a Christian, to gain the favor of the Roman people;
      he ordered his ministers to cease to persecute the Christians,
      affecting a hypocritical piety, in order to appear more mild than
      his predecessors; but his actions soon proved that he was very
      different from what they had at first hoped. The actions of
      Maxentius were those of a cruel tyrant, but not those of a
      persecutor: the Christians, like the rest of his subjects,
      suffered from his vices, but they were not oppressed as a sect.
      Christian females were exposed to his lusts, as well as to the
      brutal violence of his colleague Maximian, but they were not
      selected as Christians.—M.]

      169 (return) [ The epitaph of Marcellus is to be found in Gruter,
      Inscrip. p 1172, No. 3, and it contains all that we know of his
      history. Marcellinus and Marcellus, whose names follow in the
      list of popes, are supposed by many critics to be different
      persons; but the learned Abbé de Longuerue was convinced that
      they were one and the same.

      Veridicus rector lapsis quia crimina flere
      Prædixit miseris, fuit omnibus hostis amarus.
      Hinc furor, hinc odium; sequitur discordia, lites,
      Seditio, cædes; solvuntur fœdera pacis.
      Crimen ob alterius, Christum qui in pace negavit
      Finibus expulsus patriæ est feritate Tyranni.
      Hæc breviter Damasus voluit comperta referre:
      Marcelli populus meritum cognoscere posset.

      We may observe that Damasus was made Bishop of Rome, A. D. 366.]

      170 (return) [ Optatus contr. Donatist. l. i. c. 17, 18. * Note:
      The words of Optatus are, Profectus (Roman) causam dixit; jussus
      con reverti Carthaginem; perhaps, in pleading his cause, he
      exculpated himself, since he received an order to return to
      Carthage.—G.]

      171 (return) [ The Acts of the Passion of St. Boniface, which
      abound in miracles and declamation, are published by Ruinart, (p.
      283—291,) both in Greek and Latin, from the authority of very
      ancient manuscripts. Note: We are ignorant whether Aglae and
      Boniface were Christians at the time of their unlawful
      connection. See Tillemont. Mem, Eccles. Note on the Persecution
      of Domitian, tom. v. note 82. M. de Tillemont proves also that
      the history is doubtful.—G. ——Sir D. Dalrymple (Lord Hailes)
      calls the story of Aglae and Boniface as of equal authority with
      our _popular_ histories of Whittington and Hickathrift. Christian
      Antiquities, ii. 64.—M.]

      The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first and principal author
      of the persecution, was formidable to those Christians whom their
      misfortunes had placed within the limits of his dominions; and it
      may fairly be presumed that many persons of a middle rank, who
      were not confined by the chains either of wealth or of poverty,
      very frequently deserted their native country, and sought a
      refuge in the milder climate of the West. 1711 As long as he
      commanded only the armies and provinces of Illyricum, he could
      with difficulty either find or make a considerable number of
      martyrs, in a warlike country, which had entertained the
      missionaries of the gospel with more coldness and reluctance than
      any other part of the empire. 172 But when Galerius had obtained
      the supreme power, and the government of the East, he indulged in
      their fullest extent his zeal and cruelty, not only in the
      provinces of Thrace and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate
      jurisdiction, but in those of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where
      Maximin gratified his own inclination, by yielding a rigorous
      obedience to the stern commands of his benefactor. 173 The
      frequent disappointments of his ambitious views, the experience
      of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflections which a
      lingering and painful distemper suggested to the mind of
      Galerius, at length convinced him that the most violent efforts
      of despotism are insufficient to extirpate a whole people, or to
      subdue their religious prejudices. Desirous of repairing the
      mischief that he had occasioned, he published in his own name,
      and in those of Licinius and Constantine, a general edict, which,
      after a pompous recital of the Imperial titles, proceeded in the
      following manner:—

      1711 (return) [ A little after this, Christianity was propagated
      to the north of the Roman provinces, among the tribes of Germany:
      a multitude of Christians, forced by the persecutions of the
      Emperors to take refuge among the Barbarians, were received with
      kindness. Euseb. de Vit. Constant. ii. 53. Semler Select. cap. H.
      E. p. 115. The Goths owed their first knowledge of Christianity
      to a young girl, a prisoner of war; she continued in the midst of
      them her exercises of piety; she fasted, prayed, and praised God
      day and night. When she was asked what good would come of so much
      painful trouble she answered, “It is thus that Christ, the Son of
      God, is to be honored.” Sozomen, ii. c. 6.—G.]

      172 (return) [ During the four first centuries, there exist few
      traces of either bishops or bishoprics in the western Illyricum.
      It has been thought probable that the primate of Milan extended
      his jurisdiction over Sirmium, the capital of that great
      province. See the Geographia Sacra of Charles de St. Paul, p.
      68-76, with the observations of Lucas Holstenius.]

      173 (return) [ The viiith book of Eusebius, as well as the
      supplement concerning the martyrs of Palestine, principally
      relate to the persecution of Galerius and Maximin. The general
      lamentations with which Lactantius opens the vth book of his
      Divine Institutions allude to their cruelty.] “Among the
      important cares which have occupied our mind for the utility and
      preservation of the empire, it was our intention to correct and
      reestablish all things according to the ancient laws and public
      discipline of the Romans. We were particularly desirous of
      reclaiming into the way of reason and nature, the deluded
      Christians who had renounced the religion and ceremonies
      instituted by their fathers; and presumptuously despising the
      practice of antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and
      opinions, according to the dictates of their fancy, and had
      collected a various society from the different provinces of our
      empire. The edicts, which we have published to enforce the
      worship of the gods, having exposed many of the Christians to
      danger and distress, many having suffered death, and many more,
      who still persist in their impious folly, being left destitute of
      _any_ public exercise of religion, we are disposed to extend to
      those unhappy men the effects of our wonted clemency. We permit
      them therefore freely to profess their private opinions, and to
      assemble in their conventicles without fear or molestation,
      provided always that they preserve a due respect to the
      established laws and government. By another rescript we shall
      signify our intentions to the judges and magistrates; and we hope
      that our indulgence will engage the Christians to offer up their
      prayers to the Deity whom they adore, for our safety and
      prosperity for their own, and for that of the republic.” 174 It
      is not usually in the language of edicts and manifestos that we
      should search for the real character or the secret motives of
      princes; but as these were the words of a dying emperor, his
      situation, perhaps, may be admitted as a pledge of his sincerity.

      174 (return) [ Eusebius (l. viii. c. 17) has given us a Greek
      version, and Lactantius (de M. P. c. 34) the Latin original, of
      this memorable edict. Neither of these writers seems to recollect
      how directly it contradicts whatever they have just affirmed of
      the remorse and repentance of Galerius. Note: But Gibbon has
      answered this by his just observation, that it is not in the
      language of edicts and manifestos that we should search * * for
      the secre motives of princes.—M.]

      When Galerius subscribed this edict of toleration, he was well
      assured that Licinius would readily comply with the inclinations
      of his friend and benefactor, and that any measures in favor of
      the Christians would obtain the approbation of Constantine. But
      the emperor would not venture to insert in the preamble the name
      of Maximin, whose consent was of the greatest importance, and who
      succeeded a few days afterwards to the provinces of Asia. In the
      first six months, however, of his new reign, Maximin affected to
      adopt the prudent counsels of his predecessor; and though he
      never condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church by a
      public edict, Sabinus, his Prætorian præfect, addressed a
      circular letter to all the governors and magistrates of the
      provinces, expatiating on the Imperial clemency, acknowledging
      the invincible obstinacy of the Christians, and directing the
      officers of justice to cease their ineffectual prosecutions, and
      to connive at the secret assemblies of those enthusiasts. In
      consequence of these orders, great numbers of Christians were
      released from prison, or delivered from the mines. The
      confessors, singing hymns of triumph, returned into their own
      countries; and those who had yielded to the violence of the
      tempest, solicited with tears of repentance their readmission
      into the bosom of the church. 175

      175 (return) [ Eusebius, l. ix. c. 1. He inserts the epistle of
      the præfect.]

      But this treacherous calm was of short duration; nor could the
      Christians of the East place any confidence in the character of
      their sovereign. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling
      passions of the soul of Maximin. The former suggested the means,
      the latter pointed out the objects of persecution. The emperor
      was devoted to the worship of the gods, to the study of magic,
      and to the belief of oracles. The prophets or philosophers, whom
      he revered as the favorites of Heaven, were frequently raised to
      the government of provinces, and admitted into his most secret
      councils. They easily convinced him that the Christians had been
      indebted for their victories to their regular discipline, and
      that the weakness of polytheism had principally flowed from a
      want of union and subordination among the ministers of religion.
      A system of government was therefore instituted, which was
      evidently copied from the policy of the church. In all the great
      cities of the empire, the temples were repaired and beautified by
      the order of Maximin, and the officiating priests of the various
      deities were subjected to the authority of a superior pontiff
      destined to oppose the bishop, and to promote the cause of
      paganism. These pontiffs acknowledged, in their turn, the supreme
      jurisdiction of the metropolitans or high priests of the
      province, who acted as the immediate vicegerents of the emperor
      himself. A white robe was the ensign of their dignity; and these
      new prelates were carefully selected from the most noble and
      opulent families. By the influence of the magistrates, and of the
      sacerdotal order, a great number of dutiful addresses were
      obtained, particularly from the cities of Nicomedia, Antioch, and
      Tyre, which artfully represented the well-known intentions of the
      court as the general sense of the people; solicited the emperor
      to consult the laws of justice rather than the dictates of his
      clemency; expressed their abhorrence of the Christians, and
      humbly prayed that those impious sectaries might at least be
      excluded from the limits of their respective territories. The
      answer of Maximin to the address which he obtained from the
      citizens of Tyre is still extant. He praises their zeal and
      devotion in terms of the highest satisfaction, descants on the
      obstinate impiety of the Christians, and betrays, by the
      readiness with which he consents to their banishment, that he
      considered himself as receiving, rather than as conferring, an
      obligation. The priests as well as the magistrates were empowered
      to enforce the execution of his edicts, which were engraved on
      tables of brass; and though it was recommended to them to avoid
      the effusion of blood, the most cruel and ignominious punishments
      were inflicted on the refractory Christians. 176

      176 (return) [ See Eusebius, l. viii. c. 14, l. ix. c. 2—8.
      Lactantius de M. P. c. 36. These writers agree in representing
      the arts of Maximin; but the former relates the execution of
      several martyrs, while the latter expressly affirms, occidi
      servos Dei vetuit. * Note: It is easy to reconcile them; it is
      sufficient to quote the entire text of Lactantius: Nam cum
      clementiam specie tenus profiteretur, occidi servos Dei vetuit,
      debilitari jussit. Itaque confessoribus effodiebantur oculi,
      amputabantur manus, nares vel auriculæ desecabantur. Hæc ille
      moliens Constantini litteris deterretur. Dissimulavit ergo, et
      tamen, si quis inciderit. mari occulte mergebatur. This detail of
      torments inflicted on the Christians easily reconciles Lactantius
      and Eusebius. Those who died in consequence of their tortures,
      those who were plunged into the sea, might well pass for martyrs.
      The mutilation of the words of Lactantius has alone given rise to
      the apparent contradiction.—G. ——Eusebius. ch. vi., relates the
      public martyrdom of the aged bishop of Emesa, with two others,
      who were thrown to the wild beasts, the beheading of Peter,
      bishop of Alexandria, with several others, and the death of
      Lucian, presbyter of Antioch, who was carried to Numidia, and put
      to death in prison. The contradiction is direct and undeniable,
      for although Eusebius may have misplaced the former martyrdoms,
      it may be doubted whether the authority of Maximin extended to
      Nicomedia till after the death of Galerius. The last edict of
      toleration issued by Maximin and published by Eusebius himself,
      Eccl. Hist. ix. 9. confirms the statement of Lactantius.—M.]

      The Asiatic Christians had every thing to dread from the severity
      of a bigoted monarch who prepared his measures of violence with
      such deliberate policy. But a few months had scarcely elapsed
      before the edicts published by the two Western emperors obliged
      Maximin to suspend the prosecution of his designs: the civil war
      which he so rashly undertook against Licinius employed all his
      attention; and the defeat and death of Maximin soon delivered the
      church from the last and most implacable of her enemies. 177

      177 (return) [ A few days before his death, he published a very
      ample edict of toleration, in which he imputes all the severities
      which the Christians suffered to the judges and governors, who
      had misunderstood his intentions.See the edict of Eusebius, l.
      ix. c. 10.]

      In this general view of the persecution, which was first
      authorized by the edicts of Diocletian, I have purposely
      refrained from describing the particular sufferings and deaths of
      the Christian martyrs. It would have been an easy task, from the
      history of Eusebius, from the declamations of Lactantius, and
      from the most ancient acts, to collect a long series of horrid
      and disgustful pictures, and to fill many pages with racks and
      scourges, with iron hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the
      variety of tortures which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more
      savage executioners, could inflict upon the human body. These
      melancholy scenes might be enlivened by a crowd of visions and
      miracles destined either to delay the death, to celebrate the
      triumph, or to discover the relics of those canonized saints who
      suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot determine what I
      ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought to
      believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius
      himself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might
      redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could
      tend to the disgrace, of religion. 178 Such an acknowledgment
      will naturally excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly
      violated one of the fundamental laws of history, has not paid a
      very strict regard to the observance of the other; and the
      suspicion will derive additional credit from the character of
      Eusebius, 1781 which was less tinctured with credulity, and more
      practised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his
      contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the
      magistrates were exasperated by some personal motives of interest
      or resentment, the rules of prudence, and perhaps of decency, to
      overturn the altars, to pour out imprecations against the
      emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his tribunal, it
      may be presumed, that every mode of torture which cruelty could
      invent, or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted
      victims. 179 Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily
      mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment of the
      Christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of justice,
      was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to have been. 1.
      The confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were
      permitted by the humanity or the negligence of their keepers to
      build chapels, and freely to profess their religion in the midst
      of those dreary habitations. 180 2. The bishops were obliged to
      check and to censure the forward zeal of the Christians, who
      voluntarily threw themselves into the hands of the magistrates.
      Some of these were persons oppressed by poverty and debts, who
      blindly sought to terminate a miserable existence by a glorious
      death. Others were allured by the hope that a short confinement
      would expiate the sins of a whole life; and others again were
      actuated by the less honorable motive of deriving a plentiful
      subsistence, and perhaps a considerable profit, from the alms
      which the charity of the faithful bestowed on the prisoners. 181
      After the church had triumphed over all her enemies, the interest
      as well as vanity of the captives prompted them to magnify the
      merit of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance of
      time or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction; and
      the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy martyrs,
      whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength had been
      renewed, and whose lost members had miraculously been restored,
      were extremely convenient for the purpose of removing every
      difficulty, and of silencing every objection. The most
      extravagant legends, as they conduced to the honor of the church,
      were applauded by the credulous multitude, countenanced by the
      power of the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of
      ecclesiastical history.

      178 (return) [ Such is the _fair_ deduction from two remarkable
      passages in Eusebius, l. viii. c. 2, and de Martyr. Palestin. c.
      12. The prudence of the historian has exposed his own character
      to censure and suspicion. It was well known that he himself had
      been thrown into prison; and it was suggested that he had
      purchased his deliverance by some dishonorable compliance. The
      reproach was urged in his lifetime, and even in his presence, at
      the council of Tyre. See Tillemont, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques,
      tom. viii. part i. p. 67.]

      1781 (return) [ Historical criticism does not consist in
      rejecting indiscriminately all the facts which do not agree with
      a particular system, as Gibbon does in this chapter, in which,
      except at the last extremity, he will not consent to believe a
      martyrdom. Authorities are to be weighed, not excluded from
      examination. Now, the Pagan historians justify in many places the
      detail which have been transmitted to us by the historians of the
      church, concerning the tortures endured by the Christians. Celsus
      reproaches the Christians with holding their assemblies in
      secret, on account of the fear inspired by their sufferings, “for
      when you are arrested,” he says, “you are dragged to punishment:
      and, before you are put to death, you have to suffer all kinds of
      tortures.” Origen cont. Cels. l. i. ii. vi. viii. passing.
      Libanius, the panegyrist of Julian, says, while speaking of the
      Christians. “Those who followed a corrupt religion were in
      continual apprehensions; they feared lest Julian should invent
      tortures still more refined than those to which they had been
      exposed before, as mutilation, burning alive, &c.; for the
      emperors had inflicted upon them all these barbarities.” Lib.
      Parent in Julian. ap. Fab. Bib. Græc. No. 9, No. 58, p. 283—G.
      ——This sentence of Gibbon has given rise to several learned
      dissertation: Möller, de Fide Eusebii Cæsar, &c., Havniæ, 1813.
      Danzius, de Eusebio Cæs. Hist. Eccl. Scriptore, ejusque tide
      historica recte æstimandâ, &c., Jenæ, 1815. Kestner Commentatio
      de Eusebii Hist. Eccles. conditoris auctoritate et fide, &c. See
      also Reuterdahl, de Fontibus Historiæ Eccles. Eusebianæ, Lond.
      Goth., 1826. Gibbon’s inference may appear stronger than the text
      will warrant, yet it is difficult, after reading the passages, to
      dismiss all suspicion of partiality from the mind.—M.]

      179 (return) [ The ancient, and perhaps authentic, account of the
      sufferings of Tarachus and his companions, (Acta Sincera Ruinart,
      p. 419—448,) is filled with strong expressions of resentment and
      contempt, which could not fail of irritating the magistrate. The
      behavior of Ædesius to Hierocles, præfect of Egypt, was still
      more extraordinary. Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 5. * Note: M.
      Guizot states, that the acts of Tarachus and his companion
      contain nothing that appears dictated by violent feelings,
      (sentiment outré.) Nothing can be more painful than the constant
      attempt of Gibbon throughout this discussion, to find some flaw
      in the virtue and heroism of the martyrs, some extenuation for
      the cruelty of the persecutors. But truth must not be sacrificed
      even to well-grounded moral indignation. Though the language of
      these martyrs is in great part that of calm de fiance, of noble
      firmness, yet there are many expressions which betray “resentment
      and contempt.” “Children of Satan, worshippers of Devils,” is
      their common appellation of the heathen. One of them calls the
      judge another, one curses, and declares that he will curse the
      Emperors, as pestilential and bloodthirsty tyrants, whom God will
      soon visit in his wrath. On the other hand, though at first they
      speak the milder language of persuasion, the cold barbarity of
      the judges and officers might surely have called forth one
      sentence of abhorrence from Gibbon. On the first unsatisfactory
      answer, “Break his jaw,” is the order of the judge. They direct
      and witness the most excruciating tortures; the people, as M.
      Guizot observers, were so much revolted by the cruelty of Maximus
      that when the martyrs appeared in the amphitheatre, fear seized
      on all hearts, and general murmurs against the unjust judge rank
      through the assembly. It is singular, at least, that Gibbon
      should have quoted “as probably authentic,” acts so much
      embellished with miracle as these of Tarachus are, particularly
      towards the end.—M. * Note: Scarcely were the authorities
      informed of this, than the president of the province, a man, says
      Eusebius, harsh and cruel, banished the confessors, some to
      Cyprus, others to different parts of Palestine, and ordered them
      to be tormented by being set to the most painful labors. Four of
      them, whom he required to abjure their faith and refused, were
      burnt alive. Euseb. de Mart. Palest. c. xiii.—G. Two of these
      were bishops; a fifth, Silvanus, bishop of Gaza, was the last
      martyr; another, named John was blinded, but used to officiate,
      and recite from memory long passages of the sacred writings—M.]

      180 (return) [ Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13.]

      181 (return) [ Augustin. Collat. Carthagin. Dei, iii. c. 13, ap.
      Tillanant, Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. v. part i. p. 46. The
      controversy with the Donatists, has reflected some, though
      perhaps a partial, light on the history of the African church.]




      Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
      Constantine.—Part VIII.


      The vague descriptions of exile and imprisonment, of pain and
      torture, are so easily exaggerated or softened by the pencil of
      an artful orator, 1811 that we are naturally induced to inquire
      into a fact of a more distinct and stubborn kind; the number of
      persons who suffered death in consequence of the edicts published
      by Diocletian, his associates, and his successors. The recent
      legendaries record whole armies and cities, which were at once
      swept away by the undistinguishing rage of persecution. The more
      ancient writers content themselves with pouring out a liberal
      effusion of loose and tragical invectives, without condescending
      to ascertain the precise number of those persons who were
      permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel.
      From the history of Eusebius, it may, however, be collected, that
      only nine bishops were punished with death; and we are assured,
      by his particular enumeration of the martyrs of Palestine, 182
      that no more than ninety-two Christians were entitled to that
      honorable appellation. 1821 As we are unacquainted with the
      degree of episcopal zeal and courage which prevailed at that
      time, it is not in our power to draw any useful inferences from
      the former of these facts: but the latter may serve to justify a
      very important and probable conclusion. According to the
      distribution of Roman provinces, Palestine may be considered as
      the sixteenth part of the Eastern empire: 183 and since there
      were some governors, who from a real or affected clemency had
      preserved their hands unstained with the blood of the faithful,
      184 it is reasonable to believe, that the country which had given
      birth to Christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part of
      the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of Galerius
      and Maximin; the whole might consequently amount to about fifteen
      hundred, a number which, if it is equally divided between the ten
      years of the persecution, will allow an annual consumption of one
      hundred and fifty martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to the
      provinces of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end
      of two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either
      suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the Roman
      empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted by a judicia,
      sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less than two thousand
      persons. Since it cannot be doubted that the Christians were more
      numerous, and their enemies more exasperated, in the time of
      Diocletian, than they had ever been in any former persecution,
      this probable and moderate computation may teach us to estimate
      the number of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed their
      lives for the important purpose of introducing Christianity into
      the world.

      1811 (return) [ Perhaps there never was an instance of an author
      committing so deliberately the fault which he reprobates so
      strongly in others. What is the dexterous management of the more
      inartificial historians of Christianity, in exaggerating the
      numbers of the martyrs, compared to the unfair address with which
      Gibbon here quietly dismisses from the account all the horrible
      and excruciating tortures which fell short of death? The reader
      may refer to the xiith chapter (book viii.) of Eusebius for the
      description and for the scenes of these tortures.—M.]

      182 (return) [ Eusebius de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13. He closes his
      narration by assuring us that these were the martyrdoms inflicted
      in Palestine, during the _whole_ course of the persecution. The
      9th chapter of his viiith book, which relates to the province of
      Thebais in Egypt, may seem to contradict our moderate
      computation; but it will only lead us to admire the artful
      management of the historian. Choosing for the scene of the most
      exquisite cruelty the most remote and sequestered country of the
      Roman empire, he relates that in Thebais from ten to one hundred
      persons had frequently suffered martyrdom in the same day. But
      when he proceeds to mention his own journey into Egypt, his
      language insensibly becomes more cautious and moderate. Instead
      of a large, but definite number, he speaks of many Christians,
      and most artfully selects two ambiguous words, which may signify
      either what he had seen, or what he had heard; either the
      expectation, or the execution of the punishment. Having thus
      provided a secure evasion, he commits the equivocal passage to
      his readers and translators; justly conceiving that their piety
      would induce them to prefer the most favorable sense. There was
      perhaps some malice in the remark of Theodorus Metochita, that
      all who, like Eusebius, had been conversant with the Egyptians,
      delighted in an obscure and intricate style. (See Valesius ad
      loc.)]

      1821 (return) [ This calculation is made from the martyrs, of
      whom Eusebius speaks by name; but he recognizes a much greater
      number. Thus the ninth and tenth chapters of his work are
      entitled, “Of Antoninus, Zebinus, Germanus, and other martyrs; of
      Peter the monk. of Asclepius the Maroionite, and other martyrs.”
      [Are these vague contents of chapters very good authority?—M.]
      Speaking of those who suffered under Diocletian, he says, “I will
      only relate the death of one of these, from which, the reader may
      divine what befell the rest.” Hist. Eccl. viii. 6. [This relates
      only to the martyrs in the royal household.—M.] Dodwell had made,
      before Gibbon, this calculation and these objections; but Ruinart
      (Act. Mart. Pref p. 27, _et seq_.) has answered him in a
      peremptory manner: Nobis constat Eusebium in historia infinitos
      passim martyres admisisse. quamvis revera paucorum nomina
      recensuerit. Nec alium Eusebii interpretem quam ipsummet Eusebium
      proferimus, qui (l. iii. c. 33) ait sub Trajano plurimosa ex
      fidelibus martyrii certamen subiisse (l. v. init.) sub Antonino
      et Vero innumerabiles prope martyres per universum orbem
      enituisse affirmat. (L. vi. c. 1.) Severum persecutionem
      concitasse refert, in qua per omnes ubique locorum Ecclesias, ab
      athletis pro pietate certantibus, illustria confecta fuerunt
      martyria. Sic de Decii, sic de Valeriani, persecutionibus
      loquitur, quæ an Dodwelli faveant conjectionibus judicet æquus
      lector. Even in the persecutions which Gibbon has represented as
      much more mild than that of Diocletian, the number of martyrs
      appears much greater than that to which he limits the martyrs of
      the latter: and this number is attested by incontestable
      monuments. I will quote but one example. We find among the
      letters of St. Cyprian one from Lucianus to Celerinus, written
      from the depth of a prison, in which Lucianus names seventeen of
      his brethren dead, some in the quarries, some in the midst of
      tortures some of starvation in prison. Jussi sumus (he proceeds)
      secundum præ ceptum imperatoris, fame et siti necari, et reclusi
      sumus in duabus cellis, ta ut nos afficerent fame et siti et
      ignis vapore.—G.]

      183 (return) [ When Palestine was divided into three, the
      præfecture of the East contained forty-eight provinces. As the
      ancient distinctions of nations were long since abolished, the
      Romans distributed the provinces according to a general
      proportion of their extent and opulence.]

      184 (return) [ Ut gloriari possint nullam se innocentium
      poremisse, nam et ipse audivi aloquos gloriantes, quia
      administratio sua, in hac paris merit incruenta. Lactant.
      Institur. Divin v. 11.]

      We shall conclude this chapter by a melancholy truth, which
      obtrudes itself on the reluctant mind; that even admitting,
      without hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or
      devotion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must still
      be acknowledged, that the Christians, in the course of their
      intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on
      each other, than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels.
      During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the
      Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city
      extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the
      Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected,
      and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason,
      was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who from
      the twelfth to the sixteenth century assumed the popular
      character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence
      the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and
      benevolence was soon disgraced by proscriptions, war, massacres,
      and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were
      animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom,
      the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of
      the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of
      spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone, more than one
      hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have
      suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary
      number is attested by Grotius, 185 a man of genius and learning,
      who preserved his moderation amidst the fury of contending sects,
      and who composed the annals of his own age and country, at a time
      when the invention of printing had facilitated the means of
      intelligence, and increased the danger of detection.

      If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of
      Grotius, it must be allowed, that the number of Protestants, who
      were executed in a single province and a single reign, far
      exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three
      centuries, and of the Roman empire. But if the improbability of
      the fact itself should prevail over the weight of evidence; if
      Grotius should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and
      sufferings of the Reformers; 186 we shall be naturally led to
      inquire what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and
      imperfect monuments of ancient credulity; what degree of credit
      can be assigned to a courtly bishop, and a passionate declaimer,
      1861 who, under the protection of Constantine, enjoyed the
      exclusive privilege of recording the persecutions inflicted on
      the Christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded
      predecessors of their gracious sovereign.

      185 (return) [ Grot. Annal. de Rebus Belgicis, l. i. p. 12, edit.
      fol.]

      186 (return) [ Fra Paola (Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, l.
      iii.) reduces the number of the Belgic martyrs to 50,000. In
      learning and moderation Fra Paola was not inferior to Grotius.
      The priority of time gives some advantage to the evidence of the
      former, which he loses, on the other hand, by the distance of
      Venice from the Netherlands.]

      1861 (return) [ Eusebius and the author of the Treatise de
      Mortibus Persecutorum. It is deeply to be regretted that the
      history of this period rest so much on the loose and, it must be
      admitted, by no means scrupulous authority of Eusebius.
      Ecclesiastical history is a solemn and melancholy lesson that the
      best, even the most sacred, cause will eventually the least
      departure from truth!—M.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part I.

     Foundation Of Constantinople.—Political System Constantine, And
     His Successors.—Military Discipline.—The Palace.—The Finances.


      The unfortunate Licinius was the last rival who opposed the
      greatness, and the last captive who adorned the triumph, of
      Constantine. After a tranquil and prosperous reign, the conquerer
      bequeathed to his family the inheritance of the Roman empire; a
      new capital, a new policy, and a new religion; and the
      innovations which he established have been embraced and
      consecrated by succeeding generations. The age of the great
      Constantine and his sons is filled with important events; but the
      historian must be oppressed by their number and variety, unless
      he diligently separates from each other the scenes which are
      connected only by the order of time. He will describe the
      political institutions that gave strength and stability to the
      empire, before he proceeds to relate the wars and revolutions
      which hastened its decline. He will adopt the division unknown to
      the ancients of civil and ecclesiastical affairs: the victory of
      the Christians, and their intestine discord, will supply copious
      and distinct materials both for edification and for scandal.

      After the defeat and abdication of Licinius, his victorious rival
      proceeded to lay the foundations of a city destined to reign in
      future times, the mistress of the East, and to survive the empire
      and religion of Constantine. The motives, whether of pride or of
      policy, which first induced Diocletian to withdraw himself from
      the ancient seat of government, had acquired additional weight by
      the example of his successors, and the habits of forty years.
      Rome was insensibly confounded with the dependent kingdoms which
      had once acknowledged her supremacy; and the country of the
      Cæsars was viewed with cold indifference by a martial prince,
      born in the neighborhood of the Danube, educated in the courts
      and armies of Asia, and invested with the purple by the legions
      of Britain. The Italians, who had received Constantine as their
      deliverer, submissively obeyed the edicts which he sometimes
      condescended to address to the senate and people of Rome; but
      they were seldom honored with the presence of their new
      sovereign. During the vigor of his age, Constantine, according to
      the various exigencies of peace and war, moved with slow dignity,
      or with active diligence, along the frontiers of his extensive
      dominions; and was always prepared to take the field either
      against a foreign or a domestic enemy. But as he gradually
      reached the summit of prosperity and the decline of life, he
      began to meditate the design of fixing in a more permanent
      station the strength as well as majesty of the throne. In the
      choice of an advantageous situation, he preferred the confines of
      Europe and Asia; to curb with a powerful arm the barbarians who
      dwelt between the Danube and the Tanais; to watch with an eye of
      jealousy the conduct of the Persian monarch, who indignantly
      supported the yoke of an ignominious treaty. With these views,
      Diocletian had selected and embellished the residence of
      Nicomedia: but the memory of Diocletian was justly abhorred by
      the protector of the church: and Constantine was not insensible
      to the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the
      glory of his own name. During the late operations of the war
      against Licinius, he had sufficient opportunity to contemplate,
      both as a soldier and as a statesman, the incomparable position
      of Byzantium; and to observe how strongly it was guarded by
      nature against a hostile attack, whilst it was accessible on
      every side to the benefits of commercial intercourse. Many ages
      before Constantine, one of the most judicious historians of
      antiquity1 had described the advantages of a situation, from
      whence a feeble colony of Greeks derived the command of the sea,
      and the honors of a flourishing and independent republic. 2

      1 (return) [ Polybius, l. iv. p. 423, edit. Casaubon. He observes
      that the peace of the Byzantines was frequently disturbed, and
      the extent of their territory contracted, by the inroads of the
      wild Thracians.]

      2 (return) [ The navigator Byzas, who was styled the son of
      Neptune, founded the city 656 years before the Christian æra. His
      followers were drawn from Argos and Megara. Byzantium was
      afterwards rebuild and fortified by the Spartan general
      Pausanias. See Scaliger Animadvers. ad Euseb. p. 81. Ducange,
      Constantinopolis, l. i part i. cap 15, 16. With regard to the
      wars of the Byzantines against Philip, the Gauls, and the kings
      of Bithynia, we should trust none but the ancient writers who
      lived before the greatness of the Imperial city had excited a
      spirit of flattery and fiction.]

      If we survey Byzantium in the extent which it acquired with the
      august name of Constantinople, the figure of the Imperial city
      may be represented under that of an unequal triangle. The obtuse
      point, which advances towards the east and the shores of Asia,
      meets and repels the waves of the Thracian Bosphorus. The
      northern side of the city is bounded by the harbor; and the
      southern is washed by the Propontis, or Sea of Marmara. The basis
      of the triangle is opposed to the west, and terminates the
      continent of Europe. But the admirable form and division of the
      circumjacent land and water cannot, without a more ample
      explanation, be clearly or sufficiently understood. The winding
      channel through which the waters of the Euxine flow with a rapid
      and incessant course towards the Mediterranean, received the
      appellation of Bosphorus, a name not less celebrated in the
      history, than in the fables, of antiquity. 3 A crowd of temples
      and of votive altars, profusely scattered along its steep and
      woody banks, attested the unskilfulness, the terrors, and the
      devotion of the Grecian navigators, who, after the example of the
      Argonauts, explored the dangers of the inhospitable Euxine. On
      these banks tradition long preserved the memory of the palace of
      Phineus, infested by the obscene harpies; 4 and of the sylvan
      reign of Amycus, who defied the son of Leda to the combat of the
      cestus. 5 The straits of the Bosphorus are terminated by the
      Cyanean rocks, which, according to the description of the poets,
      had once floated on the face of the waters; and were destined by
      the gods to protect the entrance of the Euxine against the eye of
      profane curiosity. 6 From the Cyanean rocks to the point and
      harbor of Byzantium, the winding length of the Bosphorus extends
      about sixteen miles, 7 and its most ordinary breadth may be
      computed at about one mile and a half. The new castles of Europe
      and Asia are constructed, on either continent, upon the
      foundations of two celebrated temples, of Serapis and of Jupiter
      Urius. The _old_ castles, a work of the Greek emperors, command
      the narrowest part of the channel in a place where the opposite
      banks advance within five hundred paces of each other. These
      fortresses were destroyed and strengthened by Mahomet the Second,
      when he meditated the siege of Constantinople: 8 but the Turkish
      conqueror was most probably ignorant, that near two thousand
      years before his reign, Darius had chosen the same situation to
      connect the two continents by a bridge of boats. 9 At a small
      distance from the old castles we discover the little town of
      Chrysopolis, or Scutari, which may almost be considered as the
      Asiatic suburb of Constantinople. The Bosphorus, as it begins to
      open into the Propontis, passes between Byzantium and Chalcedon.
      The latter of those cities was built by the Greeks, a few years
      before the former; and the blindness of its founders, who
      overlooked the superior advantages of the opposite coast, has
      been stigmatized by a proverbial expression of contempt. 10

      3 (return) [ The Bosphorus has been very minutely described by
      Dionysius of Byzantium, who lived in the time of Domitian,
      (Hudson, Geograph Minor, tom. iii.,) and by Gilles or Gyllius, a
      French traveller of the XVIth century. Tournefort (Lettre XV.)
      seems to have used his own eyes, and the learning of Gyllius. Add
      Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosphoros, 8vo.—M.]

      4 (return) [ There are very few conjectures so happy as that of
      Le Clere, (Bibliotehque Universelle, tom. i. p. 148,) who
      supposes that the harpies were only locusts. The Syriac or
      Phœnician name of those insects, their noisy flight, the stench
      and devastation which they occasion, and the north wind which
      drives them into the sea, all contribute to form the striking
      resemblance.]

      5 (return) [ The residence of Amycus was in Asia, between the old
      and the new castles, at a place called Laurus Insana. That of
      Phineus was in Europe, near the village of Mauromole and the
      Black Sea. See Gyllius de Bosph. l. ii. c. 23. Tournefort, Lettre
      XV.]

      6 (return) [ The deception was occasioned by several pointed
      rocks, alternately sovered and abandoned by the waves. At present
      there are two small islands, one towards either shore; that of
      Europe is distinguished by the column of Pompey.]

      7 (return) [ The ancients computed one hundred and twenty stadia,
      or fifteen Roman miles. They measured only from the new castles,
      but they carried the straits as far as the town of Chalcedon.]

      8 (return) [ Ducas. Hist. c. 34. Leunclavius Hist. Turcica
      Mussulmanica, l. xv. p. 577. Under the Greek empire these castles
      were used as state prisons, under the tremendous name of Lethe,
      or towers of oblivion.]

      9 (return) [ Darius engraved in Greek and Assyrian letters, on
      two marble columns, the names of his subject nations, and the
      amazing numbers of his land and sea forces. The Byzantines
      afterwards transported these columns into the city, and used them
      for the altars of their tutelar deities. Herodotus, l. iv. c.
      87.]

      10 (return) [ Namque arctissimo inter Europam Asiamque divortio
      Byzantium in extremâ Europâ posuere Greci, quibus, Pythium
      Apollinem consulentibus ubi conderent urbem, redditum oraculum
      est, quærerent sedem _cæcerum_ terris adversam. Ea ambage
      Chalcedonii monstrabantur quod priores illuc advecti, prævisâ
      locorum utilitate pejora legissent Tacit. Annal. xii. 63.]

      The harbor of Constantinople, which may be considered as an arm
      of the Bosphorus, obtained, in a very remote period, the
      denomination of the _Golden Horn_. The curve which it describes
      might be compared to the horn of a stag, or as it should seem,
      with more propriety, to that of an ox. 11 The epithet of _golden_
      was expressive of the riches which every wind wafted from the
      most distant countries into the secure and capacious port of
      Constantinople. The River Lycus, formed by the conflux of two
      little streams, pours into the harbor a perpetual supply of fresh
      water, which serves to cleanse the bottom, and to invite the
      periodical shoals of fish to seek their retreat in that
      convenient recess. As the vicissitudes of tides are scarcely felt
      in those seas, the constant depth of the harbor allows goods to
      be landed on the quays without the assistance of boats; and it
      has been observed, that in many places the largest vessels may
      rest their prows against the houses, while their sterns are
      floating in the water. 12 From the mouth of the Lycus to that of
      the harbor, this arm of the Bosphorus is more than seven miles in
      length. The entrance is about five hundred yards broad, and a
      strong chain could be occasionally drawn across it, to guard the
      port and city from the attack of a hostile navy. 13

      11 (return) [ Strabo, l. vii. p. 492, [edit. Casaub.] Most of the
      antlers are now broken off; or, to speak less figuratively, most
      of the recesses of the harbor are filled up. See Gill. de
      Bosphoro Thracio, l. i. c. 5.]

      12 (return) [ Procopius de Ædificiis, l. i. c. 5. His description
      is confirmed by modern travellers. See Thevenot, part i. l. i. c.
      15. Tournefort, Lettre XII. Niebuhr, Voyage d’Arabie, p. 22.]

      13 (return) [ See Ducange, C. P. l. i. part i. c. 16, and his
      Observations sur Villehardouin, p. 289. The chain was drawn from
      the Acropolis near the modern Kiosk, to the tower of Galata; and
      was supported at convenient distances by large wooden piles.]

      Between the Bosphorus and the Hellespont, the shores of Europe
      and Asia, receding on either side, enclose the sea of Marmara,
      which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis.
      The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of
      the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles.

      Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the
      Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and
      Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount
      Olympus, covered with eternal snows. 14 They leave on the left a
      deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the
      Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the small islands
      of Cyzicus and Proconnesus before they cast anchor at Gallipoli;
      where the sea, which separates Asia from Europe, is again
      contracted into a narrow channel.

      14 (return) [ Thevenot (Voyages au Levant, part i. l. i. c. 14)
      contracts the measure to 125 small Greek miles. Belon
      (Observations, l. ii. c. 1.) gives a good description of the
      Propontis, but contents himself with the vague expression of one
      day and one night’s sail. When Sandy’s (Travels, p. 21) talks of
      150 furlongs in length, as well as breadth we can only suppose
      some mistake of the press in the text of that judicious
      traveller.]

      The geographers who, with the most skilful accuracy, have
      surveyed the form and extent of the Hellespont, assign about
      sixty miles for the winding course, and about three miles for the
      ordinary breadth of those celebrated straits. 15 But the
      narrowest part of the channel is found to the northward of the
      old Turkish castles between the cities of Sestus and Abydus. It
      was here that the adventurous Leander braved the passage of the
      flood for the possession of his mistress. 16 It was here
      likewise, in a place where the distance between the opposite
      banks cannot exceed five hundred paces, that Xerxes imposed a
      stupendous bridge of boats, for the purpose of transporting into
      Europe a hundred and seventy myriads of barbarians. 17 A sea
      contracted within such narrow limits may seem but ill to deserve
      the singular epithet of _broad_, which Homer, as well as Orpheus,
      has frequently bestowed on the Hellespont. 1711 But our ideas of
      greatness are of a relative nature: the traveller, and especially
      the poet, who sailed along the Hellespont, who pursued the
      windings of the stream, and contemplated the rural scenery, which
      appeared on every side to terminate the prospect, insensibly lost
      the remembrance of the sea; and his fancy painted those
      celebrated straits, with all the attributes of a mighty river
      flowing with a swift current, in the midst of a woody and inland
      country, and at length, through a wide mouth, discharging itself
      into the Ægean or Archipelago. 18 Ancient Troy, 19 seated on a an
      eminence at the foot of Mount Ida, overlooked the mouth of the
      Hellespont, which scarcely received an accession of waters from
      the tribute of those immortal rivulets the Simois and Scamander.
      The Grecian camp had stretched twelve miles along the shore from
      the Sigæan to the Rhætean promontory; and the flanks of the army
      were guarded by the bravest chiefs who fought under the banners
      of Agamemnon. The first of those promontories was occupied by
      Achilles with his invincible myrmidons, and the dauntless Ajax
      pitched his tents on the other. After Ajax had fallen a sacrifice
      to his disappointed pride, and to the ingratitude of the Greeks,
      his sepulchre was erected on the ground where he had defended the
      navy against the rage of Jove and of Hector; and the citizens of
      the rising town of Rhæteum celebrated his memory with divine
      honors. 20 Before Constantine gave a just preference to the
      situation of Byzantium, he had conceived the design of erecting
      the seat of empire on this celebrated spot, from whence the
      Romans derived their fabulous origin. The extensive plain which
      lies below ancient Troy, towards the Rhætean promontory and the
      tomb of Ajax, was first chosen for his new capital; and though
      the undertaking was soon relinquished the stately remains of
      unfinished walls and towers attracted the notice of all who
      sailed through the straits of the Hellespont. 21

      15 (return) [ See an admirable dissertation of M. d’Anville upon
      the Hellespont or Dardanelles, in the Mémoires tom. xxviii. p.
      318—346. Yet even that ingenious geographer is too fond of
      supposing new, and perhaps imaginary _measures_, for the purpose
      of rendering ancient writers as accurate as himself. The stadia
      employed by Herodotus in the description of the Euxine, the
      Bosphorus, &c., (l. iv. c. 85,) must undoubtedly be all of the
      same species; but it seems impossible to reconcile them either
      with truth or with each other.]

      16 (return) [ The oblique distance between Sestus and Abydus was
      thirty stadia. The improbable tale of Hero and Leander is exposed
      by M. Mahudel, but is defended on the authority of poets and
      medals by M. de la Nauze. See the Académie des Inscriptions, tom.
      vii. Hist. p. 74. elem. p. 240. Note: The practical illustration
      of the possibility of Leander’s feat by Lord Byron and other
      English swimmers is too well known to need particularly
      reference—M.]

      17 (return) [ See the seventh book of Herodotus, who has erected
      an elegant trophy to his own fame and to that of his country. The
      review appears to have been made with tolerable accuracy; but the
      vanity, first of the Persians, and afterwards of the Greeks, was
      interested to magnify the armament and the victory. I should much
      doubt whether the _invaders_ have ever outnumbered the _men_ of
      any country which they attacked.]

      1711 (return) [ Gibbon does not allow greater width between the
      two nearest points of the shores of the Hellespont than between
      those of the Bosphorus; yet all the ancient writers speak of the
      Hellespontic strait as broader than the other: they agree in
      giving it seven stadia in its narrowest width, (Herod. in Melp.
      c. 85. Polym. c. 34. Strabo, p. 591. Plin. iv. c. 12.) which make
      875 paces. It is singular that Gibbon, who in the fifteenth note
      of this chapter reproaches d’Anville with being fond of supposing
      new and perhaps imaginary measures, has here adopted the peculiar
      measurement which d’Anville has assigned to the stadium. This
      great geographer believes that the ancients had a stadium of
      fifty-one toises, and it is that which he applies to the walls of
      Babylon. Now, seven of these stadia are equal to about 500 paces,
      7 stadia = 2142 feet: 500 paces = 2135 feet 5 inches.—G. See
      Rennell, Geog. of Herod. p. 121. Add Ukert, Geographie der
      Griechen und Romer, v. i. p. 2, 71.—M.]

      18 (return) [ See Wood’s Observations on Homer, p. 320. I have,
      with pleasure, selected this remark from an author who in general
      seems to have disappointed the expectation of the public as a
      critic, and still more as a traveller. He had visited the banks
      of the Hellespont; and had read Strabo; he ought to have
      consulted the Roman itineraries. How was it possible for him to
      confound Ilium and Alexandria Troas, (Observations, p. 340, 341,)
      two cities which were sixteen miles distant from each other? *
      Note: Compare Walpole’s Memoirs on Turkey, v. i. p. 101. Dr.
      Clarke adopted Mr. Walpole’s interpretation of the salt
      Hellespont. But the old interpretation is more graphic and
      Homeric. Clarke’s Travels, ii. 70.—M.]

      19 (return) [ Demetrius of Scepsis wrote sixty books on thirty
      lines of Homer’s catalogue. The XIIIth Book of Strabo is
      sufficient for _our_ curiosity.]

      20 (return) [ Strabo, l. xiii. p. 595, [890, edit. Casaub.] The
      disposition of the ships, which were drawn upon dry land, and the
      posts of Ajax and Achilles, are very clearly described by Homer.
      See Iliad, ix. 220.]

      21 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. [c. 30,] p. 105. Sozomen, l. ii. c.
      3. Theophanes, p. 18. Nicephorus Callistus, l. vii. p. 48.
      Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 6. Zosimus places the new city
      between Ilium and Alexandria, but this apparent difference may be
      reconciled by the large extent of its circumference. Before the
      foundation of Constantinople, Thessalonica is mentioned by
      Cedrenus, (p. 283,) and Sardica by Zonaras, as the intended
      capital. They both suppose with very little probability, that the
      emperor, if he had not been prevented by a prodigy, would have
      repeated the mistake of the _blind_ Chalcedonians.]

      We are at present qualified to view the advantageous position of
      Constantinople; which appears to have been formed by nature for
      the centre and capital of a great monarchy. Situated in the
      forty-first degree of latitude, the Imperial city commanded, from
      her seven hills, 22 the opposite shores of Europe and Asia; the
      climate was healthy and temperate, the soil fertile, the harbor
      secure and capacious; and the approach on the side of the
      continent was of small extent and easy defence. The Bosphorus and
      the Hellespont may be considered as the two gates of
      Constantinople; and the prince who possessed those important
      passages could always shut them against a naval enemy, and open
      them to the fleets of commerce. The preservation of the eastern
      provinces may, in some degree, be ascribed to the policy of
      Constantine, as the barbarians of the Euxine, who in the
      preceding age had poured their armaments into the heart of the
      Mediterranean, soon desisted from the exercise of piracy, and
      despaired of forcing this insurmountable barrier. When the gates
      of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still
      enjoyed within their spacious enclosure every production which
      could supply the wants, or gratify the luxury, of its numerous
      inhabitants. The sea-coasts of Thrace and Bithynia, which
      languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a
      rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful
      harvests; and the Propontis has ever been renowned for an
      inexhaustible store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in
      their stated seasons, without skill, and almost without labor. 23
      But when the passages of the straits were thrown open for trade,
      they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of
      the north and south, of the Euxine, and of the Mediterranean.
      Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of
      Germany and Scythia, and far as the sources of the Tanais and the
      Borysthenes; whatsoever was manufactured by the skill of Europe
      or Asia; the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of the
      farthest India, were brought by the varying winds into the port
      of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the commerce of
      the ancient world. 24

      [See Basilica Of Constantinople]

      22 (return) [ Pocock’s Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii.
      p. 127. His plan of the seven hills is clear and accurate. That
      traveller is seldom unsatisfactory.]

      23 (return) [ See Belon, Observations, c. 72—76. Among a variety
      of different species, the Pelamides, a sort of Thunnies, were the
      most celebrated. We may learn from Polybius, Strabo, and Tacitus,
      that the profits of the fishery constituted the principal revenue
      of Byzantium.]

      24 (return) [ See the eloquent description of Busbequius,
      epistol. i. p. 64. Est in Europa; habet in conspectu Asiam,
      Egyptum. Africamque a dextrâ: quæ tametsi contiguæ non sunt,
      maris tamen navigandique commoditate veluti junguntur. A sinistra
      vero Pontus est Euxinus, &c.]

      The prospect of beauty, of safety, and of wealth, united in a
      single spot, was sufficient to justify the choice of Constantine.
      But as some decent mixture of prodigy and fable has, in every
      age, been supposed to reflect a becoming majesty on the origin of
      great cities, 25 the emperor was desirous of ascribing his
      resolution, not so much to the uncertain counsels of human
      policy, as to the infallible and eternal decrees of divine
      wisdom. In one of his laws he has been careful to instruct
      posterity, that in obedience to the commands of God, he laid the
      everlasting foundations of Constantinople: 26 and though he has
      not condescended to relate in what manner the celestial
      inspiration was communicated to his mind, the defect of his
      modest silence has been liberally supplied by the ingenuity of
      succeeding writers; who describe the nocturnal vision which
      appeared to the fancy of Constantine, as he slept within the
      walls of Byzantium. The tutelar genius of the city, a venerable
      matron sinking under the weight of years and infirmities, was
      suddenly transformed into a blooming maid, whom his own hands
      adorned with all the symbols of Imperial greatness. 27 The
      monarch awoke, interpreted the auspicious omen, and obeyed,
      without hesitation, the will of Heaven. The day which gave birth
      to a city or colony was celebrated by the Romans with such
      ceremonies as had been ordained by a generous superstition; 28
      and though Constantine might omit some rites which savored too
      strongly of their Pagan origin, yet he was anxious to leave a
      deep impression of hope and respect on the minds of the
      spectators. On foot, with a lance in his hand, the emperor
      himself led the solemn procession; and directed the line, which
      was traced as the boundary of the destined capital: till the
      growing circumference was observed with astonishment by the
      assistants, who, at length, ventured to observe, that he had
      already exceeded the most ample measure of a great city. “I shall
      still advance,” replied Constantine, “till He, the invisible
      guide who marches before me, thinks proper to stop.” 29 Without
      presuming to investigate the nature or motives of this
      extraordinary conductor, we shall content ourselves with the more
      humble task of describing the extent and limits of
      Constantinople. 30

      25 (return) [ Datur hæc venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana
      divinis, primordia urbium augustiora faciat. T. Liv. in proœm.]

      26 (return) [ He says in one of his laws, pro commoditate urbis
      quam æterno nomine, jubente Deo, donavimus. Cod. Theodos. l.
      xiii. tit. v. leg. 7.]

      27 (return) [ The Greeks, Theophanes, Cedrenus, and the author of
      the Alexandrian Chronicle, confine themselves to vague and
      general expressions. For a more particular account of the vision,
      we are obliged to have recourse to such Latin writers as William
      of Malmesbury. See Ducange, C. P. l. i. p. 24, 25.]

      28 (return) [ See Plutarch in Romul. tom. i. p. 49, edit. Bryan.
      Among other ceremonies, a large hole, which had been dug for that
      purpose, was filled up with handfuls of earth, which each of the
      settlers brought from the place of his birth, and thus adopted
      his new country.]

      29 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 9. This incident, though
      borrowed from a suspected writer, is characteristic and
      probable.]

      30 (return) [ See in the Mémoires de l’Académie, tom. xxxv p.
      747-758, a dissertation of M. d’Anville on the extent of
      Constantinople. He takes the plan inserted in the Imperium
      Orientale of Banduri as the most complete; but, by a series of
      very nice observations, he reduced the extravagant proportion of
      the scale, and instead of 9500, determines the circumference of
      the city as consisting of about 7800 French _toises_.]

      In the actual state of the city, the palace and gardens of the
      Seraglio occupy the eastern promontory, the first of the seven
      hills, and cover about one hundred and fifty acres of our own
      measure. The seat of Turkish jealousy and despotism is erected on
      the foundations of a Grecian republic; but it may be supposed
      that the Byzantines were tempted by the conveniency of the harbor
      to extend their habitations on that side beyond the modern limits
      of the Seraglio. The new walls of Constantine stretched from the
      port to the Propontis across the enlarged breadth of the
      triangle, at the distance of fifteen stadia from the ancient
      fortification; and with the city of Byzantium they enclosed five
      of the seven hills, which, to the eyes of those who approach
      Constantinople, appear to rise above each other in beautiful
      order. 31 About a century after the death of the founder, the new
      buildings, extending on one side up the harbor, and on the other
      along the Propontis, already covered the narrow ridge of the
      sixth, and the broad summit of the seventh hill. The necessity of
      protecting those suburbs from the incessant inroads of the
      barbarians engaged the younger Theodosius to surround his capital
      with an adequate and permanent enclosure of walls. 32 From the
      eastern promontory to the golden gate, the extreme length of
      Constantinople was about three Roman miles; 33 the circumference
      measured between ten and eleven; and the surface might be
      computed as equal to about two thousand English acres. It is
      impossible to justify the vain and credulous exaggerations of
      modern travellers, who have sometimes stretched the limits of
      Constantinople over the adjacent villages of the European, and
      even of the Asiatic coast. 34 But the suburbs of Pera and Galata,
      though situate beyond the harbor, may deserve to be considered as
      a part of the city; 35 and this addition may perhaps authorize
      the measure of a Byzantine historian, who assigns sixteen Greek
      (about fourteen Roman) miles for the circumference of his native
      city. 36 Such an extent may not seem unworthy of an Imperial
      residence. Yet Constantinople must yield to Babylon and Thebes,
      37 to ancient Rome, to London, and even to Paris. 38

      31 (return) [ Codinus, Antiquitat. Const. p. 12. He assigns the
      church of St. Anthony as the boundary on the side of the harbor.
      It is mentioned in Ducange, l. iv. c. 6; but I have tried,
      without success, to discover the exact place where it was
      situated.]

      32 (return) [ The new wall of Theodosius was constructed in the
      year 413. In 447 it was thrown down by an earthquake, and rebuilt
      in three months by the diligence of the præfect Cyrus. The suburb
      of the Blanchernæ was first taken into the city in the reign of
      Heraclius Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 10, 11.]

      33 (return) [ The measurement is expressed in the Notitia by
      14,075 feet. It is reasonable to suppose that these were Greek
      feet, the proportion of which has been ingeniously determined by
      M. d’Anville. He compares the 180 feet with 78 Hashemite cubits,
      which in different writers are assigned for the heights of St.
      Sophia. Each of these cubits was equal to 27 French inches.]

      34 (return) [ The accurate Thevenot (l. i. c. 15) walked in one
      hour and three quarters round two of the sides of the triangle,
      from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the seven towers. D’Anville
      examines with care, and receives with confidence, this decisive
      testimony, which gives a circumference of ten or twelve miles.
      The extravagant computation of Tournefort (Lettre XI) of
      thirty-tour or thirty miles, without including Scutari, is a
      strange departure from his usual character.]

      35 (return) [ The sycæ, or fig-trees, formed the thirteenth
      region, and were very much embellished by Justinian. It has since
      borne the names of Pera and Galata. The etymology of the former
      is obvious; that of the latter is unknown. See Ducange, Const. l.
      i. c. 22, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. iv. c. 10.]

      36 (return) [ One hundred and eleven stadia, which may be
      translated into modern Greek miles each of seven stadia, or 660,
      sometimes only 600 French toises. See D’Anville, Mesures
      Itineraires, p. 53.]

      37 (return) [ When the ancient texts, which describe the size of
      Babylon and Thebes, are settled, the exaggerations reduced, and
      the measures ascertained, we find that those famous cities filled
      the great but not incredible circumference of about twenty-five
      or thirty miles. Compare D’Anville, Mém. de l’Académie, tom.
      xxviii. p. 235, with his Description de l’Egypte, p. 201, 202.]

      38 (return) [ If we divide Constantinople and Paris into equal
      squares of 50 French _toises_, the former contains 850, and the
      latter 1160, of those divisions.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part II.


      The master of the Roman world, who aspired to erect an eternal
      monument of the glories of his reign could employ in the
      prosecution of that great work, the wealth, the labor, and all
      that yet remained of the genius of obedient millions. Some
      estimate may be formed of the expense bestowed with Imperial
      liberality on the foundation of Constantinople, by the allowance
      of about two millions five hundred thousand pounds for the
      construction of the walls, the porticos, and the aqueducts. 39
      The forests that overshadowed the shores of the Euxine, and the
      celebrated quarries of white marble in the little island of
      Proconnesus, supplied an inexhaustible stock of materials, ready
      to be conveyed, by the convenience of a short water carriage, to
      the harbor of Byzantium. 40 A multitude of laborers and
      artificers urged the conclusion of the work with incessant toil:
      but the impatience of Constantine soon discovered, that, in the
      decline of the arts, the skill as well as numbers of his
      architects bore a very unequal proportion to the greatness of his
      designs. The magistrates of the most distant provinces were
      therefore directed to institute schools, to appoint professors,
      and by the hopes of rewards and privileges, to engage in the
      study and practice of architecture a sufficient number of
      ingenious youths, who had received a liberal education. 41 The
      buildings of the new city were executed by such artificers as the
      reign of Constantine could afford; but they were decorated by the
      hands of the most celebrated masters of the age of Pericles and
      Alexander. To revive the genius of Phidias and Lysippus,
      surpassed indeed the power of a Roman emperor; but the immortal
      productions which they had bequeathed to posterity were exposed
      without defence to the rapacious vanity of a despot. By his
      commands the cities of Greece and Asia were despoiled of their
      most valuable ornaments. 42 The trophies of memorable wars, the
      objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the
      gods and heroes, of the sages and poets, of ancient times,
      contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople; and gave
      occasion to the remark of the historian Cedrenus, 43 who
      observes, with some enthusiasm, that nothing seemed wanting
      except the souls of the illustrious men whom these admirable
      monuments were intended to represent. But it is not in the city
      of Constantine, nor in the declining period of an empire, when
      the human mind was depressed by civil and religious slavery, that
      we should seek for the souls of Homer and of Demosthenes.

      39 (return) [ Six hundred centenaries, or sixty thousand pounds’
      weight of gold. This sum is taken from Codinus, Antiquit. Const.
      p. 11; but unless that contemptible author had derived his
      information from some purer sources, he would probably have been
      unacquainted with so obsolete a mode of reckoning.]

      40 (return) [ For the forests of the Black Sea, consult
      Tournefort, Lettre XVI. for the marble quarries of Proconnesus,
      see Strabo, l. xiii. p. 588, (881, edit. Casaub.) The latter had
      already furnished the materials of the stately buildings of
      Cyzicus.]

      41 (return) [ See the Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iv. leg. 1.
      This law is dated in the year 334, and was addressed to the
      præfect of Italy, whose jurisdiction extended over Africa. The
      commentary of Godefroy on the whole title well deserves to be
      consulted.]

      42 (return) [ Constantinopolis dedicatur pœne omnium urbium
      nuditate. Hieronym. Chron. p. 181. See Codinus, p. 8, 9. The
      author of the Antiquitat. Const. l. iii. (apud Banduri Imp.
      Orient. tom. i. p. 41) enumerates Rome, Sicily, Antioch, Athens,
      and a long list of other cities. The provinces of Greece and Asia
      Minor may be supposed to have yielded the richest booty.]

      43 (return) [ Hist. Compend. p. 369. He describes the statue, or
      rather bust, of Homer with a degree of taste which plainly
      indicates that Cadrenus copied the style of a more fortunate
      age.]

      During the siege of Byzantium, the conqueror had pitched his tent
      on the commanding eminence of the second hill. To perpetuate the
      memory of his success, he chose the same advantageous position
      for the principal Forum; 44 which appears to have been of a
      circular, or rather elliptical form. The two opposite entrances
      formed triumphal arches; the porticos, which enclosed it on every
      side, were filled with statues; and the centre of the Forum was
      occupied by a lofty column, of which a mutilated fragment is now
      degraded by the appellation of the _burnt pillar_. This column
      was erected on a pedestal of white marble twenty feet high; and
      was composed of ten pieces of porphyry, each of which measured
      about ten feet in height, and about thirty-three in
      circumference. 45 On the summit of the pillar, above one hundred
      and twenty feet from the ground, stood the colossal statue of
      Apollo. It was a bronze, had been transported either from Athens
      or from a town of Phrygia, and was supposed to be the work of
      Phidias. The artist had represented the god of day, or, as it was
      afterwards interpreted, the emperor Constantine himself, with a
      sceptre in his right hand, the globe of the world in his left,
      and a crown of rays glittering on his head. 46 The Circus, or
      Hippodrome, was a stately building about four hundred paces in
      length, and one hundred in breadth. 47 The space between the two
      _metæ_ or goals were filled with statues and obelisks; and we may
      still remark a very singular fragment of antiquity; the bodies of
      three serpents, twisted into one pillar of brass. Their triple
      heads had once supported the golden tripod which, after the
      defeat of Xerxes, was consecrated in the temple of Delphi by the
      victorious Greeks. 48 The beauty of the Hippodrome has been long
      since defaced by the rude hands of the Turkish conquerors; 4811
      but, under the similar appellation of Atmeidan, it still serves
      as a place of exercise for their horses. From the throne, whence
      the emperor viewed the Circensian games, a winding staircase 49
      descended to the palace; a magnificent edifice, which scarcely
      yielded to the residence of Rome itself, and which, together with
      the dependent courts, gardens, and porticos, covered a
      considerable extent of ground upon the banks of the Propontis
      between the Hippodrome and the church of St. Sophia. 50 We might
      likewise celebrate the baths, which still retained the name of
      Zeuxippus, after they had been enriched, by the munificence of
      Constantine, with lofty columns, various marbles, and above
      threescore statues of bronze. 51 But we should deviate from the
      design of this history, if we attempted minutely to describe the
      different buildings or quarters of the city. It may be sufficient
      to observe, that whatever could adorn the dignity of a great
      capital, or contribute to the benefit or pleasure of its numerous
      inhabitants, was contained within the walls of Constantinople. A
      particular description, composed about a century after its
      foundation, enumerates a capitol or school of learning, a circus,
      two theatres, eight public, and one hundred and fifty-three
      private baths, fifty-two porticos, five granaries, eight
      aqueducts or reservoirs of water, four spacious halls for the
      meetings of the senate or courts of justice, fourteen churches,
      fourteen palaces, and four thousand three hundred and
      eighty-eight houses, which, for their size or beauty, deserved to
      be distinguished from the multitude of plebeian inhabitants. 52

      44 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 106. Chron. Alexandrin. vel
      Paschal. p. 284, Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24. Even the last of
      those writers seems to confound the Forum of Constantine with the
      Augusteum, or court of the palace. I am not satisfied whether I
      have properly distinguished what belongs to the one and the
      other.]

      45 (return) [ The most tolerable account of this column is given
      by Pocock. Description of the East, vol. ii. part ii. p. 131. But
      it is still in many instances perplexed and unsatisfactory.]

      46 (return) [ Ducange, Const. l. i. c. 24, p. 76, and his notes
      ad Alexiad. p. 382. The statue of Constantine or Apollo was
      thrown down under the reign of Alexius Comnenus. * Note: On this
      column (says M. von Hammer) Constantine, with singular
      shamelessness, placed his own statue with the attributes of
      Apollo and Christ. He substituted the nails of the Passion for
      the rays of the sun. Such is the direct testimony of the author
      of the Antiquit. Constantinop. apud Banduri. Constantine was
      replaced by the “great and religious” Julian, Julian, by
      Theodosius. A. D. 1412, the key stone was loosened by an
      earthquake. The statue fell in the reign of Alexius Comnenus, and
      was replaced by the cross. The Palladium was said to be buried
      under the pillar. Von Hammer, Constantinopolis und der Bosporos,
      i. 162.—M.]

      47 (return) [ Tournefort (Lettre XII.) computes the Atmeidan at
      four hundred paces. If he means geometrical paces of five feet
      each, it was three hundred _toises_ in length, about forty more
      than the great circus of Rome. See D’Anville, Mesures
      Itineraires, p. 73.]

      48 (return) [ The guardians of the most holy relics would rejoice
      if they were able to produce such a chain of evidence as may be
      alleged on this occasion. See Banduri ad Antiquitat. Const. p.
      668. Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 13. 1. The original
      consecration of the tripod and pillar in the temple of Delphi may
      be proved from Herodotus and Pausanias. 2. The Pagan Zosimus
      agrees with the three ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius,
      Socrates, and Sozomen, that the sacred ornaments of the temple of
      Delphi were removed to Constantinople by the order of
      Constantine; and among these the serpentine pillar of the
      Hippodrome is particularly mentioned. 3. All the European
      travellers who have visited Constantinople, from Buondelmonte to
      Pocock, describe it in the same place, and almost in the same
      manner; the differences between them are occasioned only by the
      injuries which it has sustained from the Turks. Mahomet the
      Second broke the under jaw of one of the serpents with a stroke
      of his battle axe Thevenot, l. i. c. 17. * Note: See note 75, ch.
      lxviii. for Dr. Clarke’s rejection of Thevenot’s authority. Von
      Hammer, however, repeats the story of Thevenot without
      questioning its authenticity.—M.]

      4811 (return) [ In 1808 the Janizaries revolted against the
      vizier Mustapha Baisactar, who wished to introduce a new system
      of military organization, besieged the quarter of the Hippodrome,
      in which stood the palace of the viziers, and the Hippodrome was
      consumed in the conflagration.—G.]

      49 (return) [ The Latin name _Cochlea_ was adopted by the Greeks,
      and very frequently occurs in the Byzantine history. Ducange,
      Const. i. c. l, p. 104.]

      50 (return) [ There are three topographical points which indicate
      the situation of the palace. 1. The staircase which connected it
      with the Hippodrome or Atmeidan. 2. A small artificial port on
      the Propontis, from whence there was an easy ascent, by a flight
      of marble steps, to the gardens of the palace. 3. The Augusteum
      was a spacious court, one side of which was occupied by the front
      of the palace, and another by the church of St. Sophia.]

      51 (return) [ Zeuxippus was an epithet of Jupiter, and the baths
      were a part of old Byzantium. The difficulty of assigning their
      true situation has not been felt by Ducange. History seems to
      connect them with St. Sophia and the palace; but the original
      plan inserted in Banduri places them on the other side of the
      city, near the harbor. For their beauties, see Chron. Paschal. p.
      285, and Gyllius de Byzant. l. ii. c. 7. Christodorus (see
      Antiquitat. Const. l. vii.) composed inscriptions in verse for
      each of the statues. He was a Theban poet in genius as well as in
      birth:—Bæotum in crasso jurares aëre natum. * Note: Yet, for his
      age, the description of the statues of Hecuba and of Homer are by
      no means without merit. See Antholog. Palat. (edit. Jacobs) i.
      37—M.]

      52 (return) [ See the Notitia. Rome only reckoned 1780 large
      houses, _domus;_ but the word must have had a more dignified
      signification. No _insulæ_ are mentioned at Constantinople. The
      old capital consisted of 42 streets, the new of 322.]

      The populousness of his favored city was the next and most
      serious object of the attention of its founder. In the dark ages
      which succeeded the translation of the empire, the remote and the
      immediate consequences of that memorable event were strangely
      confounded by the vanity of the Greeks and the credulity of the
      Latins. 53 It was asserted, and believed, that all the noble
      families of Rome, the senate, and the equestrian order, with
      their innumerable attendants, had followed their emperor to the
      banks of the Propontis; that a spurious race of strangers and
      plebeians was left to possess the solitude of the ancient
      capital; and that the lands of Italy, long since converted into
      gardens, were at once deprived of cultivation and inhabitants. 54
      In the course of this history, such exaggerations will be reduced
      to their just value: yet, since the growth of Constantinople
      cannot be ascribed to the general increase of mankind and of
      industry, it must be admitted that this artificial colony was
      raised at the expense of the ancient cities of the empire. Many
      opulent senators of Rome, and of the eastern provinces, were
      probably invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the
      fortunate spot, which he had chosen for his own residence. The
      invitations of a master are scarcely to be distinguished from
      commands; and the liberality of the emperor obtained a ready and
      cheerful obedience. He bestowed on his favorites the palaces
      which he had built in the several quarters of the city, assigned
      them lands and pensions for the support of their dignity, 55 and
      alienated the demesnes of Pontus and Asia to grant hereditary
      estates by the easy tenure of maintaining a house in the capital.
      56 But these encouragements and obligations soon became
      superfluous, and were gradually abolished. Wherever the seat of
      government is fixed, a considerable part of the public revenue
      will be expended by the prince himself, by his ministers, by the
      officers of justice, and by the domestics of the palace. The most
      wealthy of the provincials will be attracted by the powerful
      motives of interest and duty, of amusement and curiosity. A third
      and more numerous class of inhabitants will insensibly be formed,
      of servants, of artificers, and of merchants, who derive their
      subsistence from their own labor, and from the wants or luxury of
      the superior ranks. In less than a century, Constantinople
      disputed with Rome itself the preëminence of riches and numbers.
      New piles of buildings, crowded together with too little regard
      to health or convenience, scarcely allowed the intervals of
      narrow streets for the perpetual throng of men, of horses, and of
      carriages. The allotted space of ground was insufficient to
      contain the increasing people; and the additional foundations,
      which, on either side, were advanced into the sea, might alone
      have composed a very considerable city. 57

      53 (return) [ Liutprand, Legatio ad Imp. Nicephornm, p. 153. The
      modern Greeks have strangely disfigured the antiquities of
      Constantinople. We might excuse the errors of the Turkish or
      Arabian writers; but it is somewhat astonishing, that the Greeks,
      who had access to the authentic materials preserved in their own
      language, should prefer fiction to truth, and loose tradition to
      genuine history. In a single page of Codinus we may detect twelve
      unpardonable mistakes; the reconciliation of Severus and Niger,
      the marriage of their son and daughter, the siege of Byzantium by
      the Macedonians, the invasion of the Gauls, which recalled
      Severus to Rome, the _sixty_ years which elapsed from his death
      to the foundation of Constantinople, &c.]

      54 (return) [ Montesquieu, Grandeur et Décadence des Romains, c.
      17.]

      55 (return) [ Themist. Orat. iii. p. 48, edit. Hardouin. Sozomen,
      l. ii. c. 3. Zosim. l. ii. p. 107. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. If
      we could credit Codinus, (p. 10,) Constantine built houses for
      the senators on the exact model of their Roman palaces, and
      gratified them, as well as himself, with the pleasure of an
      agreeable surprise; but the whole story is full of fictions and
      inconsistencies.]

      56 (return) [ The law by which the younger Theodosius, in the
      year 438, abolished this tenure, may be found among the Novellæ
      of that emperor at the end of the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. nov.
      12. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 371) has
      evidently mistaken the nature of these estates. With a grant from
      the Imperial demesnes, the same condition was accepted as a
      favor, which would justly have been deemed a hardship, if it had
      been imposed upon private property.]

      57 (return) [ The passages of Zosimus, of Eunapius, of Sozomen,
      and of Agathias, which relate to the increase of buildings and
      inhabitants at Constantinople, are collected and connected by
      Gyllius de Byzant. l. i. c. 3. Sidonius Apollinaris (in Panegyr.
      Anthem. 56, p. 279, edit. Sirmond) describes the moles that were
      pushed forwards into the sea, they consisted of the famous
      Puzzolan sand, which hardens in the water.]

      The frequent and regular distributions of wine and oil, of corn
      or bread, of money or provisions, had almost exempted the poorest
      citizens of Rome from the necessity of labor. The magnificence of
      the first Cæsars was in some measure imitated by the founder of
      Constantinople: 58 but his liberality, however it might excite
      the applause of the people, has incurred the censure of
      posterity. A nation of legislators and conquerors might assert
      their claim to the harvests of Africa, which had been purchased
      with their blood; and it was artfully contrived by Augustus,
      that, in the enjoyment of plenty, the Romans should lose the
      memory of freedom. But the prodigality of Constantine could not
      be excused by any consideration either of public or private
      interest; and the annual tribute of corn imposed upon Egypt for
      the benefit of his new capital, was applied to feed a lazy and
      insolent populace, at the expense of the husbandmen of an
      industrious province. 59 5911 Some other regulations of this
      emperor are less liable to blame, but they are less deserving of
      notice. He divided Constantinople into fourteen regions or
      quarters, 60 dignified the public council with the appellation of
      senate, 61 communicated to the citizens the privileges of Italy,
      62 and bestowed on the rising city the title of Colony, the first
      and most favored daughter of ancient Rome. The venerable parent
      still maintained the legal and acknowledged supremacy, which was
      due to her age, her dignity, and to the remembrance of her former
      greatness. 63

      58 (return) [ Sozomen, l. ii. c. 3. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 9.
      Codin. Antiquitat. Const. p. 8. It appears by Socrates, l. ii. c.
      13, that the daily allowance of the city consisted of eight
      myriads of σίτου, which we may either translate, with Valesius, by the
      words modii of corn, or consider us expressive of the number of
      loaves of bread. * Note: At Rome the poorer citizens who received
      these gratuities were inscribed in a register; they had only a
      personal right. Constantine attached the right to the houses in
      his new capital, to engage the lower classes of the people to
      build their houses with expedition. Codex Therodos. l. xiv.—G.]

      59 (return) [ See Cod. Theodos. l. xiii. and xiv., and Cod.
      Justinian. Edict. xii. tom. ii. p. 648, edit. Genev. See the
      beautiful complaint of Rome in the poem of Claudian de Bell.
      Gildonico, ver. 46-64.——Cum subiit par Roma mihi, divisaque
      sumsit Æquales aurora togas; Ægyptia rura In partem cessere
      novam.]

      5911 (return) [ This was also at the expense of Rome. The emperor
      ordered that the fleet of Alexandria should transport to
      Constantinople the grain of Egypt which it carried before to
      Rome: this grain supplied Rome during four months of the year.
      Claudian has described with force the famine occasioned by this
      measure:—

     Hæc nobis, hæc ante dabas; nunc pabula tantum Roma precor:
     miserere tuæ; pater optime, gentis: Extremam defende famem. Claud.
     de Bell. Gildon. v. 34.—G.

      It was scarcely this measure. Gildo had cut off the African as
      well as the Egyptian supplies.—M.]

      60 (return) [ The regions of Constantinople are mentioned in the
      code of Justinian, and particularly described in the Notitia of
      the younger Theodosius; but as the four last of them are not
      included within the wall of Constantine, it may be doubted
      whether this division of the city should be referred to the
      founder.]

      61 (return) [ Senatum constituit secundi ordinis; _Claros_
      vocavit. Anonym Valesian. p. 715. The senators of old Rome were
      styled _Clarissimi_. See a curious note of Valesius ad Ammian.
      Marcellin. xxii. 9. From the eleventh epistle of Julian, it
      should seem that the place of senator was considered as a burden,
      rather than as an honor; but the Abbé de la Bleterie (Vie de
      Jovien, tom. ii. p. 371) has shown that this epistle could not
      relate to Constantinople. Might we not read, instead of the
      celebrated name of the obscure but more probable word Bisanthe or
      Rhœdestus, now Rhodosto, was a small maritime city of Thrace. See
      Stephan. Byz. de Urbibus, p. 225, and Cellar. Geograph. tom. i.
      p. 849.]

      62 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xiv. 13. The commentary of
      Godefroy (tom. v. p. 220) is long, but perplexed; nor indeed is
      it easy to ascertain in what the Jus Italicum could consist,
      after the freedom of the city had been communicated to the whole
      empire. * Note: “This right, (the Jus Italicum,) which by most
      writers is referred with out foundation to the personal condition
      of the citizens, properly related to the city as a whole, and
      contained two parts. First, the Roman or quiritarian property in
      the soil, (commercium,) and its capability of mancipation,
      usucaption, and vindication; moreover, as an inseparable
      consequence of this, exemption from land-tax. Then, secondly, a
      free constitution in the Italian form, with Duumvirs,
      Quinquennales. and Ædiles, and especially with Jurisdiction.”
      Savigny, Geschichte des Rom. Rechts i. p. 51—M.]

      63 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 8) celebrates Constantinople as
      not less superior to all other cities than she was inferior to
      Rome itself. His learned commentator (Spanheim, p. 75, 76)
      justifies this language by several parallel and contemporary
      instances. Zosimus, as well as Socrates and Sozomen, flourished
      after the division of the empire between the two sons of
      Theodosius, which established a perfect _equality_ between the
      old and the new capital.]

      As Constantine urged the progress of the work with the impatience
      of a lover, the walls, the porticos, and the principal edifices
      were completed in a few years, or, according to another account,
      in a few months; 64 but this extraordinary diligence should
      excite the less admiration, since many of the buildings were
      finished in so hasty and imperfect a manner, that under the
      succeeding reign, they were preserved with difficulty from
      impending ruin. 65 But while they displayed the vigor and
      freshness of youth, the founder prepared to celebrate the
      dedication of his city. 66 The games and largesses which crowned
      the pomp of this memorable festival may easily be supposed; but
      there is one circumstance of a more singular and permanent
      nature, which ought not entirely to be overlooked. As often as
      the birthday of the city returned, the statue of Constantine,
      framed by his order, of gilt wood, and bearing in his right hand
      a small image of the genius of the place, was erected on a
      triumphal car. The guards, carrying white tapers, and clothed in
      their richest apparel, accompanied the solemn procession as it
      moved through the Hippodrome. When it was opposite to the throne
      of the reigning emperor, he rose from his seat, and with grateful
      reverence adored the memory of his predecessor. 67 At the
      festival of the dedication, an edict, engraved on a column of
      marble, bestowed the title of Second or New Rome on the city of
      Constantine. 68 But the name of Constantinople 69 has prevailed
      over that honorable epithet; and after the revolution of fourteen
      centuries, still perpetuates the fame of its author. 70

      64 (return) [ Codinus (Antiquitat. p. 8) affirms, that the
      foundations of Constantinople were laid in the year of the world
      5837, (A. D. 329,) on the 26th of September, and that the city
      was dedicated the 11th of May, 5838, (A. D. 330.) He connects
      those dates with several characteristic epochs, but they
      contradict each other; the authority of Codinus is of little
      weight, and the space which he assigns must appear insufficient.
      The term of ten years is given us by Julian, (Orat. i. p. 8;) and
      Spanheim labors to establish the truth of it, (p. 69-75,) by the
      help of two passages from Themistius, (Orat. iv. p. 58,) and of
      Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 9,) which form a period from the year
      324 to the year 334. Modern critics are divided concerning this
      point of chronology and their different sentiments are very
      accurately described by Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv.
      p. 619-625.]

      65 (return) [ Themistius. Orat. iii. p. 47. Zosim. l. ii. p. 108.
      Constantine himself, in one of his laws, (Cod. Theod. l. xv. tit.
      i.,) betrays his impatience.]

      66 (return) [ Cedrenus and Zonaras, faithful to the mode of
      superstition which prevailed in their own times, assure us that
      Constantinople was consecrated to the virgin Mother of God.]

      67 (return) [ The earliest and most complete account of this
      extraordinary ceremony may be found in the Alexandrian Chronicle,
      p. 285. Tillemont, and the other friends of Constantine, who are
      offended with the air of Paganism which seems unworthy of a
      Christian prince, had a right to consider it as doubtful, but
      they were not authorized to omit the mention of it.]

      68 (return) [ Sozomen, l. ii. c. 2. Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 6.
      Velut ipsius Romæ filiam, is the expression of Augustin. de
      Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 25.]

      69 (return) [ Eutropius, l. x. c. 8. Julian. Orat. i. p. 8.
      Ducange C. P. l. i. c. 5. The name of Constantinople is extant on
      the medals of Constantine.]

      70 (return) [ The lively Fontenelle (Dialogues des Morts, xii.)
      affects to deride the vanity of human ambition, and seems to
      triumph in the disappointment of Constantine, whose immortal name
      is now lost in the vulgar appellation of Istambol, a Turkish
      corruption of είς τήν πόλιω. Yet the original name is still preserved, 1. By
      the nations of Europe. 2. By the modern Greeks. 3. By the Arabs,
      whose writings are diffused over the wide extent of their
      conquests in Asia and Africa. See D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque
      Orientale, p. 275. 4. By the more learned Turks, and by the
      emperor himself in his public mandates Cantemir’s History of the
      Othman Empire, p. 51.]

      The foundation of a new capital is naturally connected with the
      establishment of a new form of civil and military administration.
      The distinct view of the complicated system of policy, introduced
      by Diocletian, improved by Constantine, and completed by his
      immediate successors, may not only amuse the fancy by the
      singular picture of a great empire, but will tend to illustrate
      the secret and internal causes of its rapid decay. In the pursuit
      of any remarkable institution, we may be frequently led into the
      more early or the more recent times of the Roman history; but the
      proper limits of this inquiry will be included within a period of
      about one hundred and thirty years, from the accession of
      Constantine to the publication of the Theodosian code; 71 from
      which, as well as from the _Notitia_ 7111 of the East and West,
      72 we derive the most copious and authentic information of the
      state of the empire. This variety of objects will suspend, for
      some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will
      be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the
      importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager
      curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental
      event of a battle.

      71 (return) [ The Theodosian code was promulgated A. D. 438. See
      the Prolegomena of Godefroy, c. i. p. 185.]

      7111 (return) [ The Notitia Dignitatum Imperii is a description
      of all the offices in the court and the state, of the legions,
      &c. It resembles our court almanacs, (Red Books,) with this
      single difference, that our almanacs name the persons in office,
      the Notitia only the offices. It is of the time of the emperor
      Theodosius II., that is to say, of the fifth century, when the
      empire was divided into the Eastern and Western. It is probable
      that it was not made for the first time, and that descriptions of
      the same kind existed before.—G.]

      72 (return) [ Pancirolus, in his elaborate Commentary, assigns to
      the Notitia a date almost similar to that of the Theodosian Code;
      but his proofs, or rather conjectures, are extremely feeble. I
      should be rather inclined to place this useful work between the
      final division of the empire (A. D. 395) and the successful
      invasion of Gaul by the barbarians, (A. D. 407.) See Histoire des
      Anciens Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vii. p. 40.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part III.


      The manly pride of the Romans, content with substantial power,
      had left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of
      ostentatious greatness. 73 But when they lost even the semblance
      of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom,
      the simplicity of Roman manners was insensibly corrupted by the
      stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The distinctions of
      personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so
      feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the
      despotism of the emperors; who substituted in their room a severe
      subordination of rank and office from the titled slaves who were
      seated on the steps of the throne, to the meanest instruments of
      arbitrary power. This multitude of abject dependants was
      interested in the support of the actual government from the dread
      of a revolution, which might at once confound their hopes and
      intercept the reward of their services. In this divine hierarchy
      (for such it is frequently styled) every rank was marked with the
      most scrupulous exactness, and its dignity was displayed in a
      variety of trifling and solemn ceremonies, which it was a study
      to learn, and a sacrilege to neglect. 74 The purity of the Latin
      language was debased, by adopting, in the intercourse of pride
      and flattery, a profusion of epithets, which Tully would scarcely
      have understood, and which Augustus would have rejected with
      indignation. The principal officers of the empire were saluted,
      even by the sovereign himself, with the deceitful titles of your
      _Sincerity_, your _Gravity_, your _Excellency_, your _Eminence_,
      your _sublime and wonderful Magnitude_, your _illustrious and
      magnificent Highness_. 75 The codicils or patents of their office
      were curiously emblazoned with such emblems as were best adapted
      to explain its nature and high dignity; the image or portrait of
      the reigning emperors; a triumphal car; the book of mandates
      placed on a table, covered with a rich carpet, and illuminated by
      four tapers; the allegorical figures of the provinces which they
      governed; or the appellations and standards of the troops whom
      they commanded. Some of these official ensigns were really
      exhibited in their hall of audience; others preceded their
      pompous march whenever they appeared in public; and every
      circumstance of their demeanor, their dress, their ornaments, and
      their train, was calculated to inspire a deep reverence for the
      representatives of supreme majesty. By a philosophic observer,
      the system of the Roman government might have been mistaken for a
      splendid theatre, filled with players of every character and
      degree, who repeated the language, and imitated the passions, of
      their original model. 76

      73 (return) [ Scilicet externæ superbiæ sueto, non inerat notitia
      nostri, (perhaps _nostræ;_) apud quos vis Imperii valet, inania
      transmittuntur. Tacit. Annal. xv. 31. The gradation from the
      style of freedom and simplicity, to that of form and servitude,
      may be traced in the Epistles of Cicero, of Pliny, and of
      Symmachus.]

      74 (return) [ The emperor Gratian, after confirming a law of
      precedency published by Valentinian, the father of his
      _Divinity_, thus continues: Siquis igitur indebitum sibi locum
      usurpaverit, nulla se ignoratione defendat; sitque plane
      _sacrilegii_ reus, qui _divina_ præcepta neglexerit. Cod. Theod.
      l. vi. tit. v. leg. 2.]

      75 (return) [ Consult the _Notitia Dignitatum_ at the end of the
      Theodosian code, tom. vi. p. 316. * Note: Constantin, qui
      remplaca le grand Patriciat par une noblesse titree et qui
      changea avec d’autres institutions la nature de la societe
      Latine, est le veritable fondateur de la royaute moderne, dans ce
      quelle conserva de Romain. Chateaubriand, Etud. Histor. Preface,
      i. 151. Manso, (Leben Constantins des Grossen,) p. 153, &c., has
      given a lucid view of the dignities and duties of the officers in
      the Imperial court.—M.]

      76 (return) [ Pancirolus ad Notitiam utriusque Imperii, p. 39.
      But his explanations are obscure, and he does not sufficiently
      distinguish the painted emblems from the effective ensigns of
      office.]

      All the magistrates of sufficient importance to find a place in
      the general state of the empire, were accurately divided into
      three classes. 1. The _Illustrious_. 2. The _Spectabiles_, or
      _Respectable_. And, 3. the _Clarissimi;_ whom we may translate by
      the word _Honorable_. In the times of Roman simplicity, the
      last-mentioned epithet was used only as a vague expression of
      deference, till it became at length the peculiar and appropriated
      title of all who were members of the senate, 77 and consequently
      of all who, from that venerable body, were selected to govern the
      provinces. The vanity of those who, from their rank and office,
      might claim a superior distinction above the rest of the
      senatorial order, was long afterwards indulged with the new
      appellation of _Respectable;_ but the title of _Illustrious_ was
      always reserved to some eminent personages who were obeyed or
      reverenced by the two subordinate classes. It was communicated
      only, I. To the consuls and patricians; II. To the Prætorian
      præfects, with the præfects of Rome and Constantinople; III. To
      the masters-general of the cavalry and the infantry; and IV. To
      the seven ministers of the palace, who exercised their _sacred_
      functions about the person of the emperor. 78 Among those
      illustrious magistrates who were esteemed coordinate with each
      other, the seniority of appointment gave place to the union of
      dignities. 79 By the expedient of honorary codicils, the
      emperors, who were fond of multiplying their favors, might
      sometimes gratify the vanity, though not the ambition, of
      impatient courtiers. 80

      77 (return) [ In the Pandects, which may be referred to the
      reigns of the Antonines, Clarissimus is the ordinary and legal
      title of a senator.]

      78 (return) [ Pancirol. p. 12-17. I have not taken any notice of
      the two inferior ranks, _Prefectissimus_ and _Egregius_, which
      were given to many persons who were not raised to the senatorial
      dignity.]

      79 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi. The rules of
      precedency are ascertained with the most minute accuracy by the
      emperors, and illustrated with equal prolixity by their learned
      interpreter.]

      80 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. vi. tit. xxii.]

      I. As long as the Roman consuls were the first magistrates of a
      free state, they derived their right to power from the choice of
      the people. As long as the emperors condescended to disguise the
      servitude which they imposed, the consuls were still elected by
      the real or apparent suffrage of the senate. From the reign of
      Diocletian, even these vestiges of liberty were abolished, and
      the successful candidates who were invested with the annual
      honors of the consulship, affected to deplore the humiliating
      condition of their predecessors. The Scipios and the Catos had
      been reduced to solicit the votes of plebeians, to pass through
      the tedious and expensive forms of a popular election, and to
      expose their dignity to the shame of a public refusal; while
      their own happier fate had reserved them for an age and
      government in which the rewards of virtue were assigned by the
      unerring wisdom of a gracious sovereign. 81 In the epistles which
      the emperor addressed to the two consuls elect, it was declared,
      that they were created by his sole authority. 82 Their names and
      portraits, engraved on gilt tables of ivory, were dispersed over
      the empire as presents to the provinces, the cities, the
      magistrates, the senate, and the people. 83 Their solemn
      inauguration was performed at the place of the Imperial
      residence; and during a period of one hundred and twenty years,
      Rome was constantly deprived of the presence of her ancient
      magistrates. 84

      81 (return) [ Ausonius (in Gratiarum Actione) basely expatiates
      on this unworthy topic, which is managed by Mamertinus (Panegyr.
      Vet. xi. [x.] 16, 19) with somewhat more freedom and ingenuity.]

      82 (return) [ Cum de Consulibus in annum creandis, solus mecum
      volutarem.... te Consulem et designavi, et declaravi, et priorem
      nuncupavi; are some of the expressions employed by the emperor
      Gratian to his preceptor, the poet Ausonius.]

      83 (return) [ Immanesque... dentes Qui secti ferro in tabulas
      auroque micantes, Inscripti rutilum cœlato Consule nomen Per
      proceres et vulgus eant. —Claud. in ii. Cons. Stilichon. 456.

      Montfaucon has represented some of these tablets or dypticks see
      Supplement à l’Antiquité expliquée, tom. iii. p. 220.]

      84 (return) [

     Consule lætatur post plurima seculo viso Pallanteus apex:
     agnoscunt rostra curules Auditas quondam proavis: desuetaque
     cingit Regius auratis Fora fascibus Ulpia lictor. —Claud. in vi.
     Cons. Honorii, 643.

      From the reign of Carus to the sixth consulship of Honorius,
      there was an interval of one hundred and twenty years, during
      which the emperors were always absent from Rome on the first day
      of January. See the Chronologie de Tillemonte, tom. iii. iv. and
      v.]

      On the morning of the first of January, the consuls assumed the
      ensigns of their dignity. Their dress was a robe of purple,
      embroidered in silk and gold, and sometimes ornamented with
      costly gems. 85 On this solemn occasion they were attended by the
      most eminent officers of the state and army, in the habit of
      senators; and the useless fasces, armed with the once formidable
      axes, were borne before them by the lictors. The procession moved
      from the palace 87 to the Forum or principal square of the city;
      where the consuls ascended their tribunal, and seated themselves
      in the curule chairs, which were framed after the fashion of
      ancient times. They immediately exercised an act of jurisdiction,
      by the manumission of a slave, who was brought before them for
      that purpose; and the ceremony was intended to represent the
      celebrated action of the elder Brutus, the author of liberty and
      of the consulship, when he admitted among his fellow-citizens the
      faithful Vindex, who had revealed the conspiracy of the Tarquins.
      88 The public festival was continued during several days in all
      the principal cities in Rome, from custom; in Constantinople,
      from imitation in Carthage, Antioch, and Alexandria, from the
      love of pleasure, and the superfluity of wealth. 89 In the two
      capitals of the empire the annual games of the theatre, the
      circus, and the amphitheatre, 90 cost four thousand pounds of
      gold, (about) one hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling: and
      if so heavy an expense surpassed the faculties or the
      inclinations of the magistrates themselves, the sum was supplied
      from the Imperial treasury. 91 As soon as the consuls had
      discharged these customary duties, they were at liberty to retire
      into the shade of private life, and to enjoy, during the
      remainder of the year, the undisturbed contemplation of their own
      greatness. They no longer presided in the national councils; they
      no longer executed the resolutions of peace or war. Their
      abilities (unless they were employed in more effective offices)
      were of little moment; and their names served only as the legal
      date of the year in which they had filled the chair of Marius and
      of Cicero. Yet it was still felt and acknowledged, in the last
      period of Roman servitude, that this empty name might be
      compared, and even preferred, to the possession of substantial
      power. The title of consul was still the most splendid object of
      ambition, the noblest reward of virtue and loyalty. The emperors
      themselves, who disdained the faint shadow of the republic, were
      conscious that they acquired an additional splendor and majesty
      as often as they assumed the annual honors of the consular
      dignity. 92

      85 (return) [ See Claudian in Cons. Prob. et Olybrii, 178, &c.;
      and in iv. Cons. Honorii, 585, &c.; though in the latter it is
      not easy to separate the ornaments of the emperor from those of
      the consul. Ausonius received from the liberality of Gratian a
      _vestis palmata_, or robe of state, in which the figure of the
      emperor Constantius was embroidered. Cernis et armorum proceres
      legumque potentes: Patricios sumunt habitus; et more Gabino
      Discolor incedit legio, positisque parumper Bellorum signis,
      sequitur vexilla Quirini. Lictori cedunt aquilæ, ridetque togatus
      Miles, et in mediis effulget curia castris. —Claud. in iv. Cons.
      Honorii, 5. —_strictaque_ procul radiare _secures_. —In Cons.
      Prob. 229]

      87 (return) [ See Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin. l. xxii. c. 7.]

      88 (return) [ Auspice mox læto sonuit clamore tribunal; Te fastos
      ineunte quater; solemnia ludit Omina libertas; deductum Vindice
      morem Lex servat, famulusque jugo laxatus herili Ducitur, et
      grato remeat securior ictu. —Claud. in iv Cons. Honorii, 611]

      89 (return) [ Celebrant quidem solemnes istos dies omnes ubique
      urbes quæ sub legibus agunt; et Roma de more, et Constantinopolis
      de imitatione, et Antiochia pro luxu, et discincta Carthago, et
      domus fluminis Alexandria, sed Treviri Principis beneficio.
      Ausonius in Grat. Actione.]

      90 (return) [ Claudian (in Cons. Mall. Theodori, 279-331)
      describes, in a lively and fanciful manner, the various games of
      the circus, the theatre, and the amphitheatre, exhibited by the
      new consul. The sanguinary combats of gladiators had already been
      prohibited.]

      91 (return) [ Procopius in Hist. Arcana, c. 26.]

      92 (return) [ In Consulatu honos sine labore suscipitur.
      (Mamertin. in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 2.) This exalted idea of the
      consulship is borrowed from an oration (iii. p. 107) pronounced
      by Julian in the servile court of Constantius. See the Abbé de la
      Bleterie, (Mémoires de l’Académie, tom. xxiv. p. 289,) who
      delights to pursue the vestiges of the old constitution, and who
      sometimes finds them in his copious fancy]

      The proudest and most perfect separation which can be found in
      any age or country, between the nobles and the people, is perhaps
      that of the Patricians and the Plebeians, as it was established
      in the first age of the Roman republic. Wealth and honors, the
      offices of the state, and the ceremonies of religion, were almost
      exclusively possessed by the former who, preserving the purity of
      their blood with the most insulting jealousy, 93 held their
      clients in a condition of specious vassalage. But these
      distinctions, so incompatible with the spirit of a free people,
      were removed, after a long struggle, by the persevering efforts
      of the Tribunes. The most active and successful of the Plebeians
      accumulated wealth, aspired to honors, deserved triumphs,
      contracted alliances, and, after some generations, assumed the
      pride of ancient nobility. 94 The Patrician families, on the
      other hand, whose original number was never recruited till the
      end of the commonwealth, either failed in the ordinary course of
      nature, or were extinguished in so many foreign and domestic
      wars, or, through a want of merit or fortune, insensibly mingled
      with the mass of the people. 95 Very few remained who could
      derive their pure and genuine origin from the infancy of the
      city, or even from that of the republic, when Cæsar and Augustus,
      Claudius and Vespasian, created from the body of the senate a
      competent number of new Patrician families, in the hope of
      perpetuating an order, which was still considered as honorable
      and sacred. 96 But these artificial supplies (in which the
      reigning house was always included) were rapidly swept away by
      the rage of tyrants, by frequent revolutions, by the change of
      manners, and by the intermixture of nations. 97 Little more was
      left when Constantine ascended the throne, than a vague and
      imperfect tradition, that the Patricians had once been the first
      of the Romans. To form a body of nobles, whose influence may
      restrain, while it secures the authority of the monarch, would
      have been very inconsistent with the character and policy of
      Constantine; but had he seriously entertained such a design, it
      might have exceeded the measure of his power to ratify, by an
      arbitrary edict, an institution which must expect the sanction of
      time and of opinion. He revived, indeed, the title of Patricians,
      but he revived it as a personal, not as an hereditary
      distinction. They yielded only to the transient superiority of
      the annual consuls; but they enjoyed the pre-eminence over all
      the great officers of state, with the most familiar access to the
      person of the prince. This honorable rank was bestowed on them
      for life; and as they were usually favorites, and ministers who
      had grown old in the Imperial court, the true etymology of the
      word was perverted by ignorance and flattery; and the Patricians
      of Constantine were reverenced as the adopted _Fathers_ of the
      emperor and the republic. 98

      93 (return) [ Intermarriages between the Patricians and Plebeians
      were prohibited by the laws of the XII Tables; and the uniform
      operations of human nature may attest that the custom survived
      the law. See in Livy (iv. 1-6) the pride of family urged by the
      consul, and the rights of mankind asserted by the tribune
      Canuleius.]

      94 (return) [ See the animated picture drawn by Sallust, in the
      Jugurthine war, of the pride of the nobles, and even of the
      virtuous Metellus, who was unable to brook the idea that the
      honor of the consulship should be bestowed on the obscure merit
      of his lieutenant Marius. (c. 64.) Two hundred years before, the
      race of the Metelli themselves were confounded among the
      Plebeians of Rome; and from the etymology of their name of
      _Cæcilius_, there is reason to believe that those haughty nobles
      derived their origin from a sutler.]

      95 (return) [ In the year of Rome 800, very few remained, not
      only of the old Patrician families, but even of those which had
      been created by Cæsar and Augustus. (Tacit. Annal. xi. 25.) The
      family of Scaurus (a branch of the Patrician Æmilii) was degraded
      so low that his father, who exercised the trade of a charcoal
      merchant, left him only teu slaves, and somewhat less than three
      hundred pounds sterling. (Valerius Maximus, l. iv. c. 4, n. 11.
      Aurel. Victor in Scauro.) The family was saved from oblivion by
      the merit of the son.]

      96 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. xi. 25. Dion Cassius, l. iii. p. 698.
      The virtues of Agricola, who was created a Patrician by the
      emperor Vespasian, reflected honor on that ancient order; but his
      ancestors had not any claim beyond an Equestrian nobility.]

      97 (return) [ This failure would have been almost impossible if
      it were true, as Casaubon compels Aurelius Victor to affirm (ad
      Sueton, in Cæsar v. 24. See Hist. August p. 203 and Casaubon
      Comment., p. 220) that Vespasian created at once a thousand
      Patrician families. But this extravagant number is too much even
      for the whole Senatorial order. unless we should include all the
      Roman knights who were distinguished by the permission of wearing
      the laticlave.]

      98 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 118; and Godefroy ad Cod.
      Theodos. l. vi. tit. vi.]

      II. The fortunes of the Prætorian præfects were essentially
      different from those of the consuls and Patricians. The latter
      saw their ancient greatness evaporate in a vain title.

      The former, rising by degrees from the most humble condition,
      were invested with the civil and military administration of the
      Roman world. From the reign of Severus to that of Diocletian, the
      guards and the palace, the laws and the finances, the armies and
      the provinces, were intrusted to their superintending care; and,
      like the Viziers of the East, they held with one hand the seal,
      and with the other the standard, of the empire. The ambition of
      the præfects, always formidable, and sometimes fatal to the
      masters whom they served, was supported by the strength of the
      Prætorian bands; but after those haughty troops had been weakened
      by Diocletian, and finally suppressed by Constantine, the
      præfects, who survived their fall, were reduced without
      difficulty to the station of useful and obedient ministers. When
      they were no longer responsible for the safety of the emperor’s
      person, they resigned the jurisdiction which they had hitherto
      claimed and exercised over all the departments of the palace.
      They were deprived by Constantine of all military command, as
      soon as they had ceased to lead into the field, under their
      immediate orders, the flower of the Roman troops; and at length,
      by a singular revolution, the captains of the guards were
      transformed into the civil magistrates of the provinces.
      According to the plan of government instituted by Diocletian, the
      four princes had each their Prætorian præfect; and after the
      monarchy was once more united in the person of Constantine, he
      still continued to create the same number of Four Præfects, and
      intrusted to their care the same provinces which they already
      administered. 1. The præfect of the East stretched his ample
      jurisdiction into the three parts of the globe which were subject
      to the Romans, from the cataracts of the Nile to the banks of the
      Phasis, and from the mountains of Thrace to the frontiers of
      Persia. 2. The important provinces of Pannonia, Dacia, Macedonia,
      and Greece, once acknowledged the authority of the præfect of
      Illyricum. 3. The power of the præfect of Italy was not confined
      to the country from whence he derived his title; it extended over
      the additional territory of Rhætia as far as the banks of the
      Danube, over the dependent islands of the Mediterranean, and over
      that part of the continent of Africa which lies between the
      confines of Cyrene and those of Tingitania. 4. The præfect of the
      Gauls comprehended under that plural denomination the kindred
      provinces of Britain and Spain, and his authority was obeyed from
      the wall of Antoninus to the foot of Mount Atlas. 99

      99 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 109, 110. If we had not
      fortunately possessed this satisfactory account of the division
      of the power and provinces of the Prætorian præfects, we should
      frequently have been perplexed amidst the copious details of the
      Code, and the circumstantial minuteness of the Notitia.]

      After the Prætorian præfects had been dismissed from all military
      command, the civil functions which they were ordained to exercise
      over so many subject nations, were adequate to the ambition and
      abilities of the most consummate ministers. To their wisdom was
      committed the supreme administration of justice and of the
      finances, the two objects which, in a state of peace, comprehend
      almost all the respective duties of the sovereign and of the
      people; of the former, to protect the citizens who are obedient
      to the laws; of the latter, to contribute the share of their
      property which is required for the expenses of the state. The
      coin, the highways, the posts, the granaries, the manufactures,
      whatever could interest the public prosperity, was moderated by
      the authority of the Prætorian præfects. As the immediate
      representatives of the Imperial majesty, they were empowered to
      explain, to enforce, and on some occasions to modify, the general
      edicts by their discretionary proclamations. They watched over
      the conduct of the provincial governors, removed the negligent,
      and inflicted punishments on the guilty. From all the inferior
      jurisdictions, an appeal in every matter of importance, either
      civil or criminal, might be brought before the tribunal of the
      præfect; but _his_ sentence was final and absolute; and the
      emperors themselves refused to admit any complaints against the
      judgment or the integrity of a magistrate whom they honored with
      such unbounded confidence. 100 His appointments were suitable to
      his dignity; 101 and if avarice was his ruling passion, he
      enjoyed frequent opportunities of collecting a rich harvest of
      fees, of presents, and of perquisites. Though the emperors no
      longer dreaded the ambition of their præfects, they were
      attentive to counterbalance the power of this great office by the
      uncertainty and shortness of its duration. 102

      100 (return) [ See a law of Constantine himself. A præfectis
      autem prætorio provocare, non sinimus. Cod. Justinian. l. vii.
      tit. lxii. leg. 19. Charisius, a lawyer of the time of
      Constantine, (Heinec. Hist. Romani, p. 349,) who admits this law
      as a fundamental principle of jurisprudence, compares the
      Prætorian præfects to the masters of the horse of the ancient
      dictators. Pandect. l. i. tit. xi.]

      101 (return) [ When Justinian, in the exhausted condition of the
      empire, instituted a Prætorian præfect for Africa, he allowed him
      a salary of one hundred pounds of gold. Cod. Justinian. l. i.
      tit. xxvii. leg. i.]

      102 (return) [ For this, and the other dignities of the empire,
      it may be sufficient to refer to the ample commentaries of
      Pancirolus and Godefroy, who have diligently collected and
      accurately digested in their proper order all the legal and
      historical materials. From those authors, Dr. Howell (History of
      the World, vol. ii. p. 24-77) has deduced a very distinct
      abridgment of the state of the Roman empire]

      From their superior importance and dignity, Rome and
      Constantinople were alone excepted from the jurisdiction of the
      Prætorian præfects. The immense size of the city, and the
      experience of the tardy, ineffectual operation of the laws, had
      furnished the policy of Augustus with a specious pretence for
      introducing a new magistrate, who alone could restrain a servile
      and turbulent populace by the strong arm of arbitrary power. 103
      Valerius Messalla was appointed the first præfect of Rome, that
      his reputation might countenance so invidious a measure; but, at
      the end of a few days, that accomplished citizen 104 resigned his
      office, declaring, with a spirit worthy of the friend of Brutus,
      that he found himself incapable of exercising a power
      incompatible with public freedom. 105 As the sense of liberty
      became less exquisite, the advantages of order were more clearly
      understood; and the præfect, who seemed to have been designed as
      a terror only to slaves and vagrants, was permitted to extend his
      civil and criminal jurisdiction over the equestrian and noble
      families of Rome. The prætors, annually created as the judges of
      law and equity, could not long dispute the possession of the
      Forum with a vigorous and permanent magistrate, who was usually
      admitted into the confidence of the prince. Their courts were
      deserted, their number, which had once fluctuated between twelve
      and eighteen, 106 was gradually reduced to two or three, and
      their important functions were confined to the expensive
      obligation 107 of exhibiting games for the amusement of the
      people. After the office of the Roman consuls had been changed
      into a vain pageant, which was rarely displayed in the capital,
      the præfects assumed their vacant place in the senate, and were
      soon acknowledged as the ordinary presidents of that venerable
      assembly. They received appeals from the distance of one hundred
      miles; and it was allowed as a principle of jurisprudence, that
      all municipal authority was derived from them alone. 108 In the
      discharge of his laborious employment, the governor of Rome was
      assisted by fifteen officers, some of whom had been originally
      his equals, or even his superiors. The principal departments were
      relative to the command of a numerous watch, established as a
      safeguard against fires, robberies, and nocturnal disorders; the
      custody and distribution of the public allowance of corn and
      provisions; the care of the port, of the aqueducts, of the common
      sewers, and of the navigation and bed of the Tyber; the
      inspection of the markets, the theatres, and of the private as
      well as the public works. Their vigilance insured the three
      principal objects of a regular police, safety, plenty, and
      cleanliness; and as a proof of the attention of government to
      preserve the splendor and ornaments of the capital, a particular
      inspector was appointed for the statues; the guardian, as it
      were, of that inanimate people, which, according to the
      extravagant computation of an old writer, was scarcely inferior
      in number to the living inhabitants of Rome. About thirty years
      after the foundation of Constantinople, a similar magistrate was
      created in that rising metropolis, for the same uses and with the
      same powers. A perfect equality was established between the
      dignity of the _two_ municipal, and that of the _four_ Prætorian
      præfects. 109

      103 (return) [ Tacit. Annal. vi. 11. Euseb. in Chron. p. 155.
      Dion Cassius, in the oration of Mæcenas, (l. lvii. p. 675,)
      describes the prerogatives of the præfect of the city as they
      were established in his own time.]

      104 (return) [ The fame of Messalla has been scarcely equal to
      his merit. In the earliest youth he was recommended by Cicero to
      the friendship of Brutus. He followed the standard of the
      republic till it was broken in the fields of Philippi; he then
      accepted and deserved the favor of the most moderate of the
      conquerors; and uniformly asserted his freedom and dignity in the
      court of Augustus. The triumph of Messalla was justified by the
      conquest of Aquitain. As an orator, he disputed the palm of
      eloquence with Cicero himself. Messalla cultivated every muse,
      and was the patron of every man of genius. He spent his evenings
      in philosophic conversation with Horace; assumed his place at
      table between Delia and Tibullus; and amused his leisure by
      encouraging the poetical talents of young Ovid.]

      105 (return) [ Incivilem esse potestatem contestans, says the
      translator of Eusebius. Tacitus expresses the same idea in other
      words; quasi nescius exercendi.]

      106 (return) [ See Lipsius, Excursus D. ad 1 lib. Tacit. Annal.]

      107 (return) [ Heineccii. Element. Juris Civilis secund ordinem
      Pandect i. p. 70. See, likewise, Spanheim de Usu. Numismatum,
      tom. ii. dissertat. x. p. 119. In the year 450, Marcian published
      a law, that _three_ citizens should be annually created Prætors
      of Constantinople by the choice of the senate, but with their own
      consent. Cod. Justinian. li. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 2.]

      108 (return) [ Quidquid igitur intra urbem admittitur, ad P. U.
      videtur pertinere; sed et siquid intra contesimum milliarium.
      Ulpian in Pandect l. i. tit. xiii. n. 1. He proceeds to enumerate
      the various offices of the præfect, who, in the code of
      Justinian, (l. i. tit. xxxix. leg. 3,) is declared to precede and
      command all city magistrates sine injuria ac detrimento honoris
      alieni.]

      109 (return) [ Besides our usual guides, we may observe that
      Felix Cantelorius has written a separate treatise, De Præfecto
      Urbis; and that many curious details concerning the police of
      Rome and Constantinople are contained in the fourteenth book of
      the Theodosian Code.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part IV.


      Those who, in the imperial hierarchy, were distinguished by the
      title of _Respectable_, formed an intermediate class between the
      _illustrious_ præfects, and the _honorable_ magistrates of the
      provinces. In this class the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and
      Africa, claimed a preëminence, which was yielded to the
      remembrance of their ancient dignity; and the appeal from their
      tribunal to that of the præfects was almost the only mark of
      their dependence. 110 But the civil government of the empire was
      distributed into thirteen great Dioceses, each of which equalled
      the just measure of a powerful kingdom. The first of these
      dioceses was subject to the jurisdiction of the _count_ of the
      east; and we may convey some idea of the importance and variety
      of his functions, by observing, that six hundred apparitors, who
      would be styled at present either secretaries, or clerks, or
      ushers, or messengers, were employed in his immediate office. 111
      The place of _Augustal præfect_ of Egypt was no longer filled by
      a Roman knight; but the name was retained; and the extraordinary
      powers which the situation of the country, and the temper of the
      inhabitants, had once made indispensable, were still continued to
      the governor. The eleven remaining dioceses, of Asiana, Pontica,
      and Thrace; of Macedonia, Dacia, and Pannonia, or Western
      Illyricum; of Italy and Africa; of Gaul, Spain, and Britain; were
      governed by twelve _vicars_ or _vice-præfects_, 112 whose name
      sufficiently explains the nature and dependence of their office.
      It may be added, that the lieutenant-generals of the Roman
      armies, the military counts and dukes, who will be hereafter
      mentioned, were allowed the rank and title of _Respectable_.

      110 (return) [ Eunapius affirms, that the proconsul of Asia was
      independent of the præfect; which must, however, be understood
      with some allowance. the jurisdiction of the vice-præfect he most
      assuredly disclaimed. Pancirolus, p. 161.]

      111 (return) [ The proconsul of Africa had four hundred
      apparitors; and they all received large salaries, either from the
      treasury or the province See Pancirol. p. 26, and Cod. Justinian.
      l. xii. tit. lvi. lvii.]

      112 (return) [ In Italy there was likewise the _Vicar of Rome_.
      It has been much disputed whether his jurisdiction measured one
      hundred miles from the city, or whether it stretched over the ten
      thousand provinces of Italy.]

      As the spirit of jealousy and ostentation prevailed in the
      councils of the emperors, they proceeded with anxious diligence
      to divide the substance and to multiply the titles of power. The
      vast countries which the Roman conquerors had united under the
      same simple form of administration, were imperceptibly crumbled
      into minute fragments; till at length the whole empire was
      distributed into one hundred and sixteen provinces, each of which
      supported an expensive and splendid establishment. Of these,
      three were governed by _proconsuls_, thirty-seven by _consulars_,
      five by _correctors_, and seventy-one by _presidents_. The
      appellations of these magistrates were different; they ranked in
      successive order, and the ensigns of and their situation, from
      accidental circumstances, might be more or less agreeable or
      advantageous. But they were all (excepting only the pro-consuls)
      alike included in the class of _honorable_ persons; and they were
      alike intrusted, during the pleasure of the prince, and under the
      authority of the præfects or their deputies, with the
      administration of justice and the finances in their respective
      districts. The ponderous volumes of the Codes and Pandects 113
      would furnish ample materials for a minute inquiry into the
      system of provincial government, as in the space of six centuries
      it was approved by the wisdom of the Roman statesmen and lawyers.

      It may be sufficient for the historian to select two singular and
      salutary provisions, intended to restrain the abuse of authority.

      1. For the preservation of peace and order, the governors of the
      provinces were armed with the sword of justice. They inflicted
      corporal punishments, and they exercised, in capital offences,
      the power of life and death. But they were not authorized to
      indulge the condemned criminal with the choice of his own
      execution, or to pronounce a sentence of the mildest and most
      honorable kind of exile. These prerogatives were reserved to the
      præfects, who alone could impose the heavy fine of fifty pounds
      of gold: their vicegerents were confined to the trifling weight
      of a few ounces. 114 This distinction, which seems to grant the
      larger, while it denies the smaller degree of authority, was
      founded on a very rational motive. The smaller degree was
      infinitely more liable to abuse. The passions of a provincial
      magistrate might frequently provoke him into acts of oppression,
      which affected only the freedom or the fortunes of the subject;
      though, from a principle of prudence, perhaps of humanity, he
      might still be terrified by the guilt of innocent blood. It may
      likewise be considered, that exile, considerable fines, or the
      choice of an easy death, relate more particularly to the rich and
      the noble; and the persons the most exposed to the avarice or
      resentment of a provincial magistrate, were thus removed from his
      obscure persecution to the more august and impartial tribunal of
      the Prætorian præfect. 2. As it was reasonably apprehended that
      the integrity of the judge might be biased, if his interest was
      concerned, or his affections were engaged, the strictest
      regulations were established, to exclude any person, without the
      special dispensation of the emperor, from the government of the
      province where he was born; 115 and to prohibit the governor or
      his son from contracting marriage with a native, or an
      inhabitant; 116 or from purchasing slaves, lands, or houses,
      within the extent of his jurisdiction. 117 Notwithstanding these
      rigorous precautions, the emperor Constantine, after a reign of
      twenty-five years, still deplores the venal and oppressive
      administration of justice, and expresses the warmest indignation
      that the audience of the judge, his despatch of business, his
      seasonable delays, and his final sentence, were publicly sold,
      either by himself or by the officers of his court. The
      continuance, and perhaps the impunity, of these crimes, is
      attested by the repetition of impotent laws and ineffectual
      menaces. 118

      113 (return) [ Among the works of the celebrated Ulpian, there
      was one in ten books, concerning the office of a proconsul, whose
      duties in the most essential articles were the same as those of
      an ordinary governor of a province.]

      114 (return) [ The presidents, or consulars, could impose only
      two ounces; the vice-præfects, three; the proconsuls, count of
      the east, and præfect of Egypt, six. See Heineccii Jur. Civil.
      tom. i. p. 75. Pandect. l. xlviii. tit. xix. n. 8. Cod.
      Justinian. l. i. tit. liv. leg. 4, 6.]

      115 (return) [ Ut nulli patriæ suæ administratio sine speciali
      principis permissu permittatur. Cod. Justinian. l. i. tit. xli.
      This law was first enacted by the emperor Marcus, after the
      rebellion of Cassius. (Dion. l. lxxi.) The same regulation is
      observed in China, with equal strictness, and with equal effect.]

      116 (return) [ Pandect. l. xxiii. tit. ii. n. 38, 57, 63.]

      117 (return) [ In jure continetur, ne quis in administratione
      constitutus aliquid compararet. Cod. Theod. l. viii. tit. xv.
      leg. l. This maxim of common law was enforced by a series of
      edicts (see the remainder of the title) from Constantine to
      Justin. From this prohibition, which is extended to the meanest
      officers of the governor, they except only clothes and
      provisions. The purchase within five years may be recovered;
      after which on information, it devolves to the treasury.]

      118 (return) [ Cessent rapaces jam nunc officialium manus;
      cessent, inquam nam si moniti non cessaverint, gladiis
      præcidentur, &c. Cod. Theod. l. i. tit. vii. leg. l. Zeno enacted
      that all governors should remain in the province, to answer any
      accusations, fifty days after the expiration of their power. Cod
      Justinian. l. ii. tit. xlix. leg. l.]

      All the civil magistrates were drawn from the profession of the
      law. The celebrated Institutes of Justinian are addressed to the
      youth of his dominions, who had devoted themselves to the study
      of Roman jurisprudence; and the sovereign condescends to animate
      their diligence, by the assurance that their skill and ability
      would in time be rewarded by an adequate share in the government
      of the republic. 119 The rudiments of this lucrative science were
      taught in all the considerable cities of the east and west; but
      the most famous school was that of Berytus, 120 on the coast of
      Phœnicia; which flourished above three centuries from the time of
      Alexander Severus, the author perhaps of an institution so
      advantageous to his native country. After a regular course of
      education, which lasted five years, the students dispersed
      themselves through the provinces, in search of fortune and
      honors; nor could they want an inexhaustible supply of business
      in a great empire already corrupted by the multiplicity of laws,
      of arts, and of vices. The court of the Prætorian præfect of the
      east could alone furnish employment for one hundred and fifty
      advocates, sixty-four of whom were distinguished by peculiar
      privileges, and two were annually chosen, with a salary of sixty
      pounds of gold, to defend the causes of the treasury. The first
      experiment was made of their judicial talents, by appointing them
      to act occasionally as assessors to the magistrates; from thence
      they were often raised to preside in the tribunals before which
      they had pleaded. They obtained the government of a province;
      and, by the aid of merit, of reputation, or of favor, they
      ascended, by successive steps, to the _illustrious_ dignities of
      the state. 121 In the practice of the bar, these men had
      considered reason as the instrument of dispute; they interpreted
      the laws according to the dictates of private interest and the
      same pernicious habits might still adhere to their characters in
      the public administration of the state. The honor of a liberal
      profession has indeed been vindicated by ancient and modern
      advocates, who have filled the most important stations, with pure
      integrity and consummate wisdom: but in the decline of Roman
      jurisprudence, the ordinary promotion of lawyers was pregnant
      with mischief and disgrace. The noble art, which had once been
      preserved as the sacred inheritance of the patricians, was fallen
      into the hands of freedmen and plebeians, 122 who, with cunning
      rather than with skill, exercised a sordid and pernicious trade.
      Some of them procured admittance into families for the purpose of
      fomenting differences, of encouraging suits, and of preparing a
      harvest of gain for themselves or their brethren. Others, recluse
      in their chambers, maintained the dignity of legal professors, by
      furnishing a rich client with subtleties to confound the plainest
      truths, and with arguments to color the most unjustifiable
      pretensions. The splendid and popular class was composed of the
      advocates, who filled the Forum with the sound of their turgid
      and loquacious rhetoric. Careless of fame and of justice, they
      are described, for the most part, as ignorant and rapacious
      guides, who conducted their clients through a maze of expense, of
      delay, and of disappointment; from whence, after a tedious series
      of years, they were at length dismissed, when their patience and
      fortune were almost exhausted. 123

      119 (return) [ Summâ igitur ope, et alacri studio has leges
      nostras accipite; et vosmetipsos sic eruditos ostendite, ut spes
      vos pulcherrima foveat; toto legitimo opere perfecto, posse etiam
      nostram rempublicam in par tibus ejus vobis credendis gubernari.
      Justinian in proem. Institutionum.]

      120 (return) [ The splendor of the school of Berytus, which
      preserved in the east the language and jurisprudence of the
      Romans, may be computed to have lasted from the third to the
      middle of the sixth century Heinecc. Jur. Rom. Hist. p. 351-356.]

      121 (return) [ As in a former period I have traced the civil and
      military promotion of Pertinax, I shall here insert the civil
      honors of Mallius Theodorus. 1. He was distinguished by his
      eloquence, while he pleaded as an advocate in the court of the
      Prætorian præfect. 2. He governed one of the provinces of Africa,
      either as president or consular, and deserved, by his
      administration, the honor of a brass statue. 3. He was appointed
      vicar, or vice-præfect, of Macedonia. 4. Quæstor. 5. Count of the
      sacred largesses. 6. Prætorian præfect of the Gauls; whilst he
      might yet be represented as a young man. 7. After a retreat,
      perhaps a disgrace of many years, which Mallius (confounded by
      some critics with the poet Manilius; see Fabricius Bibliothec.
      Latin. Edit. Ernest. tom. i.c. 18, p. 501) employed in the study
      of the Grecian philosophy he was named Prætorian præfect of
      Italy, in the year 397. 8. While he still exercised that great
      office, he was created, it the year 399, consul for the West; and
      his name, on account of the infamy of his colleague, the eunuch
      Eutropius, often stands alone in the Fasti. 9. In the year 408,
      Mallius was appointed a second time Prætorian præfect of Italy.
      Even in the venal panegyric of Claudian, we may discover the
      merit of Mallius Theodorus, who, by a rare felicity, was the
      intimate friend, both of Symmachus and of St. Augustin. See
      Tillemont, Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 1110-1114.]

      122 (return) [ Mamertinus in Panegyr. Vet. xi. [x.] 20. Asterius
      apud Photium, p. 1500.]

      123 (return) [ The curious passage of Ammianus, (l. xxx. c. 4,)
      in which he paints the manners of contemporary lawyers, affords a
      strange mixture of sound sense, false rhetoric, and extravagant
      satire. Godefroy (Prolegom. ad. Cod. Theod. c. i. p. 185)
      supports the historian by similar complaints and authentic facts.
      In the fourth century, many camels might have been laden with
      law-books. Eunapius in Vit. Ædesii, p. 72.]

      III. In the system of policy introduced by Augustus, the
      governors, those at least of the Imperial provinces, were
      invested with the full powers of the sovereign himself. Ministers
      of peace and war, the distribution of rewards and punishments
      depended on them alone, and they successively appeared on their
      tribunal in the robes of civil magistracy, and in complete armor
      at the head of the Roman legions. 124 The influence of the
      revenue, the authority of law, and the command of a military
      force, concurred to render their power supreme and absolute; and
      whenever they were tempted to violate their allegiance, the loyal
      province which they involved in their rebellion was scarcely
      sensible of any change in its political state. From the time of
      Commodus to the reign of Constantine, near one hundred governors
      might be enumerated, who, with various success, erected the
      standard of revolt; and though the innocent were too often
      sacrificed, the guilty might be sometimes prevented, by the
      suspicious cruelty of their master. 125 To secure his throne and
      the public tranquillity from these formidable servants,
      Constantine resolved to divide the military from the civil
      administration, and to establish, as a permanent and professional
      distinction, a practice which had been adopted only as an
      occasional expedient. The supreme jurisdiction exercised by the
      Prætorian præfects over the armies of the empire, was transferred
      to the two _masters-general_ whom he instituted, the one for the
      _cavalry_, the other for the _infantry;_ and though each of these
      _illustrious_ officers was more peculiarly responsible for the
      discipline of those troops which were under his immediate
      inspection, they both indifferently commanded in the field the
      several bodies, whether of horse or foot, which were united in
      the same army. 126 Their number was soon doubled by the division
      of the east and west; and as separate generals of the same rank
      and title were appointed on the four important frontiers of the
      Rhine, of the Upper and the Lower Danube, and of the Euphrates,
      the defence of the Roman empire was at length committed to eight
      masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. Under their orders,
      thirty-five military commanders were stationed in the provinces:
      three in Britain, six in Gaul, one in Spain, one in Italy, five
      on the Upper, and four on the Lower Danube; in Asia, eight, three
      in Egypt, and four in Africa. The titles of _counts_, and
      _dukes_, 127 by which they were properly distinguished, have
      obtained in modern languages so very different a sense, that the
      use of them may occasion some surprise. But it should be
      recollected, that the second of those appellations is only a
      corruption of the Latin word, which was indiscriminately applied
      to any military chief. All these provincial generals were
      therefore _dukes;_ but no more than ten among them were dignified
      with the rank of _counts_ or companions, a title of honor, or
      rather of favor, which had been recently invented in the court of
      Constantine. A gold belt was the ensign which distinguished the
      office of the counts and dukes; and besides their pay, they
      received a liberal allowance sufficient to maintain one hundred
      and ninety servants, and one hundred and fifty-eight horses. They
      were strictly prohibited from interfering in any matter which
      related to the administration of justice or the revenue; but the
      command which they exercised over the troops of their department,
      was independent of the authority of the magistrates. About the
      same time that Constantine gave a legal sanction to the
      ecclesiastical order, he instituted in the Roman empire the nice
      balance of the civil and the military powers. The emulation, and
      sometimes the discord, which reigned between two professions of
      opposite interests and incompatible manners, was productive of
      beneficial and of pernicious consequences. It was seldom to be
      expected that the general and the civil governor of a province
      should either conspire for the disturbance, or should unite for
      the service, of their country. While the one delayed to offer the
      assistance which the other disdained to solicit, the troops very
      frequently remained without orders or without supplies; the
      public safety was betrayed, and the defenceless subjects were
      left exposed to the fury of the Barbarians. The divided
      administration which had been formed by Constantine, relaxed the
      vigor of the state, while it secured the tranquillity of the
      monarch.

      124 (return) [ See a very splendid example in the life of
      Agricola, particularly c. 20, 21. The lieutenant of Britain was
      intrusted with the same powers which Cicero, proconsul of
      Cilicia, had exercised in the name of the senate and people.]

      125 (return) [ The Abbé Dubos, who has examined with accuracy
      (see Hist. de la Monarchie Françoise, tom. i. p. 41-100, edit.
      1742) the institutions of Augustus and of Constantine, observes,
      that if Otho had been put to death the day before he executed his
      conspiracy, Otho would now appear in history as innocent as
      Corbulo.]

      126 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 110. Before the end of the
      reign of Constantius, the _magistri militum_ were already
      increased to four. See Velesius ad Ammian. l. xvi. c. 7.]

      127 (return) [ Though the military counts and dukes are
      frequently mentioned, both in history and the codes, we must have
      recourse to the Notitia for the exact knowledge of their number
      and stations. For the institution, rank, privileges, &c., of the
      counts in general see Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xii.—xx., with the
      commentary of Godefroy.]

      The memory of Constantine has been deservedly censured for
      another innovation, which corrupted military discipline and
      prepared the ruin of the empire. The nineteen years which
      preceded his final victory over Licinius, had been a period of
      license and intestine war. The rivals who contended for the
      possession of the Roman world, had withdrawn the greatest part of
      their forces from the guard of the general frontier; and the
      principal cities which formed the boundary of their respective
      dominions were filled with soldiers, who considered their
      countrymen as their most implacable enemies. After the use of
      these internal garrisons had ceased with the civil war, the
      conqueror wanted either wisdom or firmness to revive the severe
      discipline of Diocletian, and to suppress a fatal indulgence,
      which habit had endeared and almost confirmed to the military
      order. From the reign of Constantine, a popular and even legal
      distinction was admitted between the _Palatines_ 128 and the
      _Borderers;_ the troops of the court, as they were improperly
      styled, and the troops of the frontier. The former, elevated by
      the superiority of their pay and privileges, were permitted,
      except in the extraordinary emergencies of war, to occupy their
      tranquil stations in the heart of the provinces. The most
      flourishing cities were oppressed by the intolerable weight of
      quarters. The soldiers insensibly forgot the virtues of their
      profession, and contracted only the vices of civil life. They
      were either degraded by the industry of mechanic trades, or
      enervated by the luxury of baths and theatres. They soon became
      careless of their martial exercises, curious in their diet and
      apparel; and while they inspired terror to the subjects of the
      empire, they trembled at the hostile approach of the Barbarians.
      129 The chain of fortifications which Diocletian and his
      colleagues had extended along the banks of the great rivers, was
      no longer maintained with the same care, or defended with the
      same vigilance. The numbers which still remained under the name
      of the troops of the frontier, might be sufficient for the
      ordinary defence; but their spirit was degraded by the
      humiliating reflection, that _they_ who were exposed to the
      hardships and dangers of a perpetual warfare, were rewarded only
      with about two thirds of the pay and emoluments which were
      lavished on the troops of the court. Even the bands or legions
      that were raised the nearest to the level of those unworthy
      favorites, were in some measure disgraced by the title of honor
      which they were allowed to assume. It was in vain that
      Constantine repeated the most dreadful menaces of fire and sword
      against the Borderers who should dare desert their colors, to
      connive at the inroads of the Barbarians, or to participate in
      the spoil. 130 The mischiefs which flow from injudicious counsels
      are seldom removed by the application of partial severities; and
      though succeeding princes labored to restore the strength and
      numbers of the frontier garrisons, the empire, till the last
      moment of its dissolution, continued to languish under the mortal
      wound which had been so rashly or so weakly inflicted by the hand
      of Constantine.

      128 (return) [ Zosimus, l ii. p. 111. The distinction between the
      two classes of Roman troops, is very darkly expressed in the
      historians, the laws, and the Notitia. Consult, however, the
      copious _paratitlon_, or abstract, which Godefroy has drawn up of
      the seventh book, de Re Militari, of the Theodosian Code, l. vii.
      tit. i. leg. 18, l. viii. tit. i. leg. 10.]

      129 (return) [ Ferox erat in suos miles et rapax, ignavus vero in
      hostes et fractus. Ammian. l. xxii. c. 4. He observes, that they
      loved downy beds and houses of marble; and that their cups were
      heavier than their swords.]

      130 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. i. leg. 1, tit. xii. leg.
      i. See Howell’s Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 19. That learned
      historian, who is not sufficiently known, labors to justify the
      character and policy of Constantine.]

      The same timid policy, of dividing whatever is united, of
      reducing whatever is eminent, of dreading every active power, and
      of expecting that the most feeble will prove the most obedient,
      seems to pervade the institutions of several princes, and
      particularly those of Constantine. The martial pride of the
      legions, whose victorious camps had so often been the scene of
      rebellion, was nourished by the memory of their past exploits,
      and the consciousness of their actual strength. As long as they
      maintained their ancient establishment of six thousand men, they
      subsisted, under the reign of Diocletian, each of them singly, a
      visible and important object in the military history of the Roman
      empire. A few years afterwards, these gigantic bodies were shrunk
      to a very diminutive size; and when _seven_ legions, with some
      auxiliaries, defended the city of Amida against the Persians, the
      total garrison, with the inhabitants of both sexes, and the
      peasants of the deserted country, did not exceed the number of
      twenty thousand persons. 131 From this fact, and from similar
      examples, there is reason to believe, that the constitution of
      the legionary troops, to which they partly owed their valor and
      discipline, was dissolved by Constantine; and that the bands of
      Roman infantry, which still assumed the same names and the same
      honors, consisted only of one thousand or fifteen hundred men.
      132 The conspiracy of so many separate detachments, each of which
      was awed by the sense of its own weakness, could easily be
      checked; and the successors of Constantine might indulge their
      love of ostentation, by issuing their orders to one hundred and
      thirty-two legions, inscribed on the muster-roll of their
      numerous armies. The remainder of their troops was distributed
      into several hundred cohorts of infantry, and squadrons of
      cavalry. Their arms, and titles, and ensigns, were calculated to
      inspire terror, and to display the variety of nations who marched
      under the Imperial standard. And not a vestige was left of that
      severe simplicity, which, in the ages of freedom and victory, had
      distinguished the line of battle of a Roman army from the
      confused host of an Asiatic monarch. 133 A more particular
      enumeration, drawn from the_ Notitia_, might exercise the
      diligence of an antiquary; but the historian will content himself
      with observing, that the number of permanent stations or
      garrisons established on the frontiers of the empire, amounted to
      five hundred and eighty-three; and that, under the successors of
      Constantine, the complete force of the military establishment was
      computed at six hundred and forty-five thousand soldiers. 134 An
      effort so prodigious surpassed the wants of a more ancient, and
      the faculties of a later, period.

      131 (return) [ Ammian. l. xix. c. 2. He observes, (c. 5,) that
      the desperate sallies of two Gallic legions were like a handful
      of water thrown on a great conflagration.]

      132 (return) [ Pancirolus ad Notitiam, p. 96. Mémoires de
      l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv. p. 491.]

      133 (return) [ Romana acies unius prope formæ erat et hominum et
      armorum genere.—Regia acies varia magis multis gentibus
      dissimilitudine armorum auxiliorumque erat. T. Liv. l. xxxvii. c.
      39, 40. Flaminius, even before the event, had compared the army
      of Antiochus to a supper in which the flesh of one vile animal
      was diversified by the skill of the cooks. See the Life of
      Flaminius in Plutarch.]

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

      In the various states of society, armies are recruited from very
      different motives. Barbarians are urged by the love of war; the
      citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of
      duty; the subjects, or at least the nobles, of a monarchy, are
      animated by a sentiment of honor; but the timid and luxurious
      inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the
      service by the hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of
      punishment. The resources of the Roman treasury were exhausted by
      the increase of pay, by the repetition of donatives, and by the
      invention of new emolument and indulgences, which, in the opinion
      of the provincial youth might compensate the hardships and
      dangers of a military life. Yet, although the stature was
      lowered, 135 although slaves, least by a tacit connivance, were
      indiscriminately received into the ranks, the insurmountable
      difficulty of procuring a regular and adequate supply of
      volunteers, obliged the emperors to adopt more effectual and
      coercive methods. The lands bestowed on the veterans, as the free
      reward of their valor were henceforward granted under a condition
      which contain the first rudiments of the feudal tenures; that
      their sons, who succeeded to the inheritance, should devote
      themselves to the profession of arms, as soon as they attained
      the age of manhood; and their cowardly refusal was punished by
      the loss of honor, of fortune, or even of life. 136 But as the
      annual growth of the sons of the veterans bore a very small
      proportion to the demands of the service, levies of men were
      frequently required from the provinces, and every proprietor was
      obliged either to take up arms, or to procure a substitute, or to
      purchase his exemption by the payment of a heavy fine. The sum of
      forty-two pieces of gold, to which it was _reduced_ ascertains
      the exorbitant price of volunteers, and the reluctance with which
      the government admitted of this alternative. 137 Such was the
      horror for the profession of a soldier, which had affected the
      minds of the degenerate Romans, that many of the youth of Italy
      and the provinces chose to cut off the fingers of their right
      hand, to escape from being pressed into the service; and this
      strange expedient was so commonly practised, as to deserve the
      severe animadversion of the laws, 138 and a peculiar name in the
      Latin language. 139

      135 (return) [ Valentinian (Cod. Theodos. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg.
      3) fixes the standard at five feet seven inches, about five feet
      four inches and a half, English measure. It had formerly been
      five feet ten inches, and in the best corps, six Roman feet. Sed
      tunc erat amplior multitude se et plures sequebantur militiam
      armatam. Vegetius de Re Militari l. i. c. v.]

      136 (return) [ See the two titles, De Veteranis and De Filiis
      Veteranorum, in the seventh book of the Theodosian Code. The age
      at which their military service was required, varied from
      twenty-five to sixteen. If the sons of the veterans appeared with
      a horse, they had a right to serve in the cavalry; two horses
      gave them some valuable privileges]

      137 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vii. tit. xiii. leg. 7. According
      to the historian Socrates, (see Godefroy ad loc.,) the same
      emperor Valens sometimes required eighty pieces of gold for a
      recruit. In the following law it is faintly expressed, that
      slaves shall not be admitted inter optimas lectissimorum militum
      turmas.]

      138 (return) [ The person and property of a Roman knight, who had
      mutilated his two sons, were sold at public auction by order of
      Augustus. (Sueton. in August. c. 27.) The moderation of that
      artful usurper proves, that this example of severity was
      justified by the spirit of the times. Ammianus makes a
      distinction between the effeminate Italians and the hardy Gauls.
      (L. xv. c. 12.) Yet only 15 years afterwards, Valentinian, in a
      law addressed to the præfect of Gaul, is obliged to enact that
      these cowardly deserters shall be burnt alive. (Cod. Theod. l.
      vii. tit. xiii. leg. 5.) Their numbers in Illyricum were so
      considerable, that the province complained of a scarcity of
      recruits. (Id. leg. 10.)]

      139 (return) [ They were called _Murci. Murcidus_ is found in
      Plautus and Festus, to denote a lazy and cowardly person, who,
      according to Arnobius and Augustin, was under the immediate
      protection of the goddess _Murcia_. From this particular instance
      of cowardice, _murcare_ is used as synonymous to _mutilare_, by
      the writers of the middle Latinity. See Linder brogius and
      Valesius ad Ammian. Marcellin, l. xv. c. 12]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part V.


      The introduction of Barbarians into the Roman armies became every
      day more universal, more necessary, and more fatal. The most
      daring of the Scythians, of the Goths, and of the Germans, who
      delighted in war, and who found it more profitable to defend than
      to ravage the provinces, were enrolled, not only in the
      auxiliaries of their respective nations, but in the legions
      themselves, and among the most distinguished of the Palatine
      troops. As they freely mingled with the subjects of the empire,
      they gradually learned to despise their manners, and to imitate
      their arts. They abjured the implicit reverence which the pride
      of Rome had exacted from their ignorance, while they acquired the
      knowledge and possession of those advantages by which alone she
      supported her declining greatness. The Barbarian soldiers, who
      displayed any military talents, were advanced, without exception,
      to the most important commands; and the names of the tribunes, of
      the counts and dukes, and of the generals themselves, betray a
      foreign origin, which they no longer condescended to disguise.
      They were often intrusted with the conduct of a war against their
      countrymen; and though most of them preferred the ties of
      allegiance to those of blood, they did not always avoid the
      guilt, or at least the suspicion, of holding a treasonable
      correspondence with the enemy, of inviting his invasion, or of
      sparing his retreat. The camps and the palace of the son of
      Constantine were governed by the powerful faction of the Franks,
      who preserved the strictest connection with each other, and with
      their country, and who resented every personal affront as a
      national indignity. 140 When the tyrant Caligula was suspected of
      an intention to invest a very extraordinary candidate with the
      consular robes, the sacrilegious profanation would have scarcely
      excited less astonishment, if, instead of a horse, the noblest
      chieftain of Germany or Britain had been the object of his
      choice. The revolution of three centuries had produced so
      remarkable a change in the prejudices of the people, that, with
      the public approbation, Constantine showed his successors the
      example of bestowing the honors of the consulship on the
      Barbarians, who, by their merit and services, had deserved to be
      ranked among the first of the Romans. 141 But as these hardy
      veterans, who had been educated in the ignorance or contempt of
      the laws, were incapable of exercising any civil offices, the
      powers of the human mind were contracted by the irreconcilable
      separation of talents as well as of professions. The accomplished
      citizens of the Greek and Roman republics, whose characters could
      adapt themselves to the bar, the senate, the camp, or the
      schools, had learned to write, to speak, and to act with the same
      spirit, and with equal abilities.

      140 (return) [ Malarichus—adhibitis Francis quorum ea tempestate
      in palatio multitudo florebat, erectius jam loquebatur
      tumultuabaturque. Ammian. l. xv. c. 5.]

      141 (return) [ Barbaros omnium primus, ad usque fasces auxerat et
      trabeas consulares. Ammian. l. xx. c. 10. Eusebius (in Vit.
      Constantin. l. iv c.7) and Aurelius Victor seem to confirm the
      truth of this assertion yet in the thirty-two consular Fasti of
      the reign of Constantine cannot discover the name of a single
      Barbarian. I should therefore interpret the liberality of that
      prince as relative to the ornaments rather than to the office, of
      the consulship.]

      IV. Besides the magistrates and generals, who at a distance from
      the court diffused their delegated authority over the provinces
      and armies, the emperor conferred the rank of _Illustrious_ on
      seven of his more immediate servants, to whose fidelity he
      intrusted his safety, or his counsels, or his treasures. 1. The
      private apartments of the palace were governed by a favorite
      eunuch, who, in the language of that age, was styled the
      _præpositus_, or præfect of the sacred bed-chamber. His duty was
      to attend the emperor in his hours of state, or in those of
      amusement, and to perform about his person all those menial
      services, which can only derive their splendor from the influence
      of royalty. Under a prince who deserved to reign, the great
      chamberlain (for such we may call him) was a useful and humble
      domestic; but an artful domestic, who improves every occasion of
      unguarded confidence, will insensibly acquire over a feeble mind
      that ascendant which harsh wisdom and uncomplying virtue can
      seldom obtain. The degenerate grandsons of Theodosius, who were
      invisible to their subjects, and contemptible to their enemies,
      exalted the præfects of their bed-chamber above the heads of all
      the ministers of the palace; 142 and even his deputy, the first
      of the splendid train of slaves who waited in the presence, was
      thought worthy to rank before the _respectable_ proconsuls of
      Greece or Asia. The jurisdiction of the chamberlain was
      acknowledged by the _counts_, or superintendents, who regulated
      the two important provinces of the magnificence of the wardrobe,
      and of the luxury of the Imperial table. 143 2. The principal
      administration of public affairs was committed to the diligence
      and abilities of the _master of the offices_. 144 He was the
      supreme magistrate of the palace, inspected the discipline of the
      civil and military _schools_, and received appeals from all parts
      of the empire, in the causes which related to that numerous army
      of privileged persons, who, as the servants of the court, had
      obtained for themselves and families a right to decline the
      authority of the ordinary judges. The correspondence between the
      prince and his subjects was managed by the four _scrinia_, or
      offices of this minister of state. The first was appropriated to
      memorials, the second to epistles, the third to petitions, and
      the fourth to papers and orders of a miscellaneous kind. Each of
      these was directed by an _inferior_ master of _respectable_
      dignity, and the whole business was despatched by a hundred and
      forty-eight secretaries, chosen for the most part from the
      profession of the law, on account of the variety of abstracts of
      reports and references which frequently occurred in the exercise
      of their several functions. From a condescension, which in former
      ages would have been esteemed unworthy the Roman majesty, a
      particular secretary was allowed for the Greek language; and
      interpreters were appointed to receive the ambassadors of the
      Barbarians; but the department of foreign affairs, which
      constitutes so essential a part of modern policy, seldom diverted
      the attention of the master of the offices. His mind was more
      seriously engaged by the general direction of the posts and
      arsenals of the empire. There were thirty-four cities, fifteen in
      the East, and nineteen in the West, in which regular companies of
      workmen were perpetually employed in fabricating defensive armor,
      offensive weapons of all sorts, and military engines, which were
      deposited in the arsenals, and occasionally delivered for the
      service of the troops. 3. In the course of nine centuries, the
      office of _quæstor_ had experienced a very singular revolution.
      In the infancy of Rome, two inferior magistrates were annually
      elected by the people, to relieve the consuls from the invidious
      management of the public treasure; 145 a similar assistant was
      granted to every proconsul, and to every prætor, who exercised a
      military or provincial command; with the extent of conquest, the
      two quæstors were gradually multiplied to the number of four, of
      eight, of twenty, and, for a short time, perhaps, of forty; 146
      and the noblest citizens ambitiously solicited an office which
      gave them a seat in the senate, and a just hope of obtaining the
      honors of the republic. Whilst Augustus affected to maintain the
      freedom of election, he consented to accept the annual privilege
      of recommending, or rather indeed of nominating, a certain
      proportion of candidates; and it was his custom to select one of
      these distinguished youths, to read his orations or epistles in
      the assemblies of the senate. 147 The practice of Augustus was
      imitated by succeeding princes; the occasional commission was
      established as a permanent office; and the favored quæstor,
      assuming a new and more illustrious character, alone survived the
      suppression of his ancient and useless colleagues. 148 As the
      orations which he composed in the name of the emperor, 149
      acquired the force, and, at length, the form, of absolute edicts,
      he was considered as the representative of the legislative power,
      the oracle of the council, and the original source of the civil
      jurisprudence. He was sometimes invited to take his seat in the
      supreme judicature of the Imperial consistory, with the Prætorian
      præfects, and the master of the offices; and he was frequently
      requested to resolve the doubts of inferior judges: but as he was
      not oppressed with a variety of subordinate business, his leisure
      and talents were employed to cultivate that dignified style of
      eloquence, which, in the corruption of taste and language, still
      preserves the majesty of the Roman laws. 150 In some respects,
      the office of the Imperial quæstor may be compared with that of a
      modern chancellor; but the use of a great seal, which seems to
      have been adopted by the illiterate barbarians, was never
      introduced to attest the public acts of the emperors. 4. The
      extraordinary title of _count of the sacred largesses_ was
      bestowed on the treasurer-general of the revenue, with the
      intention perhaps of inculcating, that every payment flowed from
      the voluntary bounty of the monarch. To conceive the almost
      infinite detail of the annual and daily expense of the civil and
      military administration in every part of a great empire, would
      exceed the powers of the most vigorous imagination.

      The actual account employed several hundred persons, distributed
      into eleven different offices, which were artfully contrived to
      examine and control their respective operations. The multitude of
      these agents had a natural tendency to increase; and it was more
      than once thought expedient to dismiss to their native homes the
      useless supernumeraries, who, deserting their honest labors, had
      pressed with too much eagerness into the lucrative profession of
      the finances. 151 Twenty-nine provincial receivers, of whom
      eighteen were honored with the title of count, corresponded with
      the treasurer; and he extended his jurisdiction over the mines
      from whence the precious metals were extracted, over the mints,
      in which they were converted into the current coin, and over the
      public treasuries of the most important cities, where they were
      deposited for the service of the state. The foreign trade of the
      empire was regulated by this minister, who directed likewise all
      the linen and woollen manufactures, in which the successive
      operations of spinning, weaving, and dyeing were executed,
      chiefly by women of a servile condition, for the use of the
      palace and army. Twenty-six of these institutions are enumerated
      in the West, where the arts had been more recently introduced,
      and a still larger proportion may be allowed for the industrious
      provinces of the East. 152 5. Besides the public revenue, which
      an absolute monarch might levy and expend according to his
      pleasure, the emperors, in the capacity of opulent citizens,
      possessed a very extensive property, which was administered by
      the _count_ or treasurer of _the private estate_. Some part had
      perhaps been the ancient demesnes of kings and republics; some
      accessions might be derived from the families which were
      successively invested with the purple; but the most considerable
      portion flowed from the impure source of confiscations and
      forfeitures. The Imperial estates were scattered through the
      provinces, from Mauritania to Britain; but the rich and fertile
      soil of Cappadocia tempted the monarch to acquire in that country
      his fairest possessions, 153 and either Constantine or his
      successors embraced the occasion of justifying avarice by
      religious zeal. They suppressed the rich temple of Comana, where
      the high priest of the goddess of war supported the dignity of a
      sovereign prince; and they applied to their private use the
      consecrated lands, which were inhabited by six thousand subjects
      or slaves of the deity and her ministers. 154 But these were not
      the valuable inhabitants: the plains that stretch from the foot
      of Mount Argæus to the banks of the Sarus, bred a generous race
      of horses, renowned above all others in the ancient world for
      their majestic shape and incomparable swiftness. These _sacred_
      animals, destined for the service of the palace and the Imperial
      games, were protected by the laws from the profanation of a
      vulgar master. 155 The demesnes of Cappadocia were important
      enough to require the inspection of a count; 156 officers of an
      inferior rank were stationed in the other parts of the empire;
      and the deputies of the private, as well as those of the public,
      treasurer were maintained in the exercise of their independent
      functions, and encouraged to control the authority of the
      provincial magistrates. 157 6, 7. The chosen bands of cavalry and
      infantry, which guarded the person of the emperor, were under the
      immediate command of the _two counts of the domestics_. The whole
      number consisted of three thousand five hundred men, divided into
      seven _schools_, or troops, of five hundred each; and in the
      East, this honorable service was almost entirely appropriated to
      the Armenians. Whenever, on public ceremonies, they were drawn up
      in the courts and porticos of the palace, their lofty stature,
      silent order, and splendid arms of silver and gold, displayed a
      martial pomp not unworthy of the Roman majesty. 158 From the
      seven schools two companies of horse and foot were selected, of
      the _protectors_, whose advantageous station was the hope and
      reward of the most deserving soldiers. They mounted guard in the
      interior apartments, and were occasionally despatched into the
      provinces, to execute with celerity and vigor the orders of their
      master. 159 The counts of the domestics had succeeded to the
      office of the Prætorian præfects; like the præfects, they aspired
      from the service of the palace to the command of armies.

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

      143 (return) [ By a very singular metaphor, borrowed from the
      military character of the first emperors, the steward of their
      household was styled the count of their camp, (comes castrensis.)
      Cassiodorus very seriously represents to him, that his own fame,
      and that of the empire, must depend on the opinion which foreign
      ambassadors may conceive of the plenty and magnificence of the
      royal table. (Variar. l. vi. epistol. 9.)]

      144 (return) [ Gutherius (de Officiis Domûs Augustæ, l. ii. c.
      20, l. iii.) has very accurately explained the functions of the
      master of the offices, and the constitution of the subordinate
      _scrinia_. But he vainly attempts, on the most doubtful
      authority, to deduce from the time of the Antonines, or even of
      Nero, the origin of a magistrate who cannot be found in history
      before the reign of Constantine.]

      145 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) says, that the first
      quæstors were elected by the people, sixty-four years after the
      foundation of the republic; but he is of opinion, that they had,
      long before that period, been annually appointed by the consuls,
      and even by the kings. But this obscure point of antiquity is
      contested by other writers.]

      146 (return) [ Tacitus (Annal. xi. 22) seems to consider twenty
      as the highest number of quæstors; and Dion (l. xliii. p 374)
      insinuates, that if the dictator Cæsar once created forty, it was
      only to facilitate the payment of an immense debt of gratitude.
      Yet the augmentation which he made of prætors subsisted under the
      succeeding reigns.]

      147 (return) [ Sueton. in August. c. 65, and Torrent. ad loc.
      Dion. Cas. p. 755.]

      148 (return) [ The youth and inexperience of the quæstors, who
      entered on that important office in their twenty-fifth year,
      (Lips. Excurs. ad Tacit. l. iii. D.,) engaged Augustus to remove
      them from the management of the treasury; and though they were
      restored by Claudius, they seem to have been finally dismissed by
      Nero. (Tacit Annal. xiii. 29. Sueton. in Aug. c. 36, in Claud. c.
      24. Dion, p. 696, 961, &c. Plin. Epistol. x. 20, et alibi.) In
      the provinces of the Imperial division, the place of the quæstors
      was more ably supplied by the _procurators_, (Dion Cas. p. 707.
      Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 15;) or, as they were afterwards
      called, _rationales_. (Hist. August. p. 130.) But in the
      provinces of the senate we may still discover a series of
      quæstors till the reign of Marcus Antoninus. (See the
      Inscriptions of Gruter, the Epistles of Pliny, and a decisive
      fact in the Augustan History, p. 64.) From Ulpian we may learn,
      (Pandect. l. i. tit. 13,) that under the government of the house
      of Severus, their provincial administration was abolished; and in
      the subsequent troubles, the annual or triennial elections of
      quæstors must have naturally ceased.]

      149 (return) [ Cum patris nomine et epistolas ipse dictaret, et
      edicta conscrib eret, orationesque in senatu recitaret, etiam
      quæstoris vice. Sueton, in Tit. c. 6. The office must have
      acquired new dignity, which was occasionally executed by the heir
      apparent of the empire. Trajan intrusted the same care to
      Hadrian, his quæstor and cousin. See Dodwell, Prælection.
      Cambden, x. xi. p. 362-394.]

      150 (return) [ Terris edicta daturus; Supplicibus
      responsa.—Oracula regis Eloquio crevere tuo; nec dignius unquam
      Majestas meminit sese Romana locutam.——Claudian in Consulat.
      Mall. Theodor. 33. See likewise Symmachus (Epistol. i. 17) and
      Cassiodorus. (Variar. iv. 5.)]

      151 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. 30. Cod. Justinian. l.
      xii. tit. 24.]

      152 (return) [ In the departments of the two counts of the
      treasury, the eastern part of the _Notitia_ happens to be very
      defective. It may be observed, that we had a treasury chest in
      London, and a gyneceum or manufacture at Winchester. But Britain
      was not thought worthy either of a mint or of an arsenal. Gaul
      alone possessed three of the former, and eight of the latter.]

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

      154 (return) [ Strabon. Geograph. l. xxii. p. 809, [edit.
      Casaub.] The other temple of Comana, in Pontus, was a colony from
      that of Cappadocia, l. xii. p. 835. The President Des Brosses
      (see his Saluste, tom. ii. p. 21, [edit. Causub.]) conjectures
      that the deity adored in both Comanas was Beltis, the Venus of
      the east, the goddess of generation; a very different being
      indeed from the goddess of war.]

      155 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. x. tit. vi. de Grege Dominico.
      Godefroy has collected every circumstance of antiquity relative
      to the Cappadocian horses. One of the finest breeds, the
      Palmatian, was the forfeiture of a rebel, whose estate lay about
      sixteen miles from Tyana, near the great road between
      Constantinople and Antioch.]

      156 (return) [ Justinian (Novell. 30) subjected the province of
      the count of Cappadocia to the immediate authority of the
      favorite eunuch, who presided over the sacred bed-chamber.]

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

      158 (return) [ Pancirolus, p. 102, 136. The appearance of these
      military domestics is described in the Latin poem of Corippus, de
      Laudibus Justin. l. iii. 157-179. p. 419, 420 of the Appendix
      Hist. Byzantin. Rom. 177.]

      159 (return) [ Ammianus Marcellinus, who served so many years,
      obtained only the rank of a protector. The first ten among these
      honorable soldiers were _Clarissimi_.]

      The perpetual intercourse between the court and the provinces was
      facilitated by the construction of roads and the institution of
      posts. But these beneficial establishments were accidentally
      connected with a pernicious and intolerable abuse. Two or three
      hundred _agents_ or messengers were employed, under the
      jurisdiction of the master of the offices, to announce the names
      of the annual consuls, and the edicts or victories of the
      emperors. They insensibly assumed the license of reporting
      whatever they could observe of the conduct either of magistrates
      or of private citizens; and were soon considered as the eyes of
      the monarch, 160 and the scourge of the people. Under the warm
      influence of a feeble reign, they multiplied to the incredible
      number of ten thousand, disdained the mild though frequent
      admonitions of the laws, and exercised in the profitable
      management of the posts a rapacious and insolent oppression.
      These official spies, who regularly corresponded with the palace,
      were encouraged by favor and reward, anxiously to watch the
      progress of every treasonable design, from the faint and latent
      symptoms of disaffection, to the actual preparation of an open
      revolt. Their careless or criminal violation of truth and justice
      was covered by the consecrated mask of zeal; and they might
      securely aim their poisoned arrows at the breast either of the
      guilty or the innocent, who had provoked their resentment, or
      refused to purchase their silence. A faithful subject, of Syria
      perhaps, or of Britain, was exposed to the danger, or at least to
      the dread, of being dragged in chains to the court of Milan or
      Constantinople, to defend his life and fortune against the
      malicious charge of these privileged informers. The ordinary
      administration was conducted by those methods which extreme
      necessity can alone palliate; and the defects of evidence were
      diligently supplied by the use of torture. 161

      160 (return) [ Xenophon, Cyropæd. l. viii. Brisson, de Regno
      Persico, l. i No 190, p. 264. The emperors adopted with pleasure
      this Persian metaphor.]

      161 (return) [ For the _Agentes in Rebus_, see Ammian. l. xv. c.
      3, l. xvi. c. 5, l. xxii. c. 7, with the curious annotations of
      Valesius. Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxvii. xxviii. xxix. Among the
      passages collected in the Commentary of Godefroy, the most
      remarkable is one from Libanius, in his discourse concerning the
      death of Julian.]

      The deceitful and dangerous experiment of the criminal
      _quæstion_, as it is emphatically styled, was admitted, rather
      than approved, in the jurisprudence of the Romans. They applied
      this sanguinary mode of examination only to servile bodies, whose
      sufferings were seldom weighed by those haughty republicans in
      the scale of justice or humanity; but they would never consent to
      violate the sacred person of a citizen, till they possessed the
      clearest evidence of his guilt. 162 The annals of tyranny, from
      the reign of Tiberius to that of Domitian, circumstantially
      relate the executions of many innocent victims; but, as long as
      the faintest remembrance was kept alive of the national freedom
      and honor, the last hours of a Roman were secured from the danger
      of ignominions torture. 163 The conduct of the provincial
      magistrates was not, however, regulated by the practice of the
      city, or the strict maxims of the civilians. They found the use
      of torture established not only among the slaves of oriental
      despotism, but among the Macedonians, who obeyed a limited
      monarch; among the Rhodians, who flourished by the liberty of
      commerce; and even among the sage Athenians, who had asserted and
      adorned the dignity of human kind. 164 The acquiescence of the
      provincials encouraged their governors to acquire, or perhaps to
      usurp, a discretionary power of employing the rack, to extort
      from vagrants or plebeian criminals the confession of their
      guilt, till they insensibly proceeded to confound the distinction
      of rank, and to disregard the privileges of Roman citizens. The
      apprehensions of the subjects urged them to solicit, and the
      interest of the sovereign engaged him to grant, a variety of
      special exemptions, which tacitly allowed, and even authorized,
      the general use of torture. They protected all persons of
      illustrious or honorable rank, bishops and their presbyters,
      professors of the liberal arts, soldiers and their families,
      municipal officers, and their posterity to the third generation,
      and all children under the age of puberty. 165 But a fatal maxim
      was introduced into the new jurisprudence of the empire, that in
      the case of treason, which included every offence that the
      subtlety of lawyers could derive from a _hostile intention_
      towards the prince or republic, 166 all privileges were
      suspended, and all conditions were reduced to the same
      ignominious level. As the safety of the emperor was avowedly
      preferred to every consideration of justice or humanity, the
      dignity of age and the tenderness of youth were alike exposed to
      the most cruel tortures; and the terrors of a malicious
      information, which might select them as the accomplices, or even
      as the witnesses, perhaps, of an imaginary crime, perpetually
      hung over the heads of the principal citizens of the Roman world.
      167

      162 (return) [ The Pandects (l. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the
      sentiments of the most celebrated civilians on the subject of
      torture. They strictly confine it to slaves; and Ulpian himself
      is ready to acknowledge that Res est fragilis, et periculosa, et
      quæ veritatem fallat.]

      163 (return) [ In the conspiracy of Piso against Nero, Epicharis
      (libertina mulier) was the only person tortured; the rest were
      _intacti tormentis_. It would be superfluous to add a weaker, and
      it would be difficult to find a stronger, example. Tacit. Annal.
      xv. 57.]

      164 (return) [ Dicendum... de Institutis Atheniensium, Rhodiorum,
      doctissimorum hominum, apud quos etiam (id quod acerbissimum est)
      liberi, civesque torquentur. Cicero, Partit. Orat. c. 34. We may
      learn from the trial of Philotas the practice of the Macedonians.
      (Diodor. Sicul. l. xvii. p. 604. Q. Curt. l. vi. c. 11.)]

      165 (return) [ Heineccius (Element. Jur. Civil. part vii. p. 81)
      has collected these exemptions into one view.]

      166 (return) [ This definition of the sage Ulpian (Pandect. l.
      xlviii. tit. iv.) seems to have been adapted to the court of
      Caracalla, rather than to that of Alexander Severus. See the
      Codes of Theodosius and ad leg. Juliam majestatis.]

      167 (return) [ Arcadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted to
      justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of
      treason; but this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus
      with the most respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of
      the successors of Constantine. See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xxxv.
      majestatis crimine omnibus æqua est conditio.]

      These evils, however terrible they may appear, were confined to
      the smaller number of Roman subjects, whose dangerous situation
      was in some degree compensated by the enjoyment of those
      advantages, either of nature or of fortune, which exposed them to
      the jealousy of the monarch. The obscure millions of a great
      empire have much less to dread from the cruelty than from the
      avarice of their masters, and _their_ humble happiness is
      principally affected by the grievance of excessive taxes, which,
      gently pressing on the wealthy, descend with accelerated weight
      on the meaner and more indigent classes of society. An ingenious
      philosopher 168 has calculated the universal measure of the
      public impositions by the degrees of freedom and servitude; and
      ventures to assert, that, according to an invariable law of
      nature, it must always increase with the former, and diminish in
      a just proportion to the latter. But this reflection, which would
      tend to alleviate the miseries of despotism, is contradicted at
      least by the history of the Roman empire; which accuses the same
      princes of despoiling the senate of its authority, and the
      provinces of their wealth. Without abolishing all the various
      customs and duties on merchandises, which are imperceptibly
      discharged by the apparent choice of the purchaser, the policy of
      Constantine and his successors preferred a simple and direct mode
      of taxation, more congenial to the spirit of an arbitrary
      government. 169

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

      169 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. i. p. 389) has seen this
      importance with some degree of perplexity.]




      Chapter XVII: Foundation Of Constantinople.—Part VI.


      The name and use of the _indictions_, 170 which serve to
      ascertain the chronology of the middle ages, were derived from
      the regular practice of the Roman tributes. 171 The emperor
      subscribed with his own hand, and in purple ink, the solemn
      edict, or indiction, which was fixed up in the principal city of
      each diocese, during two months previous to the first day of
      September. And by a very easy connection of ideas, the word
      _indiction_ was transferred to the measure of tribute which it
      prescribed, and to the annual term which it allowed for the
      payment. This general estimate of the supplies was proportioned
      to the real and imaginary wants of the state; but as often as the
      expense exceeded the revenue, or the revenue fell short of the
      computation, an additional tax, under the name of
      _superindiction_, was imposed on the people, and the most
      valuable attribute of sovereignty was communicated to the
      Prætorian præfects, who, on some occasions, were permitted to
      provide for the unforeseen and extraordinary exigencies of the
      public service. The execution of these laws (which it would be
      tedious to pursue in their minute and intricate detail) consisted
      of two distinct operations: the resolving the general imposition
      into its constituent parts, which were assessed on the provinces,
      the cities, and the individuals of the Roman world; and the
      collecting the separate contributions of the individuals, the
      cities, and the provinces, till the accumulated sums were poured
      into the Imperial treasuries. But as the account between the
      monarch and the subject was perpetually open, and as the renewal
      of the demand anticipated the perfect discharge of the preceding
      obligation, the weighty machine of the finances was moved by the
      same hands round the circle of its yearly revolution. Whatever
      was honorable or important in the administration of the revenue,
      was committed to the wisdom of the præfects, and their provincia.
      representatives; the lucrative functions were claimed by a crowd
      of subordinate officers, some of whom depended on the treasurer,
      others on the governor of the province; and who, in the
      inevitable conflicts of a perplexed jurisdiction, had frequent
      opportunities of disputing with each other the spoils of the
      people. The laborious offices, which could be productive only of
      envy and reproach, of expense and danger, were imposed on the
      _Decurions_, who formed the corporations of the cities, and whom
      the severity of the Imperial laws had condemned to sustain the
      burdens of civil society. 172 The whole landed property of the
      empire (without excepting the patrimonial estates of the monarch)
      was the object of ordinary taxation; and every new purchaser
      contracted the obligations of the former proprietor. An accurate
      _census_, 173 or survey, was the only equitable mode of
      ascertaining the proportion which every citizen should be obliged
      to contribute for the public service; and from the well-known
      period of the indictions, there is reason to believe that this
      difficult and expensive operation was repeated at the regular
      distance of fifteen years. The lands were measured by surveyors,
      who were sent into the provinces; their nature, whether arable or
      pasture, or vineyards or woods, was distinctly reported; and an
      estimate was made of their common value from the average produce
      of five years. The numbers of slaves and of cattle constituted an
      essential part of the report; an oath was administered to the
      proprietors, which bound them to disclose the true state of their
      affairs; and their attempts to prevaricate, or elude the
      intention of the legislator, were severely watched, and punished
      as a capital crime, which included the double guilt of treason
      and sacrilege. 174 A large portion of the tribute was paid in
      money; and of the current coin of the empire, gold alone could be
      legally accepted. 175 The remainder of the taxes, according to
      the proportions determined by the annual indiction, was furnished
      in a manner still more direct, and still more oppressive.
      According to the different nature of lands, their real produce in
      the various articles of wine or oil, corn or barley, wood or
      iron, was transported by the labor or at the expense of the
      provincials 17511 to the Imperial magazines, from whence they
      were occasionally distributed for the use of the court, of the
      army, and of two capitals, Rome and Constantinople. The
      commissioners of the revenue were so frequently obliged to make
      considerable purchases, that they were strictly prohibited from
      allowing any compensation, or from receiving in money the value
      of those supplies which were exacted in kind. In the primitive
      simplicity of small communities, this method may be well adapted
      to collect the almost voluntary offerings of the people; but it
      is at once susceptible of the utmost latitude, and of the utmost
      strictness, which in a corrupt and absolute monarchy must
      introduce a perpetual contest between the power of oppression and
      the arts of fraud. 176 The agriculture of the Roman provinces was
      insensibly ruined, and, in the progress of despotism which tends
      to disappoint its own purpose, the emperors were obliged to
      derive some merit from the forgiveness of debts, or the remission
      of tributes, which their subjects were utterly incapable of
      paying. According to the new division of Italy, the fertile and
      happy province of Campania, the scene of the early victories and
      of the delicious retirements of the citizens of Rome, extended
      between the sea and the Apennine, from the Tiber to the Silarus.
      Within sixty years after the death of Constantine, and on the
      evidence of an actual survey, an exemption was granted in favor
      of three hundred and thirty thousand English acres of desert and
      uncultivated land; which amounted to one eighth of the whole
      surface of the province. As the footsteps of the Barbarians had
      not yet been seen in Italy, the cause of this amazing desolation,
      which is recorded in the laws, can be ascribed only to the
      administration of the Roman emperors. 177

      170 (return) [ The cycle of indictions, which may be traced as
      high as the reign of Constantius, or perhaps of his father,
      Constantine, is still employed by the Papal court; but the
      commencement of the year has been very reasonably altered to the
      first of January. See l’Art de Verifier les Dates, p. xi.; and
      Dictionnaire Raison. de la Diplomatique, tom. ii. p. 25; two
      accurate treatises, which come from the workshop of the
      Benedictines. —— It does not appear that the establishment of the
      indiction is to be at tributed to Constantine: it existed before
      he had been created _Augustus_ at Rome, and the remission granted
      by him to the city of Autun is the proof. He would not have
      ventured while only _Cæsar_, and under the necessity of courting
      popular favor, to establish such an odious impost. Aurelius
      Victor and Lactantius agree in designating Diocletian as the
      author of this despotic institution. Aur. Vict. de Cæs. c. 39.
      Lactant. de Mort. Pers. c. 7—G.]

      171 (return) [ The first twenty-eight titles of the eleventh book
      of the Theodosian Code are filled with the circumstantial
      regulations on the important subject of tributes; but they
      suppose a clearer knowledge of fundamental principles than it is
      at present in our power to attain.]

      172 (return) [ The title concerning the Decurions (l. xii. tit.
      i.) is the most ample in the whole Theodosian Code; since it
      contains not less than one hundred and ninety-two distinct laws
      to ascertain the duties and privileges of that useful order of
      citizens. * Note: The Decurions were charged with assessing,
      according to the census of property prepared by the tabularii,
      the payment due from each proprietor. This odious office was
      authoritatively imposed on the richest citizens of each town;
      they had no salary, and all their compensation was, to be exempt
      from certain corporal punishments, in case they should have
      incurred them. The Decurionate was the ruin of all the rich.
      Hence they tried every way of avoiding this dangerous honor; they
      concealed themselves, they entered into military service; but
      their efforts were unavailing; they were seized, they were
      compelled to become Decurions, and the dread inspired by this
      title was termed _Impiety_.—G. ——The Decurions were mutually
      responsible; they were obliged to undertake for pieces of ground
      abandoned by their owners on account of the pressure of the
      taxes, and, finally, to make up all deficiencies. Savigny chichte
      des Rom. Rechts, i. 25.—M.]

      173 (return) [ Habemus enim et hominum numerum qui delati sunt,
      et agrun modum. Eumenius in Panegyr. Vet. viii. 6. See Cod.
      Theod. l. xiii. tit. x. xi., with Godefroy’s Commentary.]

      174 (return) [ Siquis sacrilegâ vitem falce succiderit, aut
      feracium ramorum fœtus hebetaverit, quo delinet fidem Censuum, et
      mentiatur callide paupertatis ingenium, mox detectus capitale
      subibit exitium, et bona ejus in Fisci jura migrabunt. Cod.
      Theod. l. xiii. tit. xi. leg. 1. Although this law is not without
      its studied obscurity, it is, however clear enough to prove the
      minuteness of the inquisition, and the disproportion of the
      penalty.]

      175 (return) [ The astonishment of Pliny would have ceased.
      Equidem miror P. R. victis gentibus argentum semper imperitasse
      non aurum. Hist Natur. xxxiii. 15.]

      17511 (return) [ The proprietors were not charged with the
      expense of this transport in the provinces situated on the
      sea-shore or near the great rivers, there were companies of
      boatmen, and of masters of vessels, who had this commission, and
      furnished the means of transport at their own expense. In return,
      they were themselves exempt, altogether, or in part, from the
      indiction and other imposts. They had certain privileges;
      particular regulations determined their rights and obligations.
      (Cod. Theod. l. xiii. tit. v. ix.) The transports by land were
      made in the same manner, by the intervention of a privileged
      company called Bastaga; the members were called Bastagarii Cod.
      Theod. l. viii. tit. v.—G.]

      176 (return) [ Some precautions were taken (see Cod. Theod. l.
      xi. tit. ii. and Cod. Justinian. l. x. tit. xxvii. leg. 1, 2, 3)
      to restrain the magistrates from the abuse of their authority,
      either in the exaction or in the purchase of corn: but those who
      had learning enough to read the orations of Cicero against
      Verres, (iii. de Frumento,) might instruct themselves in all the
      various arts of oppression, with regard to the weight, the price,
      the quality, and the carriage. The avarice of an unlettered
      governor would supply the ignorance of precept or precedent.]

      177 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xi. tit. xxviii. leg. 2, published
      the 24th of March, A. D. 395, by the emperor Honorius, only two
      months after the death of his father, Theodosius. He speaks of
      528,042 Roman jugera, which I have reduced to the English
      measure. The jugerum contained 28,800 square Roman feet.]

      Either from design or from accident, the mode of assessment
      seemed to unite the substance of a land tax with the forms of a
      capitation. 178 The returns which were sent of every province or
      district, expressed the number of tributary subjects, and the
      amount of the public impositions. The latter of these sums was
      divided by the former; and the estimate, that such a province
      contained so many _capita_, or heads of tribute; and that each
      _head_ was rated at such a price, was universally received, not
      only in the popular, but even in the legal computation. The value
      of a tributary head must have varied, according to many
      accidental, or at least fluctuating circumstances; but some
      knowledge has been preserved of a very curious fact, the more
      important, since it relates to one of the richest provinces of
      the Roman empire, and which now flourishes as the most splendid
      of the European kingdoms. The rapacious ministers of Constantius
      had exhausted the wealth of Gaul, by exacting twenty-five pieces
      of gold for the annual tribute of every head. The humane policy
      of his successor reduced the capitation to seven pieces. 179 A
      moderate proportion between these opposite extremes of
      extraordinary oppression and of transient indulgence, may
      therefore be fixed at sixteen pieces of gold, or about nine
      pounds sterling, the common standard, perhaps, of the impositions
      of Gaul. 180 But this calculation, or rather, indeed, the facts
      from whence it is deduced, cannot fail of suggesting two
      difficulties to a thinking mind, who will be at once surprised by
      the _equality_, and by the _enormity_, of the capitation. An
      attempt to explain them may perhaps reflect some light on the
      interesting subject of the finances of the declining empire.

      178 (return) [ Godefroy (Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 116) argues with
      weight and learning on the subject of the capitation; but while
      he explains the _caput_, as a share or measure of property, he
      too absolutely excludes the idea of a personal assessment.]

      179 (return) [ Quid profuerit (_Julianus_) anhelantibus extremâ
      penuriâ Gallis, hinc maxime claret, quod primitus partes eas
      ingressus, pro _capitibus_ singulis tributi nomine vicenos quinos
      aureos reperit flagitari; discedens vero septenos tantum numera
      universa complentes. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 5.]

      180 (return) [ In the calculation of any sum of money under
      Constantine and his successors, we need only refer to the
      excellent discourse of Mr. Greaves on the Denarius, for the proof
      of the following principles; 1. That the ancient and modern Roman
      pound, containing 5256 grains of Troy weight, is about one
      twelfth lighter than the English pound, which is composed of 5760
      of the same grains. 2. That the pound of gold, which had once
      been divided into forty-eight _aurei_, was at this time coined
      into seventy-two smaller pieces of the same denomination. 3. That
      five of these aurei were the legal tender for a pound of silver,
      and that consequently the pound of gold was exchanged for
      fourteen pounds eight ounces of silver, according to the Roman,
      or about thirteen pounds according to the English weight. 4. That
      the English pound of silver is coined into sixty-two shillings.
      From these elements we may compute the Roman pound of gold, the
      usual method of reckoning large sums, at forty pounds sterling,
      and we may fix the currency of the _aureus_ at somewhat more than
      eleven shillings. * Note: See, likewise, a Dissertation of M.
      Letronne, “Considerations Génerales sur l’Evaluation des Monnaies
      Grecques et Romaines” Paris, 1817—M.]

      I. It is obvious, that, as long as the immutable constitution of
      human nature produces and maintains so unequal a division of
      property, the most numerous part of the community would be
      deprived of their subsistence, by the equal assessment of a tax
      from which the sovereign would derive a very trifling revenue.
      Such indeed might be the theory of the Roman capitation; but in
      the practice, this unjust equality was no longer felt, as the
      tribute was collected on the principle of a _real_, not of a
      _personal_ imposition. 18011 Several indigent citizens
      contributed to compose a single _head_, or share of taxation;
      while the wealthy provincial, in proportion to his fortune, alone
      represented several of those imaginary beings. In a poetical
      request, addressed to one of the last and most deserving of the
      Roman princes who reigned in Gaul, Sidonius Apollinaris
      personifies his tribute under the figure of a triple monster, the
      Geryon of the Grecian fables, and entreats the new Hercules that
      he would most graciously be pleased to save his life by cutting
      off three of his heads. 181 The fortune of Sidonius far exceeded
      the customary wealth of a poet; but if he had pursued the
      allusion, he might have painted many of the Gallic nobles with
      the hundred heads of the deadly Hydra, spreading over the face of
      the country, and devouring the substance of a hundred families.
      II. The difficulty of allowing an annual sum of about nine pounds
      sterling, even for the average of the capitation of Gaul, may be
      rendered more evident by the comparison of the present state of
      the same country, as it is now governed by the absolute monarch
      of an industrious, wealthy, and affectionate people. The taxes of
      France cannot be magnified, either by fear or by flattery, beyond
      the annual amount of eighteen millions sterling, which ought
      perhaps to be shared among four and twenty millions of
      inhabitants. 182 Seven millions of these, in the capacity of
      fathers, or brothers, or husbands, may discharge the obligations
      of the remaining multitude of women and children; yet the equal
      proportion of each tributary subject will scarcely rise above
      fifty shillings of our money, instead of a proportion almost four
      times as considerable, which was regularly imposed on their
      Gallic ancestors. The reason of this difference may be found, not
      so much in the relative scarcity or plenty of gold and silver, as
      in the different state of society, in ancient Gaul and in modern
      France. In a country where personal freedom is the privilege of
      every subject, the whole mass of taxes, whether they are levied
      on property or on consumption, may be fairly divided among the
      whole body of the nation. But the far greater part of the lands
      of ancient Gaul, as well as of the other provinces of the Roman
      world, were cultivated by slaves, or by peasants, whose dependent
      condition was a less rigid servitude. 183 In such a state the
      poor were maintained at the expense of the masters who enjoyed
      the fruits of their labor; and as the rolls of tribute were
      filled only with the names of those citizens who possessed the
      means of an honorable, or at least of a decent subsistence, the
      comparative smallness of their numbers explains and justifies the
      high rate of their capitation. The truth of this assertion may be
      illustrated by the following example: The Ædui, one of the most
      powerful and civilized tribes or _cities_ of Gaul, occupied an
      extent of territory, which now contains about five hundred
      thousand inhabitants, in the two ecclesiastical dioceses of Autun
      and Nevers; 184 and with the probable accession of those of
      Châlons and Maçon, 185 the population would amount to eight
      hundred thousand souls. In the time of Constantine, the territory
      of the Ædui afforded no more than twenty-five thousand _heads_ of
      capitation, of whom seven thousand were discharged by that prince
      from the intolerable weight of tribute. 186 A just analogy would
      seem to countenance the opinion of an ingenious historian, 187
      that the free and tributary citizens did not surpass the number
      of half a million; and if, in the ordinary administration of
      government, their annual payments may be computed at about four
      millions and a half of our money, it would appear, that although
      the share of each individual was four times as considerable, a
      fourth part only of the modern taxes of France was levied on the
      Imperial province of Gaul. The exactions of Constantius may be
      calculated at seven millions sterling, which were reduced to two
      millions by the humanity or the wisdom of Julian.

      18011 (return) [ Two masterly dissertations of M. Savigny, in the
      Mem. of the Berlin Academy (1822 and 1823) have thrown new light
      on the taxation system of the Empire. Gibbon, according to M.
      Savigny, is mistaken in supposing that there was but one kind of
      capitation tax; there was a land tax, and a capitation tax,
      strictly so called. The land tax was, in its operation, a
      proprietor’s or landlord’s tax. But, besides this, there was a
      direct capitation tax on all who were not possessed of landed
      property. This tax dates from the time of the Roman conquests;
      its amount is not clearly known. Gradual exemptions released
      different persons and classes from this tax. One edict exempts
      painters. In Syria, all under twelve or fourteen, or above
      sixty-five, were exempted; at a later period, all under twenty,
      and all unmarried females; still later, all under twenty-five,
      widows and nuns, soldiers, veterani and clerici—whole dioceses,
      that of Thrace and Illyricum. Under Galerius and Licinius, the
      plebs urbana became exempt; though this, perhaps, was only an
      ordinance for the East. By degrees, however, the exemption was
      extended to all the inhabitants of towns; and as it was strictly
      capitatio plebeia, from which all possessors were exempted it
      fell at length altogether on the coloni and agricultural slaves.
      These were registered in the same cataster (capitastrum) with the
      land tax. It was paid by the proprietor, who raised it again from
      his coloni and laborers.—M.]

      181 (return) [

    Geryones nos esse puta, monstrumque tributum, Hîc _capita_ ut
    vivam, tu mihi tolle _tria_. Sidon. Apollinar. Carm. xiii.

      The reputation of Father Sirmond led me to expect more
      satisfaction than I have found in his note (p. 144) on this
      remarkable passage. The words, suo vel _suorum_ nomine, betray
      the perplexity of the commentator.]

      182 (return) [ This assertion, however formidable it may seem, is
      founded on the original registers of births, deaths, and
      marriages, collected by public authority, and now deposited in
      the _Contrôlee General_ at Paris. The annual average of births
      throughout the whole kingdom, taken in five years, (from 1770 to
      1774, both inclusive,) is 479,649 boys, and 449,269 girls, in all
      928,918 children. The province of French Hainault alone furnishes
      9906 births; and we are assured, by an actual enumeration of the
      people, annually repeated from the year 1773 to the year 1776,
      that upon an average, Hainault contains 257,097 inhabitants. By
      the rules of fair analogy, we might infer, that the ordinary
      proportion of annual births to the whole people, is about 1 to
      26; and that the kingdom of France contains 24,151,868 persons of
      both sexes and of every age. If we content ourselves with the
      more moderate proportion of 1 to 25, the whole population will
      amount to 23,222,950. From the diligent researches of the French
      Government, (which are not unworthy of our own imitation,) we may
      hope to obtain a still greater degree of certainty on this
      important subject * Note: On no subject has so much valuable
      information been collected since the time of Gibbon, as the
      statistics of the different countries of Europe but much is still
      wanting as to our own—M.]

      183 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. v. tit. ix. x. xi. Cod. Justinian.
      l. xi. tit. lxiii. Coloni appellantur qui conditionem debent
      genitali solo, propter agriculturum sub dominio possessorum.
      Augustin. de Civitate Dei, l. x. c. i.]

      184 (return) [ The ancient jurisdiction of (_Augustodunum_) Autun
      in Burgundy, the capital of the Ædui, comprehended the adjacent
      territory of (_Noviodunum_) Nevers. See D’Anville, Notice de
      l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 491. The two dioceses of Autun and Nevers
      are now composed, the former of 610, and the latter of 160
      parishes. The registers of births, taken during eleven years, in
      476 parishes of the same province of Burgundy, and multiplied by
      the moderate proportion of 25, (see Messance Recherches sur la
      Population, p. 142,) may authorizes us to assign an average
      number of 656 persons for each parish, which being again
      multiplied by the 770 parishes of the dioceses of Nevers and
      Autun, will produce the sum of 505,120 persons for the extent of
      country which was once possessed by the Ædui.]

      185 (return) [ We might derive an additional supply of 301,750
      inhabitants from the dioceses of Châlons (_Cabillonum_) and of
      Maçon, (_Matisco_,) since they contain, the one 200, and the
      other 260 parishes. This accession of territory might be
      justified by very specious reasons. 1. Châlons and Maçon were
      undoubtedly within the original jurisdiction of the Ædui. (See
      D’Anville, Notice, p. 187, 443.) 2. In the Notitia of Gaul, they
      are enumerated not as _Civitates_, but merely as _Castra_. 3.
      They do not appear to have been episcopal seats before the fifth
      and sixth centuries. Yet there is a passage in Eumenius (Panegyr.
      Vet. viii. 7) which very forcibly deters me from extending the
      territory of the Ædui, in the reign of Constantine, along the
      beautiful banks of the navigable Saône. * Note: In this passage
      of Eumenius, Savigny supposes the original number to have been
      32,000: 7000 being discharged, there remained 25,000 liable to
      the tribute. See Mem. quoted above.—M.]

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

      187 (return) [ L’Abbé du Bos, Hist. Critique de la M. F. tom. i.
      p. 121]

      But this tax, or capitation, on the proprietors of land, would
      have suffered a rich and numerous class of free citizens to
      escape. With the view of sharing that species of wealth which is
      derived from art or labor, and which exists in money or in
      merchandise, the emperors imposed a distinct and personal tribute
      on the trading part of their subjects. 188 Some exemptions, very
      strictly confined both in time and place, were allowed to the
      proprietors who disposed of the produce of their own estates.
      Some indulgence was granted to the profession of the liberal
      arts: but every other branch of commercial industry was affected
      by the severity of the law. The honorable merchant of Alexandria,
      who imported the gems and spices of India for the use of the
      western world; the usurer, who derived from the interest of money
      a silent and ignominious profit; the ingenious manufacturer, the
      diligent mechanic, and even the most obscure retailer of a
      sequestered village, were obliged to admit the officers of the
      revenue into the partnership of their gain; and the sovereign of
      the Roman empire, who tolerated the profession, consented to
      share the infamous salary, of public prostitutes. 18811 As this
      general tax upon industry was collected every fourth year, it was
      styled the _Lustral Contribution:_ and the historian Zosimus 189
      laments that the approach of the fatal period was announced by
      the tears and terrors of the citizens, who were often compelled
      by the impending scourge to embrace the most abhorred and
      unnatural methods of procuring the sum at which their property
      had been assessed. The testimony of Zosimus cannot indeed be
      justified from the charge of passion and prejudice; but, from the
      nature of this tribute it seems reasonable to conclude, that it
      was arbitrary in the distribution, and extremely rigorous in the
      mode of collecting. The secret wealth of commerce, and the
      precarious profits of art or labor, are susceptible only of a
      discretionary valuation, which is seldom disadvantageous to the
      interest of the treasury; and as the person of the trader
      supplies the want of a visible and permanent security, the
      payment of the imposition, which, in the case of a land tax, may
      be obtained by the seizure of property, can rarely be extorted by
      any other means than those of corporal punishments. The cruel
      treatment of the insolvent debtors of the state, is attested, and
      was perhaps mitigated by a very humane edict of Constantine, who,
      disclaiming the use of racks and of scourges, allots a spacious
      and airy prison for the place of their confinement. 190

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

      18811 (return) [ The emperor Theodosius put an end, by a law. to
      this disgraceful source of revenue. (Godef. ad Cod. Theod. xiii.
      tit. i. c. 1.) But before he deprived himself of it, he made sure
      of some way of replacing this deficit. A rich patrician,
      Florentius, indignant at this legalized licentiousness, had made
      representations on the subject to the emperor. To induce him to
      tolerate it no longer, he offered his own property to supply the
      diminution of the revenue. The emperor had the baseness to accept
      his offer—G.]

      189 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 115. There is probably as much
      passion and prejudice in the attack of Zosimus, as in the
      elaborate defence of the memory of Constantine by the zealous Dr.
      Howell. Hist. of the World, vol. ii. p. 20.]

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

      These general taxes were imposed and levied by the absolute
      authority of the monarch; but the occasional offerings of the
      _coronary gold_ still retained the name and semblance of popular
      consent. It was an ancient custom that the allies of the
      republic, who ascribed their safety or deliverance to the success
      of the Roman arms, and even the cities of Italy, who admired the
      virtues of their victorious general, adorned the pomp of his
      triumph by their voluntary gifts of crowns of gold, which after
      the ceremony were consecrated in the temple of Jupiter, to remain
      a lasting monument of his glory to future ages. The progress of
      zeal and flattery soon multiplied the number, and increased the
      size, of these popular donations; and the triumph of Cæsar was
      enriched with two thousand eight hundred and twenty-two massy
      crowns, whose weight amounted to twenty thousand four hundred and
      fourteen pounds of gold. This treasure was immediately melted
      down by the prudent dictator, who was satisfied that it would be
      more serviceable to his soldiers than to the gods: his example
      was imitated by his successors; and the custom was introduced of
      exchanging these splendid ornaments for the more acceptable
      present of the current gold coin of the empire. 191 The
      spontaneous offering was at length exacted as the debt of duty;
      and instead of being confined to the occasion of a triumph, it
      was supposed to be granted by the several cities and provinces of
      the monarchy, as often as the emperor condescended to announce
      his accession, his consulship, the birth of a son, the creation
      of a Cæsar, a victory over the Barbarians, or any other real or
      imaginary event which graced the annals of his reign. The
      peculiar free gift of the senate of Rome was fixed by custom at
      sixteen hundred pounds of gold, or about sixty-four thousand
      pounds sterling. The oppressed subjects celebrated their own
      felicity, that their sovereign should graciously consent to
      accept this feeble but voluntary testimony of their loyalty and
      gratitude. 192

      191 (return) [ See Lipsius de Magnitud. Romana, l. ii. c. 9. The
      Tarragonese Spain presented the emperor Claudius with a crown of
      gold of seven, and Gaul with another of nine, _hundred_ pounds
      weight. I have followed the rational emendation of Lipsius. *
      Note: This custom is of still earlier date, the Romans had
      borrowed it from Greece. Who is not acquainted with the famous
      oration of Demosthenes for the golden crown, which his citizens
      wished to bestow, and Æschines to deprive him of?—G.]

      192 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xii. tit. xiii. The senators were
      supposed to be exempt from the _Aurum Coronarium;_ but the _Auri
      Oblatio_, which was required at their hands, was precisely of the
      same nature.]

      A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, are seldom
      qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation. The
      subjects of Constantine were incapable of discerning the decline
      of genius and manly virtue, which so far degraded them below the
      dignity of their ancestors; but they could feel and lament the
      rage of tyranny, the relaxation of discipline, and the increase
      of taxes. The impartial historian, who acknowledges the justice
      of their complaints, will observe some favorable circumstances
      which tended to alleviate the misery of their condition. The
      threatening tempest of Barbarians, which so soon subverted the
      foundations of Roman greatness, was still repelled, or suspended,
      on the frontiers. The arts of luxury and literature were
      cultivated, and the elegant pleasures of society were enjoyed, by
      the inhabitants of a considerable portion of the globe. The
      forms, the pomp, and the expense of the civil administration
      contributed to restrain the irregular license of the soldiers;
      and although the laws were violated by power, or perverted by
      subtlety, the sage principles of the Roman jurisprudence
      preserved a sense of order and equity, unknown to the despotic
      governments of the East. The rights of mankind might derive some
      protection from religion and philosophy; and the name of freedom,
      which could no longer alarm, might sometimes admonish, the
      successors of Augustus, that they did not reign over a nation of
      Slaves or Barbarians. 193

      193 (return) [ The great Theodosius, in his judicious advice to
      his son, (Claudian in iv. Consulat. Honorii, 214, &c.,)
      distinguishes the station of a Roman prince from that of a
      Parthian monarch. Virtue was necessary for the one; birth might
      suffice for the other.]




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

     Character Of Constantine.—Gothic War.—Death Of
     Constantine.—Division Of The Empire Among His Three Sons.— Persian
     War.—Tragic Deaths Of Constantine The Younger And
     Constans.—Usurpation Of Magnentius.—Civil War.—Victory Of
     Constantius.


      The character of the prince who removed the seat of empire, and
      introduced such important changes into the civil and religious
      constitution of his country, has fixed the attention, and divided
      the opinions, of mankind. By the grateful zeal of the Christians,
      the deliverer of the church has been decorated with every
      attribute of a hero, and even of a saint; while the discontent of
      the vanquished party has compared Constantine to the most
      abhorred of those tyrants, who, by their vice and weakness,
      dishonored the Imperial purple. The same passions have in some
      degree been perpetuated to succeeding generations, and the
      character of Constantine is considered, even in the present age,
      as an object either of satire or of panegyric. By the impartial
      union of those defects which are confessed by his warmest
      admirers, and of those virtues which are acknowledged by his
      most-implacable enemies, we might hope to delineate a just
      portrait of that extraordinary man, which the truth and candor of
      history should adopt without a blush. 1 But it would soon appear,
      that the vain attempt to blend such discordant colors, and to
      reconcile such inconsistent qualities, must produce a figure
      monstrous rather than human, unless it is viewed in its proper
      and distinct lights, by a careful separation of the different
      periods of the reign of Constantine.

      1 (return) [ On ne se trompera point sur Constantin, en croyant
      tout le mal ru’en dit Eusebe, et tout le bien qu’en dit Zosime.
      Fleury, Hist. Ecclesiastique, tom. iii. p. 233. Eusebius and
      Zosimus form indeed the two extremes of flattery and invective.
      The intermediate shades are expressed by those writers, whose
      character or situation variously tempered the influence of their
      religious zeal.]

      The person, as well as the mind, of Constantine, had been
      enriched by nature with her choicest endowments. His stature was
      lofty, his countenance majestic, his deportment graceful; his
      strength and activity were displayed in every manly exercise, and
      from his earliest youth, to a very advanced season of life, he
      preserved the vigor of his constitution by a strict adherence to
      the domestic virtues of chastity and temperance. He delighted in
      the social intercourse of familiar conversation; and though he
      might sometimes indulge his disposition to raillery with less
      reserve than was required by the severe dignity of his station,
      the courtesy and liberality of his manners gained the hearts of
      all who approached him. The sincerity of his friendship has been
      suspected; yet he showed, on some occasions, that he was not
      incapable of a warm and lasting attachment. The disadvantage of
      an illiterate education had not prevented him from forming a just
      estimate of the value of learning; and the arts and sciences
      derived some encouragement from the munificent protection of
      Constantine. In the despatch of business, his diligence was
      indefatigable; and the active powers of his mind were almost
      continually exercised in reading, writing, or meditating, in
      giving audiences to ambassadors, and in examining the complaints
      of his subjects. Even those who censured the propriety of his
      measures were compelled to acknowledge, that he possessed
      magnanimity to conceive, and patience to execute, the most
      arduous designs, without being checked either by the prejudices
      of education, or by the clamors of the multitude. In the field,
      he infused his own intrepid spirit into the troops, whom he
      conducted with the talents of a consummate general; and to his
      abilities, rather than to his fortune, we may ascribe the signal
      victories which he obtained over the foreign and domestic foes of
      the republic. He loved glory as the reward, perhaps as the
      motive, of his labors. The boundless ambition, which, from the
      moment of his accepting the purple at York, appears as the ruling
      passion of his soul, may be justified by the dangers of his own
      situation, by the character of his rivals, by the consciousness
      of superior merit, and by the prospect that his success would
      enable him to restore peace and order to the distracted empire.
      In his civil wars against Maxentius and Licinius, he had engaged
      on his side the inclinations of the people, who compared the
      undissembled vices of those tyrants with the spirit of wisdom and
      justice which seemed to direct the general tenor of the
      administration of Constantine. 2

      2 (return) [ The virtues of Constantine are collected for the
      most part from Eutropius and the younger Victor, two sincere
      pagans, who wrote after the extinction of his family. Even
      Zosimus, and the _Emperor_ Julian, acknowledge his personal
      courage and military achievements.]

      Had Constantine fallen on the banks of the Tyber, or even in the
      plains of Hadrianople, such is the character which, with a few
      exceptions, he might have transmitted to posterity. But the
      conclusion of his reign (according to the moderate and indeed
      tender sentence of a writer of the same age) degraded him from
      the rank which he had acquired among the most deserving of the
      Roman princes. 3 In the life of Augustus, we behold the tyrant of
      the republic, converted, almost by imperceptible degrees, into
      the father of his country, and of human kind. In that of
      Constantine, we may contemplate a hero, who had so long inspired
      his subjects with love, and his enemies with terror, degenerating
      into a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or
      raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation. The
      general peace which he maintained during the last fourteen years
      of his reign, was a period of apparent splendor rather than of
      real prosperity; and the old age of Constantine was disgraced by
      the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and
      prodigality. The accumulated treasures found in the palaces of
      Maxentius and Licinius, were lavishly consumed; the various
      innovations introduced by the conqueror, were attended with an
      increasing expense; the cost of his buildings, his court, and his
      festivals, required an immediate and plentiful supply; and the
      oppression of the people was the only fund which could support
      the magnificence of the sovereign. 4 His unworthy favorites,
      enriched by the boundless liberality of their master, usurped
      with impunity the privilege of rapine and corruption. 5 A secret
      but universal decay was felt in every part of the public
      administration, and the emperor himself, though he still retained
      the obedience, gradually lost the esteem, of his subjects. The
      dress and manners, which, towards the decline of life, he chose
      to affect, served only to degrade him in the eyes of mankind. The
      Asiatic pomp, which had been adopted by the pride of Diocletian,
      assumed an air of softness and effeminacy in the person of
      Constantine. He is represented with false hair of various colors,
      laboriously arranged by the skilful artists to the times; a
      diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems
      and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing
      robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold. In
      such apparel, scarcely to be excused by the youth and folly of
      Elagabalus, we are at a loss to discover the wisdom of an aged
      monarch, and the simplicity of a Roman veteran. 6 A mind thus
      relaxed by prosperity and indulgence, was incapable of rising to
      that magnanimity which disdains suspicion, and dares to forgive.
      The deaths of Maximian and Licinius may perhaps be justified by
      the maxims of policy, as they are taught in the schools of
      tyrants; but an impartial narrative of the executions, or rather
      murders, which sullied the declining age of Constantine, will
      suggest to our most candid thoughts the idea of a prince who
      could sacrifice without reluctance the laws of justice, and the
      feelings of nature, to the dictates either of his passions or of
      his interest.

      3 (return) [ See Eutropius, x. 6. In primo Imperii tempore
      optimis principibus, ultimo mediis comparandus. From the ancient
      Greek version of Poeanius, (edit. Havercamp. p. 697,) I am
      inclined to suspect that Eutropius had originally written _vix_
      mediis; and that the offensive monosyllable was dropped by the
      wilful inadvertency of transcribers. Aurelius Victor expresses
      the general opinion by a vulgar and indeed obscure proverb.
      _Trachala_ decem annis præstantissimds; duodecim sequentibus
      _latro;_ decem novissimis _pupillus_ ob immouicas profusiones.]

      4 (return) [ Julian, Orat. i. p. 8, in a flattering discourse
      pronounced before the son of Constantine; and Cæsares, p. 336.
      Zosimus, p. 114, 115. The stately buildings of Constantinople,
      &c., may be quoted as a lasting and unexceptionable proof of the
      profuseness of their founder.]

      5 (return) [ The impartial Ammianus deserves all our confidence.
      Proximorum fauces aperuit primus omnium Constantinus. L. xvi. c.
      8. Eusebius himself confesses the abuse, (Vit. Constantin. l. iv.
      c. 29, 54;) and some of the Imperial laws feebly point out the
      remedy. See above, p. 146 of this volume.]

      6 (return) [ Julian, in the Cæsars, attempts to ridicule his
      uncle. His suspicious testimony is confirmed, however, by the
      learned Spanheim, with the authority of medals, (see Commentaire,
      p. 156, 299, 397, 459.) Eusebius (Orat. c. 5) alleges, that
      Constantine dressed for the public, not for himself. Were this
      admitted, the vainest coxcomb could never want an excuse.]

      The same fortune which so invariably followed the standard of
      Constantine, seemed to secure the hopes and comforts of his
      domestic life. Those among his predecessors who had enjoyed the
      longest and most prosperous reigns, Augustus Trajan, and
      Diocletian, had been disappointed of posterity; and the frequent
      revolutions had never allowed sufficient time for any Imperial
      family to grow up and multiply under the shade of the purple. But
      the royalty of the Flavian line, which had been first ennobled by
      the Gothic Claudius, descended through several generations; and
      Constantine himself derived from his royal father the hereditary
      honors which he transmitted to his children. The emperor had been
      twice married. Minervina, the obscure but lawful object of his
      youthful attachment, 7 had left him only one son, who was called
      Crispus. By Fausta, the daughter of Maximian, he had three
      daughters, and three sons known by the kindred names of
      Constantine, Constantius, and Constans. The unambitious brothers
      of the great Constantine, Julius Constantius, Dalmatius, and
      Hannibalianus, 8 were permitted to enjoy the most honorable rank,
      and the most affluent fortune, that could be consistent with a
      private station. The youngest of the three lived without a name,
      and died without posterity. His two elder brothers obtained in
      marriage the daughters of wealthy senators, and propagated new
      branches of the Imperial race. Gallus and Julian afterwards
      became the most illustrious of the children of Julius
      Constantius, the _Patrician_. The two sons of Dalmatius, who had
      been decorated with the vain title of _Censor_, were named
      Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The two sisters of the great
      Constantine, Anastasia and Eutropia, were bestowed on Optatus and
      Nepotianus, two senators of noble birth and of consular dignity.
      His third sister, Constantia, was distinguished by her
      preëminence of greatness and of misery. She remained the widow of
      the vanquished Licinius; and it was by her entreaties, that an
      innocent boy, the offspring of their marriage, preserved, for
      some time, his life, the title of Cæsar, and a precarious hope of
      the succession. Besides the females, and the allies of the
      Flavian house, ten or twelve males, to whom the language of
      modern courts would apply the title of princes of the blood,
      seemed, according to the order of their birth, to be destined
      either to inherit or to support the throne of Constantine. But in
      less than thirty years, this numerous and increasing family was
      reduced to the persons of Constantius and Julian, who alone had
      survived a series of crimes and calamities, such as the tragic
      poets have deplored in the devoted lines of Pelops and of Cadmus.

      7 (return) [ Zosimus and Zonaras agree in representing Minervina
      as the concubine of Constantine; but Ducange has very gallantly
      rescued her character, by producing a decisive passage from one
      of the panegyrics: “Ab ipso fine pueritiæ te matrimonii legibus
      dedisti.”]

      8 (return) [ Ducange (Familiæ Byzantinæ, p. 44) bestows on him,
      after Zosimus, the name of Constantine; a name somewhat unlikely,
      as it was already occupied by the elder brother. That of
      Hannibalianus is mentioned in the Paschal Chronicle, and is
      approved by Tillemont. Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 527.]

      Crispus, the eldest son of Constantine, and the presumptive heir
      of the empire, is represented by impartial historians as an
      amiable and accomplished youth. The care of his education, or at
      least of his studies, was intrusted to Lactantius, the most
      eloquent of the Christians; a preceptor admirably qualified to
      form the taste, and the excite the virtues, of his illustrious
      disciple. 9 At the age of seventeen, Crispus was invested with
      the title of Cæsar, and the administration of the Gallic
      provinces, where the inroads of the Germans gave him an early
      occasion of signalizing his military prowess. In the civil war
      which broke out soon afterwards, the father and son divided their
      powers; and this history has already celebrated the valor as well
      as conduct displayed by the latter, in forcing the straits of the
      Hellespont, so obstinately defended by the superior fleet of
      Lacinius. This naval victory contributed to determine the event
      of the war; and the names of Constantine and of Crispus were
      united in the joyful acclamations of their eastern subjects; who
      loudly proclaimed, that the world had been subdued, and was now
      governed, by an emperor endowed with every virtue; and by his
      illustrious son, a prince beloved of Heaven, and the lively image
      of his father’s perfections. The public favor, which seldom
      accompanies old age, diffused its lustre over the youth of
      Crispus. He deserved the esteem, and he engaged the affections,
      of the court, the army, and the people. The experienced merit of
      a reigning monarch is acknowledged by his subjects with
      reluctance, and frequently denied with partial and discontented
      murmurs; while, from the opening virtues of his successor, they
      fondly conceive the most unbounded hopes of private as well as
      public felicity. 10

      9 (return) [ Jerom. in Chron. The poverty of Lactantius may be
      applied either to the praise of the disinterested philosopher, or
      to the shame of the unfeeling patron. See Tillemont, Mém.
      Ecclesiast. tom. vi. part 1. p. 345. Dupin, Bibliothèque
      Ecclesiast. tom. i. p. 205. Lardner’s Credibility of the Gospel
      History, part ii. vol. vii. p. 66.]

      10 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. x. c. 9. Eutropius (x.
      6) styles him “egregium virum;” and Julian (Orat. i.) very
      plainly alludes to the exploits of Crispus in the civil war. See
      Spanheim, Comment. p. 92.]

      This dangerous popularity soon excited the attention of
      Constantine, who, both as a father and as a king, was impatient
      of an equal. Instead of attempting to secure the allegiance of
      his son by the generous ties of confidence and gratitude, he
      resolved to prevent the mischiefs which might be apprehended from
      dissatisfied ambition. Crispus soon had reason to complain, that
      while his infant brother Constantius was sent, with the title of
      Cæsar, to reign over his peculiar department of the Gallic
      provinces, 11 _he_, a prince of mature years, who had performed
      such recent and signal services, instead of being raised to the
      superior rank of Augustus, was confined almost a prisoner to his
      father’s court; and exposed, without power or defence, to every
      calumny which the malice of his enemies could suggest. Under such
      painful circumstances, the royal youth might not always be able
      to compose his behavior, or suppress his discontent; and we may
      be assured, that he was encompassed by a train of indiscreet or
      perfidious followers, who assiduously studied to inflame, and who
      were perhaps instructed to betray, the unguarded warmth of his
      resentment. An edict of Constantine, published about this time,
      manifestly indicates his real or affected suspicions, that a
      secret conspiracy had been formed against his person and
      government. By all the allurements of honors and rewards, he
      invites informers of every degree to accuse without exception his
      magistrates or ministers, his friends or his most intimate
      favorites, protesting, with a solemn asseveration, that he
      himself will listen to the charge, that he himself will revenge
      his injuries; and concluding with a prayer, which discovers some
      apprehension of danger, that the providence of the Supreme Being
      may still continue to protect the safety of the emperor and of
      the empire. 12

      11 (return) [ Compare Idatius and the Paschal Chronicle, with
      Ammianus, (l, xiv. c. 5.) The _year_ in which Constantius was
      created Cæsar seems to be more accurately fixed by the two
      chronologists; but the historian who lived in his court could not
      be ignorant of the _day_ of the anniversary. For the appointment
      of the new Cæsar to the provinces of Gaul, see Julian, Orat. i.
      p. 12, Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p. 26. and Blondel, de Primauté
      de l’Eglise, p. 1183.]

      12 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. iv. Godefroy suspected the
      secret motives of this law. Comment. tom. iii. p. 9.]

      The informers, who complied with so liberal an invitation, were
      sufficiently versed in the arts of courts to select the friends
      and adherents of Crispus as the guilty persons; nor is there any
      reason to distrust the veracity of the emperor, who had promised
      an ample measure of revenge and punishment. The policy of
      Constantine maintained, however, the same appearances of regard
      and confidence towards a son, whom he began to consider as his
      most irreconcilable enemy. Medals were struck with the customary
      vows for the long and auspicious reign of the young Cæsar; 13 and
      as the people, who were not admitted into the secrets of the
      palace, still loved his virtues, and respected his dignity, a
      poet who solicits his recall from exile, adores with equal
      devotion the majesty of the father and that of the son. 14 The
      time was now arrived for celebrating the august ceremony of the
      twentieth year of the reign of Constantine; and the emperor, for
      that purpose, removed his court from Nicomedia to Rome, where the
      most splendid preparations had been made for his reception. Every
      eye, and every tongue, affected to express their sense of the
      general happiness, and the veil of ceremony and dissimulation was
      drawn for a while over the darkest designs of revenge and murder.
      15 In the midst of the festival, the unfortunate Crispus was
      apprehended by order of the emperor, who laid aside the
      tenderness of a father, without assuming the equity of a judge.
      The examination was short and private; 16 and as it was thought
      decent to conceal the fate of the young prince from the eyes of
      the Roman people, he was sent under a strong guard to Pola, in
      Istria, where, soon afterwards, he was put to death, either by
      the hand of the executioner, or by the more gentle operations of
      poison. 17 The Cæsar Licinius, a youth of amiable manners, was
      involved in the ruin of Crispus: 18 and the stern jealousy of
      Constantine was unmoved by the prayers and tears of his favorite
      sister, pleading for the life of a son, whose rank was his only
      crime, and whose loss she did not long survive. The story of
      these unhappy princes, the nature and evidence of their guilt,
      the forms of their trial, and the circumstances of their death,
      were buried in mysterious obscurity; and the courtly bishop, who
      has celebrated in an elaborate work the virtues and piety of his
      hero, observes a prudent silence on the subject of these tragic
      events. 19 Such haughty contempt for the opinion of mankind,
      whilst it imprints an indelible stain on the memory of
      Constantine, must remind us of the very different behavior of one
      of the greatest monarchs of the present age. The Czar Peter, in
      the full possession of despotic power, submitted to the judgment
      of Russia, of Europe, and of posterity, the reasons which had
      compelled him to subscribe the condemnation of a criminal, or at
      least of a degenerate son. 20

      13 (return) [ Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 28. Tillemont, tom. iv. p.
      610.]

      14 (return) [ His name was Porphyrius Optatianus. The date of his
      panegyric, written, according to the taste of the age, in vile
      acrostics, is settled by Scaliger ad Euseb. p. 250, Tillemont,
      tom. iv. p. 607, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, l. iv. c. 1.]

      15 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 103. Godefroy, Chronol. Legum, p.
      28.]

      16 (return) [ The elder Victor, who wrote under the next reign,
      speaks with becoming caution. “Natu grandior incertum qua causa,
      patris judicio occidisset.” If we consult the succeeding writers,
      Eutropius, the younger Victor, Orosius, Jerom, Zosimus,
      Philostorgius, and Gregory of Tours, their knowledge will appear
      gradually to increase, as their means of information must have
      diminished—a circumstance which frequently occurs in historical
      disquisition.]

      17 (return) [ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 11) uses the general
      expression of peremptum Codinus (p. 34) beheads the young prince;
      but Sidonius Apollinaris (Epistol. v. 8,) for the sake perhaps of
      an antithesis to Fausta’s _warm_ bath, chooses to administer a
      draught of _cold_ poison.]

      18 (return) [ Sororis filium, commodæ indolis juvenem. Eutropius,
      x. 6 May I not be permitted to conjecture that Crispus had
      married Helena the daughter of the emperor Licinius, and that on
      the happy delivery of the princess, in the year 322, a general
      pardon was granted by Constantine? See Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p.
      47, and the law (l. ix. tit. xxxvii.) of the Theodosian code,
      which has so much embarrassed the interpreters. Godefroy, tom.
      iii. p. 267 * Note: This conjecture is very doubtful. The
      obscurity of the law quoted from the Theodosian code scarcely
      allows any inference, and there is extant but one meda which can
      be attributed to a Helena, wife of Crispus.]

      19 (return) [ See the life of Constantine, particularly l. ii. c.
      19, 20. Two hundred and fifty years afterwards Evagrius (l. iii.
      c. 41) deduced from the silence of Eusebius a vain argument
      against the reality of the fact.]

      20 (return) [ Histoire de Pierre le Grand, par Voltaire, part ii.
      c. 10.]

      The innocence of Crispus was so universally acknowledged, that
      the modern Greeks, who adore the memory of their founder, are
      reduced to palliate the guilt of a parricide, which the common
      feelings of human nature forbade them to justify. They pretend,
      that as soon as the afflicted father discovered the falsehood of
      the accusation by which his credulity had been so fatally misled,
      he published to the world his repentance and remorse; that he
      mourned forty days, during which he abstained from the use of the
      bath, and all the ordinary comforts of life; and that, for the
      lasting instruction of posterity, he erected a golden statue of
      Crispus, with this memorable inscription: To my son, whom I
      unjustly condemned. 21 A tale so moral and so interesting would
      deserve to be supported by less exceptionable authority; but if
      we consult the more ancient and authentic writers, they will
      inform us, that the repentance of Constantine was manifested only
      in acts of blood and revenge; and that he atoned for the murder
      of an innocent son, by the execution, perhaps, of a guilty wife.
      They ascribe the misfortunes of Crispus to the arts of his
      step-mother Fausta, whose implacable hatred, or whose
      disappointed love, renewed in the palace of Constantine the
      ancient tragedy of Hippolitus and of Phædra. 22 Like the daughter
      of Minos, the daughter of Maximian accused her son-in-law of an
      incestuous attempt on the chastity of his father’s wife; and
      easily obtained, from the jealousy of the emperor, a sentence of
      death against a young prince, whom she considered with reason as
      the most formidable rival of her own children. But Helena, the
      aged mother of Constantine, lamented and revenged the untimely
      fate of her grandson Crispus; nor was it long before a real or
      pretended discovery was made, that Fausta herself entertained a
      criminal connection with a slave belonging to the Imperial
      stables. 23 Her condemnation and punishment were the instant
      consequences of the charge; and the adulteress was suffocated by
      the steam of a bath, which, for that purpose, had been heated to
      an extraordinary degree. 24 By some it will perhaps be thought,
      that the remembrance of a conjugal union of twenty years, and the
      honor of their common offspring, the destined heirs of the
      throne, might have softened the obdurate heart of Constantine,
      and persuaded him to suffer his wife, however guilty she might
      appear, to expiate her offences in a solitary prison. But it
      seems a superfluous labor to weigh the propriety, unless we could
      ascertain the truth, of this singular event, which is attended
      with some circumstances of doubt and perplexity. Those who have
      attacked, and those who have defended, the character of
      Constantine, have alike disregarded two very remarkable passages
      of two orations pronounced under the succeeding reign. The former
      celebrates the virtues, the beauty, and the fortune of the
      empress Fausta, the daughter, wife, sister, and mother of so many
      princes. 25 The latter asserts, in explicit terms, that the
      mother of the younger Constantine, who was slain three years
      after his father’s death, survived to weep over the fate of her
      son. 26 Notwithstanding the positive testimony of several writers
      of the Pagan as well as of the Christian religion, there may
      still remain some reason to believe, or at least to suspect, that
      Fausta escaped the blind and suspicious cruelty of her husband.
      2611 The deaths of a son and a nephew, with the execution of a
      great number of respectable, and perhaps innocent friends, 27 who
      were involved in their fall, may be sufficient, however, to
      justify the discontent of the Roman people, and to explain the
      satirical verses affixed to the palace gate, comparing the
      splendid and bloody reigns of Constantine and Nero. 28

      21 (return) [ In order to prove that the statue was erected by
      Constantine, and afterwards concealed by the malice of the
      Arians, Codinus very readily creates (p. 34) two witnesses,
      Hippolitus, and the younger Herodotus, to whose imaginary
      histories he appeals with unblushing confidence.]

      22 (return) [ Zosimus (l. ii. p. 103) may be considered as our
      original. The ingenuity of the moderns, assisted by a few hints
      from the ancients, has illustrated and improved his obscure and
      imperfect narrative.]

      23 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 4. Zosimus (l. ii. p. 104,
      116) imputes to Constantine the death of two wives, of the
      innocent Fausta, and of an adulteress, who was the mother of his
      three successors. According to Jerom, three or four years elapsed
      between the death of Crispus and that of Fausta. The elder Victor
      is prudently silent.]

      24 (return) [ If Fausta was put to death, it is reasonable to
      believe that the private apartments of the palace were the scene
      of her execution. The orator Chrysostom indulges his fancy by
      exposing the naked desert mountain to be devoured by wild
      beasts.]

      25 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. He seems to call her the mother of
      Crispus. She might assume that title by adoption. At least, she
      was not considered as his mortal enemy. Julian compares the
      fortune of Fausta with that of Parysatis, the Persian queen. A
      Roman would have more naturally recollected the second Agrippina:
      Et moi, qui sur le trone ai suivi mes ancêtres: Moi, fille,
      femme,sœur, et mere de vos maitres.]

      26 (return) [ Monod. in Constantin. Jun. c. 4, ad Calcem Eutrop.
      edit. Havercamp. The orator styles her the most divine and pious
      of queens.]

      2611 (return) [ Manso (Leben Constantins, p. 65) treats this
      inference o: Gibbon, and the authorities to which he appeals,
      with too much contempt, considering the general scantiness of
      proof on this curious question.—M.]

      27 (return) [ Interfecit numerosos amicos. Eutrop. xx. 6.]

      28 (return) [ Saturni aurea sæcula quis requirat? Sunt hæc
      gemmea, sed Neroniana. Sidon. Apollinar. v. 8. ——It is somewhat
      singular that these satirical lines should be attributed, not to
      an obscure libeller, or a disappointed patriot, but to Ablavius,
      prime minister and favorite of the emperor. We may now perceive
      that the imprecations of the Roman people were dictated by
      humanity, as well as by superstition. Zosim. l. ii. p. 105.]




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


      By the death of Crispus, the inheritance of the empire seemed to
      devolve on the three sons of Fausta, who have been already
      mentioned under the names of Constantine, of Constantius, and of
      Constans. These young princes were successively invested with the
      title of Cæsar; and the dates of their promotion may be referred
      to the tenth, the twentieth, and the thirtieth years of the reign
      of their father. 29 This conduct, though it tended to multiply
      the future masters of the Roman world, might be excused by the
      partiality of paternal affection; but it is not so easy to
      understand the motives of the emperor, when he endangered the
      safety both of his family and of his people, by the unnecessary
      elevation of his two nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus. The
      former was raised, by the title of Cæsar, to an equality with his
      cousins. In favor of the latter, Constantine invented the new and
      singular appellation of _Nobilissimus;_ 30 to which he annexed
      the flattering distinction of a robe of purple and gold. But of
      the whole series of Roman princes in any age of the empire,
      Hannibalianus alone was distinguished by the title of King; a
      name which the subjects of Tiberius would have detested, as the
      profane and cruel insult of capricious tyranny. The use of such a
      title, even as it appears under the reign of Constantine, is a
      strange and unconnected fact, which can scarcely be admitted on
      the joint authority of Imperial medals and contemporary writers.
      31 3111

      29 (return) [ Euseb. Orat. in Constantin. c. 3. These dates are
      sufficiently correct to justify the orator.]

      30 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 117. Under the predecessors of
      Constantine, _Nobilissimus_ was a vague epithet, rather than a
      legal and determined title.]

      31 (return) [ Adstruunt nummi veteres ac singulares. Spanheim de
      Usu Numismat. Dissertat. xii. vol. ii. p. 357. Ammianus speaks of
      this Roman king (l. xiv. c. l, and Valesius ad loc.) The Valesian
      fragment styles him King of kings; and the Paschal Chronicle
      acquires the weight of Latin evidence.]

      3111 (return) [ Hannibalianus is always designated in these
      authors by the title of king. There still exist medals struck to
      his honor, on which the same title is found, Fl. Hannibaliano
      Regi. See Eckhel, Doct. Num. t. viii. 204. Armeniam nationesque
      circum socias habebat, says Aur. Victor, p. 225. The writer means
      the Lesser Armenia. Though it is not possible to question a fact
      supported by such respectable authorities, Gibbon considers it
      inexplicable and incredible. It is a strange abuse of the
      privilege of doubting, to refuse all belief in a fact of such
      little importance in itself, and attested thus formally by
      contemporary authors and public monuments. St. Martin note to Le
      Beau i. 341.—M.]

      The whole empire was deeply interested in the education of these
      five youths, the acknowledged successors of Constantine. The
      exercise of the body prepared them for the fatigues of war and
      the duties of active life. Those who occasionally mention the
      education or talents of Constantius, allow that he excelled in
      the gymnastic arts of leaping and running that he was a dexterous
      archer, a skilful horseman, and a master of all the different
      weapons used in the service either of the cavalry or of the
      infantry. 32 The same assiduous cultivation was bestowed, though
      not perhaps with equal success, to improve the minds of the sons
      and nephews of Constantine. 33 The most celebrated professors of
      the Christian faith, of the Grecian philosophy, and of the Roman
      jurisprudence, were invited by the liberality of the emperor, who
      reserved for himself the important task of instructing the royal
      youths in the science of government, and the knowledge of
      mankind. But the genius of Constantine himself had been formed by
      adversity and experience. In the free intercourse of private
      life, and amidst the dangers of the court of Galerius, he had
      learned to command his own passions, to encounter those of his
      equals, and to depend for his present safety and future greatness
      on the prudence and firmness of his personal conduct. His
      destined successors had the misfortune of being born and educated
      in the imperial purple. Incessantly surrounded with a train of
      flatterers, they passed their youth in the enjoyment of luxury,
      and the expectation of a throne; nor would the dignity of their
      rank permit them to descend from that elevated station from
      whence the various characters of human nature appear to wear a
      smooth and uniform aspect. The indulgence of Constantine admitted
      them, at a very tender age, to share the administration of the
      empire; and they studied the art of reigning, at the expense of
      the people intrusted to their care. The younger Constantine was
      appointed to hold his court in Gaul; and his brother Constantius
      exchanged that department, the ancient patrimony of their father,
      for the more opulent, but less martial, countries of the East.
      Italy, the Western Illyricum, and Africa, were accustomed to
      revere Constans, the third of his sons, as the representative of
      the great Constantine. He fixed Dalmatius on the Gothic frontier,
      to which he annexed the government of Thrace, Macedonia, and
      Greece. The city of Cæsarea was chosen for the residence of
      Hannibalianus; and the provinces of Pontus, Cappadocia, and the
      Lesser Armenia, were destined to form the extent of his new
      kingdom. For each of these princes a suitable establishment was
      provided. A just proportion of guards, of legions, and of
      auxiliaries, was allotted for their respective dignity and
      defence. The ministers and generals, who were placed about their
      persons, were such as Constantine could trust to assist, and even
      to control, these youthful sovereigns in the exercise of their
      delegated power. As they advanced in years and experience, the
      limits of their authority were insensibly enlarged: but the
      emperor always reserved for himself the title of Augustus; and
      while he showed the _Cæsars_ to the armies and provinces, he
      maintained every part of the empire in equal obedience to its
      supreme head. 34 The tranquillity of the last fourteen years of
      his reign was scarcely interrupted by the contemptible
      insurrection of a camel-driver in the Island of Cyprus, 35 or by
      the active part which the policy of Constantine engaged him to
      assume in the wars of the Goths and Sarmatians.

      32 (return) [ His dexterity in martial exercises is celebrated by
      Julian, (Orat. i. p. 11, Orat. ii. p. 53,) and allowed by
      Ammianus, (l. xxi. c. 16.)]

      33 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 51. Julian,
      Orat. i. p. 11-16, with Spanheim’s elaborate Commentary.
      Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 109. Constantius studied with laudable
      diligence; but the dulness of his fancy prevented him from
      succeeding in the art of poetry, or even of rhetoric.]

      34 (return) [ Eusebius, (l. iv. c. 51, 52,) with a design of
      exalting the authority and glory of Constantine, affirms, that he
      divided the Roman empire as a private citizen might have divided
      his patrimony. His distribution of the provinces may be collected
      from Eutropius, the two Victors and the Valesian fragment.]

      35 (return) [ Calocerus, the obscure leader of this rebellion, or
      rather tumult, was apprehended and burnt alive in the
      market-place of Tarsus, by the vigilance of Dalmatius. See the
      elder Victor, the Chronicle of Jerom, and the doubtful traditions
      of Theophanes and Cedrenus.]

      Among the different branches of the human race, the Sarmatians
      form a very remarkable shade; as they seem to unite the manners
      of the Asiatic barbarians with the figure and complexion of the
      ancient inhabitants of Europe. According to the various accidents
      of peace and war, of alliance or conquest, the Sarmatians were
      sometimes confined to the banks of the Tanais; and they sometimes
      spread themselves over the immense plains which lie between the
      Vistula and the Volga. 36 The care of their numerous flocks and
      herds, the pursuit of game, and the exercises of war, or rather
      of rapine, directed the vagrant motions of the Sarmatians. The
      movable camps or cities, the ordinary residence of their wives
      and children, consisted only of large wagons drawn by oxen, and
      covered in the form of tents. The military strength of the nation
      was composed of cavalry; and the custom of their warriors, to
      lead in their hand one or two spare horses, enabled them to
      advance and to retreat with a rapid diligence, which surprised
      the security, and eluded the pursuit, of a distant enemy. 37
      Their poverty of iron prompted their rude industry to invent a
      sort of cuirass, which was capable of resisting a sword or
      javelin, though it was formed only of horses’ hoofs, cut into
      thin and polished slices, carefully laid over each other in the
      manner of scales or feathers, and strongly sewed upon an under
      garment of coarse linen. 38 The offensive arms of the Sarmatians
      were short daggers, long lances, and a weighty bow with a quiver
      of arrows. They were reduced to the necessity of employing
      fish-bones for the points of their weapons; but the custom of
      dipping them in a venomous liquor, that poisoned the wounds which
      they inflicted, is alone sufficient to prove the most savage
      manners, since a people impressed with a sense of humanity would
      have abhorred so cruel a practice, and a nation skilled in the
      arts of war would have disdained so impotent a resource. 39
      Whenever these Barbarians issued from their deserts in quest of
      prey, their shaggy beards, uncombed locks, the furs with which
      they were covered from head to foot, and their fierce
      countenances, which seemed to express the innate cruelty of their
      minds, inspired the more civilized provincials of Rome with
      horror and dismay.

      36 (return) [ Cellarius has collected the opinions of the
      ancients concerning the European and Asiatic Sarmatia; and M.
      D’Anville has applied them to modern geography with the skill and
      accuracy which always distinguish that excellent writer.]

      37 (return) [ Ammian. l. xvii. c. 12. The Sarmatian horses were
      castrated to prevent the mischievous accidents which might happen
      from the noisy and ungovernable passions of the males.]

      38 (return) [ Pausanius, l. i. p. 50,. edit. Kuhn. That
      inquisitive traveller had carefully examined a Sarmatian cuirass,
      which was preserved in the temple of Æsculapius at Athens.]

      39 (return) [ Aspicis et mitti sub adunco toxica ferro, Et telum
      causas mortis habere duas. Ovid, ex Ponto, l. iv. ep. 7, ver.
      7.——See in the Recherches sur les Americains, tom. ii. p.
      236—271, a very curious dissertation on poisoned darts. The venom
      was commonly extracted from the vegetable reign: but that
      employed by the Scythians appears to have been drawn from the
      viper, and a mixture of human blood.]

      The use of poisoned arms, which has been spread over both worlds,
      never preserved a savage tribe from the arms of a disciplined
      enemy. The tender Ovid, after a youth spent in the enjoyment of
      fame and luxury, was condemned to a hopeless exile on the frozen
      banks of the Danube, where he was exposed, almost without
      defence, to the fury of these monsters of the desert, with whose
      stern spirits he feared that his gentle shade might hereafter be
      confounded. In his pathetic, but sometimes unmanly lamentations,
      40 he describes in the most lively colors the dress and manners,
      the arms and inroads, of the Getæ and Sarmatians, who were
      associated for the purposes of destruction; and from the accounts
      of history there is some reason to believe that these Sarmatians
      were the Jazygæ, one of the most numerous and warlike tribes of
      the nation. The allurements of plenty engaged them to seek a
      permanent establishment on the frontiers of the empire. Soon
      after the reign of Augustus, they obliged the Dacians, who
      subsisted by fishing on the banks of the River Teyss or Tibiscus,
      to retire into the hilly country, and to abandon to the
      victorious Sarmatians the fertile plains of the Upper Hungary,
      which are bounded by the course of the Danube and the
      semicircular enclosure of the Carpathian Mountains. 41 In this
      advantageous position, they watched or suspended the moment of
      attack, as they were provoked by injuries or appeased by
      presents; they gradually acquired the skill of using more
      dangerous weapons, and although the Sarmatians did not illustrate
      their name by any memorable exploits, they occasionally assisted
      their eastern and western neighbors, the Goths and the Germans,
      with a formidable body of cavalry. They lived under the irregular
      aristocracy of their chieftains: 42 but after they had received
      into their bosom the fugitive Vandals, who yielded to the
      pressure of the Gothic power, they seem to have chosen a king
      from that nation, and from the illustrious race of the Astingi,
      who had formerly dwelt on the hores of the northern ocean. 43

      40 (return) [ The nine books of Poetical Epistles which Ovid
      composed during the seven first years of his melancholy exile,
      possess, beside the merit of elegance, a double value. They
      exhibit a picture of the human mind under very singular
      circumstances; and they contain many curious observations, which
      no Roman except Ovid, could have an opportunity of making. Every
      circumstance which tends to illustrate the history of the
      Barbarians, has been drawn together by the very accurate Count de
      Buat. Hist. Ancienne des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. iv. c. xvi. p.
      286-317]

      41 (return) [ The Sarmatian Jazygæ were settled on the banks of
      Pathissus or Tibiscus, when Pliny, in the year 79, published his
      Natural History. See l. iv. c. 25. In the time of Strabo and
      Ovid, sixty or seventy years before, they appear to have
      inhabited beyond the Getæ, along the coast of the Euxine.]

      42 (return) [ Principes Sarmaturum Jazygum penes quos civitatis
      regimen plebem quoque et vim equitum, qua sola valent,
      offerebant. Tacit. Hist. iii. p. 5. This offer was made in the
      civil war between Vitellino and Vespasian.]

      43 (return) [ This hypothesis of a Vandal king reigning over
      Sarmatian subjects, seems necessary to reconcile the Goth
      Jornandes with the Greek and Latin historians of Constantine. It
      may be observed that Isidore, who lived in Spain under the
      dominion of the Goths, gives them for enemies, not the Vandals,
      but the Sarmatians. See his Chronicle in Grotius, p. 709. Note: I
      have already noticed the confusion which must necessarily arise
      in history, when names purely _geographical_, as this of
      Sarmatia, are taken for _historical_ names belonging to a single
      nation. We perceive it here; it has forced Gibbon to suppose,
      without any reason but the necessity of extricating himself from
      his perplexity, that the Sarmatians had taken a king from among
      the Vandals; a supposition entirely contrary to the usages of
      Barbarians Dacia, at this period, was occupied, not by
      Sarmatians, who have never formed a distinct race, but by
      Vandals, whom the ancients have often confounded under the
      general term Sarmatians. See Gatterer’s Welt-Geschiehte p.
      464—G.]

      This motive of enmity must have inflamed the subjects of
      contention, which perpetually arise on the confines of warlike
      and independent nations. The Vandal princes were stimulated by
      fear and revenge; the Gothic kings aspired to extend their
      dominion from the Euxine to the frontiers of Germany; and the
      waters of the Maros, a small river which falls into the Teyss,
      were stained with the blood of the contending Barbarians. After
      some experience of the superior strength and numbers of their
      adversaries, the Sarmatians implored the protection of the Roman
      monarch, who beheld with pleasure the discord of the nations, but
      who was justly alarmed by the progress of the Gothic arms. As
      soon as Constantine had declared himself in favor of the weaker
      party, the haughty Araric, king of the Goths, instead of
      expecting the attack of the legions, boldly passed the Danube,
      and spread terror and devastation through the province of Mæsia.

      To oppose the inroad of this destroying host, the aged emperor
      took the field in person; but on this occasion either his conduct
      or his fortune betrayed the glory which he had acquired in so
      many foreign and domestic wars. He had the mortification of
      seeing his troops fly before an inconsiderable detachment of the
      Barbarians, who pursued them to the edge of their fortified camp,
      and obliged him to consult his safety by a precipitate and
      ignominious retreat. 4311 The event of a second and more
      successful action retrieved the honor of the Roman name; and the
      powers of art and discipline prevailed, after an obstinate
      contest, over the efforts of irregular valor. The broken army of
      the Goths abandoned the field of battle, the wasted province, and
      the passage of the Danube: and although the eldest of the sons of
      Constantine was permitted to supply the place of his father, the
      merit of the victory, which diffused universal joy, was ascribed
      to the auspicious counsels of the emperor himself.

      4311 (return) [ Gibbon states, that Constantine was defeated by
      the Goths in a first battle. No ancient author mentions such an
      event. It is, no doubt, a mistake in Gibbon. St Martin, note to
      Le Beau. i. 324.—M.]

      He contributed at least to improve this advantage, by his
      negotiations with the free and warlike people of Chersonesus, 44
      whose capital, situate on the western coast of the Tauric or
      Crimæan peninsula, still retained some vestiges of a Grecian
      colony, and was governed by a perpetual magistrate, assisted by a
      council of senators, emphatically styled the Fathers of the City.

      The Chersonites were animated against the Goths, by the memory of
      the wars, which, in the preceding century, they had maintained
      with unequal forces against the invaders of their country. They
      were connected with the Romans by the mutual benefits of
      commerce; as they were supplied from the provinces of Asia with
      corn and manufactures, which they purchased with their only
      productions, salt, wax, and hides. Obedient to the requisition of
      Constantine, they prepared, under the conduct of their magistrate
      Diogenes, a considerable army, of which the principal strength
      consisted in cross-bows and military chariots. The speedy march
      and intrepid attack of the Chersonites, by diverting the
      attention of the Goths, assisted the operations of the Imperial
      generals. The Goths, vanquished on every side, were driven into
      the mountains, where, in the course of a severe campaign, above a
      hundred thousand were computed to have perished by cold and
      hunger. Peace was at length granted to their humble
      supplications; the eldest son of Araric was accepted as the most
      valuable hostage; and Constantine endeavored to convince their
      chiefs, by a liberal distribution of honors and rewards, how far
      the friendship of the Romans was preferable to their enmity. In
      the expressions of his gratitude towards the faithful
      Chersonites, the emperor was still more magnificent. The pride of
      the nation was gratified by the splendid and almost royal
      decorations bestowed on their magistrate and his successors. A
      perpetual exemption from all duties was stipulated for their
      vessels which traded to the ports of the Black Sea. A regular
      subsidy was promised, of iron, corn, oil, and of every supply
      which could be useful either in peace or war. But it was thought
      that the Sarmatians were sufficiently rewarded by their
      deliverance from impending ruin; and the emperor, perhaps with
      too strict an economy, deducted some part of the expenses of the
      war from the customary gratifications which were allowed to that
      turbulent nation.

      44 (return) [ I may stand in need of some apology for having
      used, without scruple, the authority of Constantine
      Porphyrogenitus, in all that relates to the wars and negotiations
      of the Chersonites. I am aware that he was a Greek of the tenth
      century, and that his accounts of ancient history are frequently
      confused and fabulous. But on this occasion his narrative is, for
      the most part, consistent and probable nor is there much
      difficulty in conceiving that an emperor might have access to
      some secret archives, which had escaped the diligence of meaner
      historians. For the situation and history of Chersone, see
      Peyssonel, des Peuples barbares qui ont habite les Bords du
      Danube, c. xvi. 84-90. ——Gibbon has confounded the inhabitants of
      the city of Cherson, the ancient Chersonesus, with the people of
      the Chersonesus Taurica. If he had read with more attention the
      chapter of Constantius Porphyrogenitus, from which this narrative
      is derived, he would have seen that the author clearly
      distinguishes the republic of Cherson from the rest of the Tauric
      Peninsula, then possessed by the kings of the Cimmerian
      Bosphorus, and that the city of Cherson alone furnished succors
      to the Romans. The English historian is also mistaken in saying
      that the Stephanephoros of the Chersonites was a perpetual
      magistrate; since it is easy to discover from the great number of
      Stephanephoroi mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus, that
      they were annual magistrates, like almost all those which
      governed the Grecian republics. St. Martin, note to Le Beau i.
      326.—M.]

      Exasperated by this apparent neglect, the Sarmatians soon forgot,
      with the levity of barbarians, the services which they had so
      lately received, and the dangers which still threatened their
      safety. Their inroads on the territory of the empire provoked the
      indignation of Constantine to leave them to their fate; and he no
      longer opposed the ambition of Geberic, a renowned warrior, who
      had recently ascended the Gothic throne. Wisumar, the Vandal
      king, whilst alone, and unassisted, he defended his dominions
      with undaunted courage, was vanquished and slain in a decisive
      battle, which swept away the flower of the Sarmatian youth. 4411
      The remainder of the nation embraced the desperate expedient of
      arming their slaves, a hardy race of hunters and herdsmen, by
      whose tumultuary aid they revenged their defeat, and expelled the
      invader from their confines. But they soon discovered that they
      had exchanged a foreign for a domestic enemy, more dangerous and
      more implacable. Enraged by their former servitude, elated by
      their present glory, the slaves, under the name of Limigantes,
      claimed and usurped the possession of the country which they had
      saved. Their masters, unable to withstand the ungoverned fury of
      the populace, preferred the hardships of exile to the tyranny of
      their servants. Some of the fugitive Sarmatians solicited a less
      ignominious dependence, under the hostile standard of the Goths.
      A more numerous band retired beyond the Carpathian Mountains,
      among the Quadi, their German allies, and were easily admitted to
      share a superfluous waste of uncultivated land. But the far
      greater part of the distressed nation turned their eyes towards
      the fruitful provinces of Rome. Imploring the protection and
      forgiveness of the emperor, they solemnly promised, as subjects
      in peace, and as soldiers in war, the most inviolable fidelity to
      the empire which should graciously receive them into its bosom.
      According to the maxims adopted by Probus and his successors, the
      offers of this barbarian colony were eagerly accepted; and a
      competent portion of lands in the provinces of Pannonia, Thrace,
      Macedonia, and Italy, were immediately assigned for the
      habitation and subsistence of three hundred thousand Sarmatians.
      45 4511

      4411 (return) [ Gibbon supposes that this war took place because
      Constantine had deducted a part of the customary gratifications,
      granted by his predecessors to the Sarmatians. Nothing of this
      kind appears in the authors. We see, on the contrary, that after
      his victory, and to punish the Sarmatia is for the ravages they
      had committed, he withheld the sums which it had been the custom
      to bestow. St. Martin, note to Le Beau, i. 327.—M.]

      45 (return) [ The Gothic and Sarmatian wars are related in so
      broken and imperfect a manner, that I have been obliged to
      compare the following writers, who mutually supply, correct, and
      illustrate each other. Those who will take the same trouble, may
      acquire a right of criticizing my narrative. Ammianus, l. xvii.
      c. 12. Anonym. Valesian. p. 715. Eutropius, x. 7. Sextus Rufus de
      Provinciis, c. 26. Julian Orat. i. p. 9, and Spanheim, Comment.
      p. 94. Hieronym. in Chron. Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c.
      6. Socrates, l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. i. c. 8. Zosimus, l. ii. p.
      108. Jornandes de Reb. Geticis, c. 22. Isidorus in Chron. p. 709;
      in Hist. Gothorum Grotii. Constantin. Porphyrogenitus de
      Administrat. Imperii, c. 53, p. 208, edit. Meursii.]

      4511 (return) [ Compare, on this very obscure but remarkable war,
      Manso, Leben Coa xantius, p. 195—M.]

      By chastising the pride of the Goths, and by accepting the homage
      of a suppliant nation, Constantine asserted the majesty of the
      Roman empire; and the ambassadors of Æthiopia, Persia, and the
      most remote countries of India, congratulated the peace and
      prosperity of his government. 46 If he reckoned, among the favors
      of fortune, the death of his eldest son, of his nephew, and
      perhaps of his wife, he enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of private
      as well as public felicity, till the thirtieth year of his reign;
      a period which none of his predecessors, since Augustus, had been
      permitted to celebrate. Constantine survived that solemn festival
      about ten months; and at the mature age of sixty-four, after a
      short illness, he ended his memorable life at the palace of
      Aquyrion, in the suburbs of Nicomedia, whither he had retired for
      the benefit of the air, and with the hope of recruiting his
      exhausted strength by the use of the warm baths. The excessive
      demonstrations of grief, or at least of mourning, surpassed
      whatever had been practised on any former occasion.
      Notwithstanding the claims of the senate and people of ancient
      Rome, the corpse of the deceased emperor, according to his last
      request, was transported to the city, which was destined to
      preserve the name and memory of its founder. The body of
      Constantine adorned with the vain symbols of greatness, the
      purple and diadem, was deposited on a golden bed in one of the
      apartments of the palace, which for that purpose had been
      splendidly furnished and illuminated. The forms of the court were
      strictly maintained. Every day, at the appointed hours, the
      principal officers of the state, the army, and the household,
      approaching the person of their sovereign with bended knees and a
      composed countenance, offered their respectful homage as
      seriously as if he had been still alive. From motives of policy,
      this theatrical representation was for some time continued; nor
      could flattery neglect the opportunity of remarking that
      Constantine alone, by the peculiar indulgence of Heaven, had
      reigned after his death. 47

      46 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 50) remarks
      three circumstances relative to these Indians. 1. They came from
      the shores of the eastern ocean; a description which might be
      applied to the coast of China or Coromandel. 2. They presented
      shining gems, and unknown animals. 3. They protested their kings
      had erected statues to represent the supreme majesty of
      Constantine.]

      47 (return) [ Funus relatum in urbem sui nominis, quod sane P. R.
      ægerrime tulit. Aurelius Victor. Constantine prepared for himself
      a stately tomb in the church of the Holy Apostles. Euseb. l. iv.
      c. 60. The best, and indeed almost the only account of the
      sickness, death, and funeral of Constantine, is contained in the
      fourth book of his Life by Eusebius.]

      But this reign could subsist only in empty pageantry; and it was
      soon discovered that the will of the most absolute monarch is
      seldom obeyed, when his subjects have no longer anything to hope
      from his favor, or to dread from his resentment. The same
      ministers and generals, who bowed with such referential awe
      before the inanimate corpse of their deceased sovereign, were
      engaged in secret consultations to exclude his two nephews,
      Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, from the share which he had assigned
      them in the succession of the empire. We are too imperfectly
      acquainted with the court of Constantine to form any judgment of
      the real motives which influenced the leaders of the conspiracy;
      unless we should suppose that they were actuated by a spirit of
      jealousy and revenge against the præfect Ablavius, a proud
      favorite, who had long directed the counsels and abused the
      confidence of the late emperor. The arguments, by which they
      solicited the concurrence of the soldiers and people, are of a
      more obvious nature; and they might with decency, as well as
      truth, insist on the superior rank of the children of
      Constantine, the danger of multiplying the number of sovereigns,
      and the impending mischiefs which threatened the republic, from
      the discord of so many rival princes, who were not connected by
      the tender sympathy of fraternal affection. The intrigue was
      conducted with zeal and secrecy, till a loud and unanimous
      declaration was procured from the troops, that they would suffer
      none except the sons of their lamented monarch to reign over the
      Roman empire. 48 The younger Dalmatius, who was united with his
      collateral relations by the ties of friendship and interest, is
      allowed to have inherited a considerable share of the abilities
      of the great Constantine; but, on this occasion, he does not
      appear to have concerted any measure for supporting, by arms, the
      just claims which himself and his royal brother derived from the
      liberality of their uncle. Astonished and overwhelmed by the tide
      of popular fury, they seem to have remained, without the power of
      flight or of resistance, in the hands of their implacable
      enemies. Their fate was suspended till the arrival of
      Constantius, the second, and perhaps the most favored, of the
      sons of Constantine. 49

      48 (return) [ Eusebius (l. iv. c. 6) terminates his narrative by
      this loyal declaration of the troops, and avoids all the
      invidious circumstances of the subsequent massacre.]

      49 (return) [ The character of Dalmatius is advantageously,
      though concisely drawn by Eutropius. (x. 9.) Dalmatius Cæsar
      prosperrimâ indole, neque patrou absimilis, _haud multo_ post
      oppressus est factione militari. As both Jerom and the
      Alexandrian Chronicle mention the third year of the Cæsar, which
      did not commence till the 18th or 24th of September, A. D. 337,
      it is certain that these military factions continued above four
      months.]




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


      The voice of the dying emperor had recommended the care of his
      funeral to the piety of Constantius; and that prince, by the
      vicinity of his eastern station, could easily prevent the
      diligence of his brothers, who resided in their distant
      government of Italy and Gaul. As soon as he had taken possession
      of the palace of Constantinople, his first care was to remove the
      apprehensions of his kinsmen, by a solemn oath which he pledged
      for their security. His next employment was to find some specious
      pretence which might release his conscience from the obligation
      of an imprudent promise. The arts of fraud were made subservient
      to the designs of cruelty; and a manifest forgery was attested by
      a person of the most sacred character. From the hands of the
      Bishop of Nicomedia, Constantius received a fatal scroll,
      affirmed to be the genuine testament of his father; in which the
      emperor expressed his suspicions that he had been poisoned by his
      brothers; and conjured his sons to revenge his death, and to
      consult their own safety, by the punishment of the guilty. 50
      Whatever reasons might have been alleged by these unfortunate
      princes to defend their life and honor against so incredible an
      accusation, they were silenced by the furious clamors of the
      soldiers, who declared themselves, at once, their enemies, their
      judges, and their executioners. The spirit, and even the forms of
      legal proceedings were repeatedly violated in a promiscuous
      massacre; which involved the two uncles of Constantius, seven of
      his cousins, of whom Dalmatius and Hannibalianus were the most
      illustrious, the Patrician Optatus, who had married a sister of
      the late emperor, and the Præfect Ablavius, whose power and
      riches had inspired him with some hopes of obtaining the purple.
      If it were necessary to aggravate the horrors of this bloody
      scene, we might add, that Constantius himself had espoused the
      daughter of his uncle Julius, and that he had bestowed his sister
      in marriage on his cousin Hannibalianus. These alliances, which
      the policy of Constantine, regardless of the public prejudice, 51
      had formed between the several branches of the Imperial house,
      served only to convince mankind, that these princes were as cold
      to the endearments of conjugal affection, as they were insensible
      to the ties of consanguinity, and the moving entreaties of youth
      and innocence. Of so numerous a family, Gallus and Julian alone,
      the two youngest children of Julius Constantius, were saved from
      the hands of the assassins, till their rage, satiated with
      slaughter, had in some measure subsided. The emperor Constantius,
      who, in the absence of his brothers, was the most obnoxious to
      guilt and reproach, discovered, on some future occasions, a faint
      and transient remorse for those cruelties which the perfidious
      counsels of his ministers, and the irresistible violence of the
      troops, had extorted from his unexperienced youth. 52

      50 (return) [ I have related this singular anecdote on the
      authority of Philostorgius, l. ii. c. 16. But if such a pretext
      was ever used by Constantius and his adherents, it was laid aside
      with contempt, as soon as it served their immediate purpose.
      Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) mention the oath which Constantius
      had taken for the security of his kinsmen. ——The authority of
      Philostorgius is so suspicious, as not to be sufficient to
      establish this fact, which Gibbon has inserted in his history as
      certain, while in the note he appears to doubt it.—G.]

      51 (return) [ Conjugia sobrinarum diu ignorata, tempore addito
      percrebuisse. Tacit. Annal. xii. 6, and Lipsius ad loc. The
      repeal of the ancient law, and the practice of five hundred
      years, were insufficient to eradicate the prejudices of the
      Romans, who still considered the marriages of cousins-german as a
      species of imperfect incest. (Augustin de Civitate Dei, xv. 6;)
      and Julian, whose mind was biased by superstition and resentment,
      stigmatizes these unnatural alliances between his own cousins
      with the opprobrious epithet (Orat. vii. p. 228.). The
      jurisprudence of the canons has since received and enforced this
      prohibition, without being able to introduce it either into the
      civil or the common law of Europe. See on the subject of these
      marriages, Taylor’s Civil Law, p. 331. Brouer de Jure Connub. l.
      ii. c. 12. Hericourt des Loix Ecclésiastiques, part iii. c. 5.
      Fleury, Institutions du Droit Canonique, tom. i. p. 331. Paris,
      1767, and Fra Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Trident, l. viii.]

      52 (return) [ Julian (ad S. P.. Q. Athen. p. 270) charges his
      cousin Constantius with the whole guilt of a massacre, from which
      he himself so narrowly escaped. His assertion is confirmed by
      Athanasius, who, for reasons of a very different nature, was not
      less an enemy of Constantius, (tom. i. p. 856.) Zosimus joins in
      the same accusation. But the three abbreviators, Eutropius and
      the Victors, use very qualifying expressions: “sinente potius
      quam jubente;” “incertum quo suasore;” “vi militum.”]

      The massacre of the Flavian race was succeeded by a new division
      of the provinces; which was ratified in a personal interview of
      the three brothers. Constantine, the eldest of the Cæsars,
      obtained, with a certain preëminence of rank, the possession of
      the new capital, which bore his own name and that of his father.
      Thrace, and the countries of the East, were allotted for the
      patrimony of Constantius; and Constans was acknowledged as the
      lawful sovereign of Italy, Africa, and the Western Illyricum. The
      armies submitted to their hereditary right; and they
      condescended, after some delay, to accept from the Roman senate
      the title of _Augustus_. When they first assumed the reins of
      government, the eldest of these princes was twenty-one, the
      second twenty, and the third only seventeen, years of age. 53

      53 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 69. Zosimus,
      l. ii. p. 117. Idat. in Chron. See two notes of Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1086-1091. The reign of the eldest
      brother at Constantinople is noticed only in the Alexandrian
      Chronicle.]

      While the martial nations of Europe followed the standards of his
      brothers, Constantius, at the head of the effeminate troops of
      Asia, was left to sustain the weight of the Persian war. At the
      decease of Constantine, the throne of the East was filled by
      Sapor, son of Hormouz, or Hormisdas, and grandson of Narses, who,
      after the victory of Galerius, had humbly confessed the
      superiority of the Roman power. Although Sapor was in the
      thirtieth year of his long reign, he was still in the vigor of
      youth, as the date of his accession, by a very strange fatality,
      had preceded that of his birth. The wife of Hormouz remained
      pregnant at the time of her husband’s death; and the uncertainty
      of the sex, as well as of the event, excited the ambitious hopes
      of the princes of the house of Sassan. The apprehensions of civil
      war were at length removed, by the positive assurance of the
      Magi, that the widow of Hormouz had conceived, and would safely
      produce a son. Obedient to the voice of superstition, the
      Persians prepared, without delay, the ceremony of his coronation.

      A royal bed, on which the queen lay in state, was exhibited in
      the midst of the palace; the diadem was placed on the spot, which
      might be supposed to conceal the future heir of Artaxerxes, and
      the prostrate satraps adored the majesty of their invisible and
      insensible sovereign. 54 If any credit can be given to this
      marvellous tale, which seems, however, to be countenanced by the
      manners of the people, and by the extraordinary duration of his
      reign, we must admire not only the fortune, but the genius, of
      Sapor. In the soft, sequestered education of a Persian harem, the
      royal youth could discover the importance of exercising the vigor
      of his mind and body; and, by his personal merit, deserved a
      throne, on which he had been seated, while he was yet unconscious
      of the duties and temptations of absolute power. His minority was
      exposed to the almost inevitable calamities of domestic discord;
      his capital was surprised and plundered by Thair, a powerful king
      of Yemen, or Arabia; and the majesty of the royal family was
      degraded by the captivity of a princess, the sister of the
      deceased king. But as soon as Sapor attained the age of manhood,
      the presumptuous Thair, his nation, and his country, fell beneath
      the first effort of the young warrior; who used his victory with
      so judicious a mixture of rigor and clemency, that he obtained
      from the fears and gratitude of the Arabs the title of
      _Dhoulacnaf_, or protector of the nation. 55 5511

      54 (return) [ Agathias, who lived in the sixth century, is the
      author of this story, (l. iv. p. 135, edit. Louvre.) He derived
      his information from some extracts of the Persian Chronicles,
      obtained and translated by the interpreter Sergius, during his
      embassy at that country. The coronation of the mother of Sapor is
      likewise mentioned by Snikard, (Tarikh. p. 116,) and D’Herbelot
      (Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 703.) ——The author of the
      Zenut-ul-Tarikh states, that the lady herself affirmed her belief
      of this from the extraordinary liveliness of the infant, and its
      lying on the right side. Those who are sage on such subjects must
      determine what right she had to be positive from these symptoms.
      Malcolm, Hist. of Persia, i 83.—M.]

      55 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 764.]

      5511 (return) [ Gibbon, according to Sir J. Malcolm, has greatly
      mistaken the derivation of this name; it means Zoolaktaf, the
      Lord of the Shoulders, from his directing the shoulders of his
      captives to be pierced and then dislocated by a string passed
      through them. Eastern authors are agreed with respect to the
      origin of this title. Malcolm, i. 84. Gibbon took his derivation
      from D’Herbelot, who gives both, the latter on the authority of
      the Leb. Tarikh.—M.]

      The ambition of the Persian, to whom his enemies ascribe the
      virtues of a soldier and a statesman, was animated by the desire
      of revenging the disgrace of his fathers, and of wresting from
      the hands of the Romans the five provinces beyond the Tigris. The
      military fame of Constantine, and the real or apparent strength
      of his government, suspended the attack; and while the hostile
      conduct of Sapor provoked the resentment, his artful negotiations
      amused the patience of the Imperial court. The death of
      Constantine was the signal of war, 56 and the actual condition of
      the Syrian and Armenian frontier seemed to encourage the Persians
      by the prospect of a rich spoil and an easy conquest. The example
      of the massacres of the palace diffused a spirit of
      licentiousness and sedition among the troops of the East, who
      were no longer restrained by their habits of obedience to a
      veteran commander. By the prudence of Constantius, who, from the
      interview with his brothers in Pannonia, immediately hastened to
      the banks of the Euphrates, the legions were gradually restored
      to a sense of duty and discipline; but the season of anarchy had
      permitted Sapor to form the siege of Nisibis, and to occupy
      several of the mo st important fortresses of Mesopotamia. 57 In
      Armenia, the renowned Tiridates had long enjoyed the peace and
      glory which he deserved by his valor and fidelity to the cause of
      Rome. 5711 The firm alliance which he maintained with Constantine
      was productive of spiritual as well as of temporal benefits; by
      the conversion of Tiridates, the character of a saint was applied
      to that of a hero, the Christian faith was preached and
      established from the Euphrates to the shores of the Caspian, and
      Armenia was attached to the empire by the double ties of policy
      and religion. But as many of the Armenian nobles still refused to
      abandon the plurality of their gods and of their wives, the
      public tranquillity was disturbed by a discontented faction,
      which insulted the feeble age of their sovereign, and impatiently
      expected the hour of his death. He died at length after a reign
      of fifty-six years, and the fortune of the Armenian monarchy
      expired with Tiridates. His lawful heir was driven into exile,
      the Christian priests were either murdered or expelled from their
      churches, the barbarous tribes of Albania were solicited to
      descend from their mountains; and two of the most powerful
      governors, usurping the ensigns or the powers of royalty,
      implored the assistance of Sapor, and opened the gates of their
      cities to the Persian garrisons. The Christian party, under the
      guidance of the Archbishop of Artaxata, the immediate successor
      of St. Gregory the Illuminator, had recourse to the piety of
      Constantius. After the troubles had continued about three years,
      Antiochus, one of the officers of the household, executed with
      success the Imperial commission of restoring Chosroes, 5712 the
      son of Tiridates, to the throne of his fathers, of distributing
      honors and rewards among the faithful servants of the house of
      Arsaces, and of proclaiming a general amnesty, which was accepted
      by the greater part of the rebellious satraps. But the Romans
      derived more honor than advantage from this revolution. Chosroes
      was a prince of a puny stature and a pusillanimous spirit.
      Unequal to the fatigues of war, averse to the society of mankind,
      he withdrew from his capital to a retired palace, which he built
      on the banks of the River Eleutherus, and in the centre of a
      shady grove; where he consumed his vacant hours in the rural
      sports of hunting and hawking. To secure this inglorious ease, he
      submitted to the conditions of peace which Sapor condescended to
      impose; the payment of an annual tribute, and the restitution of
      the fertile province of Atropatene, which the courage of
      Tiridates, and the victorious arms of Galerius, had annexed to
      the Armenian monarchy. 58 5811

      56 (return) [ Sextus Rufus, (c. 26,) who on this occasion is no
      contemptible authority, affirms, that the Persians sued in vain
      for peace, and that Constantine was preparing to march against
      them: yet the superior weight of the testimony of Eusebius
      obliges us to admit the preliminaries, if not the ratification,
      of the treaty. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
      420. ——Constantine had endeavored to allay the fury of the
      prosecutions, which, at the instigation of the Magi and the Jews,
      Sapor had commenced against the Christians. Euseb Vit. Hist.
      Theod. i. 25. Sozom. ii. c. 8, 15.—M.]

      57 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 20.]

      5711 (return) [ Tiridates had sustained a war against Maximin.
      caused by the hatred of the latter against Christianity. Armenia
      was the first _nation_ which embraced Christianity. About the
      year 276 it was the religion of the king, the nobles, and the
      people of Armenia. From St. Martin, Supplement to Le Beau, v. i.
      p. 78.——Compare Preface to History of Vartan by Professor
      Neumann, p ix.—M.]

      5712 (return) [ Chosroes was restored probably by Licinius,
      between 314 and 319. There was an Antiochus who was præfectus
      vigilum at Rome, as appears from the Theodosian Code, (l. iii. de
      inf. his quæ sub ty.,) in 326, and from a fragment of the same
      work published by M. Amedee Peyron, in 319. He may before this
      have been sent into Armenia. St. M. p. 407. [Is it not more
      probable that Antiochus was an officer in the service of the
      Cæsar who ruled in the East?—M.] Chosroes was succeeded in the
      year 322 by his son Diran. Diran was a weak prince, and in the
      sixteenth year of his reign. A. D. 337. was betrayed into the
      power of the Persians by the treachery of his chamberlain and the
      Persian governor of Atropatene or Aderbidjan. He was blinded: his
      wife and his son Arsaces shared his captivity, but the princes
      and nobles of Armenia claimed the protection of Rome; and this
      was the cause of Constantine’s declaration of war against the
      Persians.—The king of Persia attempted to make himself master of
      Armenia; but the brave resistance of the people, the advance of
      Constantius, and a defeat which his army suffered at Oskha in
      Armenia, and the failure before Nisibis, forced Shahpour to
      submit to terms of peace. Varaz-Shahpour, the perfidious governor
      of Atropatene, was flayed alive; Diran and his son were released
      from captivity; Diran refused to ascend the throne, and retired
      to an obscure retreat: his son Arsaces was crowned king of
      Armenia. Arsaces pursued a vacillating policy between the
      influence of Rome and Persia, and the war recommenced in the year
      345. At least, that was the period of the expedition of
      Constantius to the East. See St. Martin, additions to Le Beau, i.
      442. The Persians have made an extraordinary romance out of the
      history of Shahpour, who went as a spy to Constantinople, was
      taken, harnessed like a horse, and carried to witness the
      devastation of his kingdom. Malcolm. 84—M.]

      58 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 20, 21. Moses of Chorene, l.
      ii. c. 89, l. iii. c. 1—9, p. 226—240. The perfect agreement
      between the vague hints of the contemporary orator, and the
      circumstantial narrative of the national historian, gives light
      to the former, and weight to the latter. For the credit of Moses,
      it may be likewise observed, that the name of Antiochus is found
      a few years before in a civil office of inferior dignity. See
      Godefroy, Cod. Theod. tom. vi. p. 350.]

      5811 (return) [ Gibbon has endeavored, in his History, to make
      use of the information furnished by Moses of Chorene, the only
      Armenian historian then translated into Latin. Gibbon has not
      perceived all the chronological difficulties which occur in the
      narrative of that writer. He has not thought of all the critical
      discussions which his text ought to undergo before it can be
      combined with the relations of the western writers. From want of
      this attention, Gibbon has made the facts which he has drawn from
      this source more erroneous than they are in the original. This
      judgment applies to all which the English historian has derived
      from the Armenian author. I have made the History of Moses a
      subject of particular attention; and it is with confidence that I
      offer the results, which I insert here, and which will appear in
      the course of my notes. In order to form a judgment of the
      difference which exists between me and Gibbon, I will content
      myself with remarking, that throughout he has committed an
      anachronism of thirty years, from whence it follows, that he
      assigns to the reign of Constantius many events which took place
      during that of Constantine. He could not, therefore, discern the
      true connection which exists between the Roman history and that
      of Armenia, or form a correct notion of the reasons which induced
      Constantine, at the close of his life, to make war upon the
      Persians, or of the motives which detained Constantius so long in
      the East; he does not even mention them. St. Martin, note on Le
      Beau, i. 406. I have inserted M. St. Martin’s observations, but I
      must add, that the chronology which he proposes, is not generally
      received by Armenian scholars, not, I believe, by Professor
      Neumann.—M.]

      During the long period of the reign of Constantius, the provinces
      of the East were afflicted by the calamities of the Persian war.
      5813 The irregular incursions of the light troops alternately
      spread terror and devastation beyond the Tigris and beyond the
      Euphrates, from the gates of Ctesiphon to those of Antioch; and
      this active service was performed by the Arabs of the desert, who
      were divided in their interest and affections; some of their
      independent chiefs being enlisted in the party of Sapor, whilst
      others had engaged their doubtful fidelity to the emperor. 59 The
      more grave and important operations of the war were conducted
      with equal vigor; and the armies of Rome and Persia encountered
      each other in nine bloody fields, in two of which Constantius
      himself commanded in person. 60 The event of the day was most
      commonly adverse to the Romans, but in the battle of Singara,
      their imprudent valor had almost achieved a signal and decisive
      victory. The stationary troops of Singara 6011 retired on the
      approach of Sapor, who passed the Tigris over three bridges, and
      occupied near the village of Hilleh an advantageous camp, which,
      by the labor of his numerous pioneers, he surrounded in one day
      with a deep ditch and a lofty rampart. His formidable host, when
      it was drawn out in order of battle, covered the banks of the
      river, the adjacent heights, and the whole extent of a plain of
      above twelve miles, which separated the two armies. Both were
      alike impatient to engage; but the Barbarians, after a slight
      resistance, fled in disorder; unable to resist, or desirous to
      weary, the strength of the heavy legions, who, fainting with heat
      and thirst, pursued them across the plain, and cut in pieces a
      line of cavalry, clothed in complete armor, which had been posted
      before the gates of the camp to protect their retreat.
      Constantius, who was hurried along in the pursuit, attempted,
      without effect, to restrain the ardor of his troops, by
      representing to them the dangers of the approaching night, and
      the certainty of completing their success with the return of day.
      As they depended much more on their own valor than on the
      experience or the abilities of their chief, they silenced by
      their clamors his timid remonstrances; and rushing with fury to
      the charge, filled up the ditch, broke down the rampart, and
      dispersed themselves through the tents to recruit their exhausted
      strength, and to enjoy the rich harvest of their labors. But the
      prudent Sapor had watched the moment of victory. His army, of
      which the greater part, securely posted on the heights, had been
      spectators of the action, advanced in silence, and under the
      shadow of the night; and his Persian archers, guided by the
      illumination of the camp, poured a shower of arrows on a disarmed
      and licentious crowd. The sincerity of history 61 declares, that
      the Romans were vanquished with a dreadful slaughter, and that
      the flying remnant of the legions was exposed to the most
      intolerable hardships. Even the tenderness of panegyric,
      confessing that the glory of the emperor was sullied by the
      disobedience of his soldiers, chooses to draw a veil over the
      circumstances of this melancholy retreat. Yet one of those venal
      orators, so jealous of the fame of Constantius, relates, with
      amazing coolness, an act of such incredible cruelty, as, in the
      judgment of posterity, must imprint a far deeper stain on the
      honor of the Imperial name. The son of Sapor, the heir of his
      crown, had been made a captive in the Persian camp. The unhappy
      youth, who might have excited the compassion of the most savage
      enemy, was scourged, tortured, and publicly executed by the
      inhuman Romans. 62

      5813 (return) [ It was during this war that a bold flatterer
      (whose name is unknown) published the Itineraries of Alexander
      and Trajan, in order to direct the _victorious_ Constantius in
      the footsteps of those great conquerors of the East. The former
      of these has been published for the first time by M. Angelo Mai
      (Milan, 1817, reprinted at Frankfort, 1818.) It adds so little to
      our knowledge of Alexander’s campaigns, that it only excites our
      regret that it is not the Itinerary of Trajan, of whose eastern
      victories we have no distinct record—M]

      59 (return) [ Ammianus (xiv. 4) gives a lively description of the
      wandering and predatory life of the Saracens, who stretched from
      the confines of Assyria to the cataracts of the Nile. It appears
      from the adventures of Malchus, which Jerom has related in so
      entertaining a manner, that the high road between Beræa and
      Edessa was infested by these robbers. See Hieronym. tom. i. p.
      256.]

      60 (return) [ We shall take from Eutropius the general idea of
      the war. A Persis enim multa et gravia perpessus, sæpe captis,
      oppidis, obsessis urbibus, cæsis exercitibus, nullumque ei contra
      Saporem prosperum prælium fuit, nisi quod apud Singaram, &c. This
      honest account is confirmed by the hints of Ammianus, Rufus, and
      Jerom. The two first orations of Julian, and the third oration of
      Libanius, exhibit a more flattering picture; but the recantation
      of both those orators, after the death of Constantius, while it
      restores us to the possession of the truth, degrades their own
      character, and that of the emperor. The Commentary of Spanheim on
      the first oration of Julian is profusely learned. See likewise
      the judicious observations of Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. iv. p. 656.]

      6011 (return) [ Now Sinjar, or the River Claboras.—M.]

      61 (return) [ Acerrimâ nocturnâ concertatione pugnatum est,
      nostrorum copiis ngenti strage confossis. Ammian. xviii. 5. See
      likewise Eutropius, x. 10, and S. Rufus, c. 27. ——The Persian
      historians, or romancers, do not mention the battle of Singara,
      but make the captive Shahpour escape, defeat, and take prisoner,
      the Roman emperor. The Roman captives were forced to repair all
      the ravages they had committed, even to replanting the smallest
      trees. Malcolm. i. 82.—M.]

      62 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. iii. p. 133, with Julian. Orat. i.
      p. 24, and Spanneism’s Commentary, p. 179.]

      Whatever advantages might attend the arms of Sapor in the field,
      though nine repeated victories diffused among the nations the
      fame of his valor and conduct, he could not hope to succeed in
      the execution of his designs, while the fortified towns of
      Mesopotamia, and, above all, the strong and ancient city of
      Nisibis, remained in the possession of the Romans. In the space
      of twelve years, Nisibis, which, since the time of Lucullus, had
      been deservedly esteemed the bulwark of the East, sustained three
      memorable sieges against the power of Sapor; and the disappointed
      monarch, after urging his attacks above sixty, eighty, and a
      hundred days, was thrice repulsed with loss and ignominy. 63 This
      large and populous city was situate about two days’ journey from
      the Tigris, in the midst of a pleasant and fertile plain at the
      foot of Mount Masius. A treble enclosure of brick walls was
      defended by a deep ditch; 64 and the intrepid resistance of Count
      Lucilianus, and his garrison, was seconded by the desperate
      courage of the people. The citizens of Nisibis were animated by
      the exhortations of their bishop, 65 inured to arms by the
      presence of danger, and convinced of the intentions of Sapor to
      plant a Persian colony in their room, and to lead them away into
      distant and barbarous captivity. The event of the two former
      sieges elated their confidence, and exasperated the haughty
      spirit of the Great King, who advanced a third time towards
      Nisibis, at the head of the united forces of Persia and India.
      The ordinary machines, invented to batter or undermine the walls,
      were rendered ineffectual by the superior skill of the Romans;
      and many days had vainly elapsed, when Sapor embraced a
      resolution worthy of an eastern monarch, who believed that the
      elements themselves were subject to his power. At the stated
      season of the melting of the snows in Armenia, the River
      Mygdonius, which divides the plain and the city of Nisibis,
      forms, like the Nile, 66 an inundation over the adjacent country.
      By the labor of the Persians, the course of the river was stopped
      below the town, and the waters were confined on every side by
      solid mounds of earth. On this artificial lake, a fleet of armed
      vessels filled with soldiers, and with engines which discharged
      stones of five hundred pounds weight, advanced in order of
      battle, and engaged, almost upon a level, the troops which
      defended the ramparts. 6611 The irresistible force of the waters
      was alternately fatal to the contending parties, till at length a
      portion of the walls, unable to sustain the accumulated pressure,
      gave way at once, and exposed an ample breach of one hundred and
      fifty feet. The Persians were instantly driven to the assault,
      and the fate of Nisibis depended on the event of the day. The
      heavy-armed cavalry, who led the van of a deep column, were
      embarrassed in the mud, and great numbers were drowned in the
      unseen holes which had been filled by the rushing waters. The
      elephants, made furious by their wounds, increased the disorder,
      and trampled down thousands of the Persian archers. The Great
      King, who, from an exalted throne, beheld the misfortunes of his
      arms, sounded, with reluctant indignation, the signal of the
      retreat, and suspended for some hours the prosecution of the
      attack. But the vigilant citizens improved the opportunity of the
      night; and the return of day discovered a new wall of six feet in
      height, rising every moment to fill up the interval of the
      breach. Notwithstanding the disappointment of his hopes, and the
      loss of more than twenty thousand men, Sapor still pressed the
      reduction of Nisibis, with an obstinate firmness, which could
      have yielded only to the necessity of defending the eastern
      provinces of Persia against a formidable invasion of the
      Massagetæ. 67 Alarmed by this intelligence, he hastily
      relinquished the siege, and marched with rapid diligence from the
      banks of the Tigris to those of the Oxus. The danger and
      difficulties of the Scythian war engaged him soon afterwards to
      conclude, or at least to observe, a truce with the Roman emperor,
      which was equally grateful to both princes; as Constantius
      himself, after the death of his two brothers, was involved, by
      the revolutions of the West, in a civil contest, which required
      and seemed to exceed the most vigorous exertion of his undivided
      strength.

      63 (return) [ See Julian. Orat. i. p. 27, Orat. ii. p. 62, &c.,
      with the Commentary of Spanheim, (p. 188-202,) who illustrates
      the circumstances, and ascertains the time of the three sieges of
      Nisibis. Their dates are likewise examined by Tillemont, (Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 668, 671, 674.) Something is added
      from Zosimus, l. iii. p. 151, and the Alexandrine Chronicle, p.
      290.]

      64 (return) [ Sallust. Fragment. lxxxiv. edit. Brosses, and
      Plutarch in Lucull. tom. iii. p. 184. Nisibis is now reduced to
      one hundred and fifty houses: the marshy lands produce rice, and
      the fertile meadows, as far as Mosul and the Tigris, are covered
      with the ruins of towns and allages. See Niebuhr, Voyages, tom.
      ii. p. 300-309.]

      65 (return) [ The miracles which Theodoret (l. ii. c. 30)
      ascribes to St. James, Bishop of Edessa, were at least performed
      in a worthy cause, the defence of his couutry. He appeared on the
      walls under the figure of the Roman emperor, and sent an army of
      gnats to sting the trunks of the elephants, and to discomfit the
      host of the new Sennacherib.]

      66 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 27. Though Niebuhr (tom. ii. p.
      307) allows a very considerable swell to the Mygdonius, over
      which he saw a bridge of _twelve_ arches: it is difficult,
      however, to understand this parallel of a trifling rivulet with a
      mighty river. There are many circumstances obscure, and almost
      unintelligible, in the description of these stupendous
      water-works.]

      6611 (return) [ Macdonald Kinnier observes on these floating
      batteries, “As the elevation of place is considerably above the
      level of the country in its immediate vicinity, and the Mygdonius
      is a very insignificant stream, it is difficult to imagine how
      this work could have been accomplished, even with the wonderful
      resources which the king must have had at his disposal”
      Geographical Memoir. p. 262.—M.]

      67 (return) [ We are obliged to Zonaras (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 11)
      for this invasion of the Massagetæ, which is perfectly consistent
      with the general series of events to which we are darkly led by
      the broken history of Ammianus.]

      After the partition of the empire, three years had scarcely
      elapsed before the sons of Constantine seemed impatient to
      convince mankind that they were incapable of contenting
      themselves with the dominions which they were unqualified to
      govern. The eldest of those princes soon complained, that he was
      defrauded of his just proportion of the spoils of their murdered
      kinsmen; and though he might yield to the superior guilt and
      merit of Constantius, he exacted from Constans the cession of the
      African provinces, as an equivalent for the rich countries of
      Macedonia and Greece, which his brother had acquired by the death
      of Dalmatius. The want of sincerity, which Constantine
      experienced in a tedious and fruitless negotiation, exasperated
      the fierceness of his temper; and he eagerly listened to those
      favorites, who suggested to him that his honor, as well as his
      interest, was concerned in the prosecution of the quarrel. At the
      head of a tumultuary band, suited for rapine rather than for
      conquest, he suddenly broke onto the dominions of Constans, by
      the way of the Julian Alps, and the country round Aquileia felt
      the first effects of his resentment. The measures of Constans,
      who then resided in Dacia, were directed with more prudence and
      ability. On the news of his brother’s invasion, he detached a
      select and disciplined body of his Illyrian troops, proposing to
      follow them in person, with the remainder of his forces. But the
      conduct of his lieutenants soon terminated the unnatural contest.

      By the artful appearances of flight, Constantine was betrayed
      into an ambuscade, which had been concealed in a wood, where the
      rash youth, with a few attendants, was surprised, surrounded, and
      slain. His body, after it had been found in the obscure stream of
      the Alsa, obtained the honors of an Imperial sepulchre; but his
      provinces transferred their allegiance to the conqueror, who,
      refusing to admit his elder brother Constantius to any share in
      these new acquisitions, maintained the undisputed possession of
      more than two thirds of the Roman empire. 68

      68 (return) [ The causes and the events of this civil war are
      related with much perplexity and contradiction. I have chiefly
      followed Zonaras and the younger Victor. The monody (ad Calcem
      Eutrop. edit. Havercamp.) pronounced on the death of Constantine,
      might have been very instructive; but prudence and false taste
      engaged the orator to involve himself in vague declamation.]




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


      The fate of Constans himself was delayed about ten years longer,
      and the revenge of his brother’s death was reserved for the more
      ignoble hand of a domestic traitor. The pernicious tendency of
      the system introduced by Constantine was displayed in the feeble
      administration of his sons; who, by their vices and weakness,
      soon lost the esteem and affections of their people. The pride
      assumed by Constans, from the unmerited success of his arms, was
      rendered more contemptible by his want of abilities and
      application. His fond partiality towards some German captives,
      distinguished only by the charms of youth, was an object of
      scandal to the people; 69 and Magnentius, an ambitious soldier,
      who was himself of Barbarian extraction, was encouraged by the
      public discontent to assert the honor of the Roman name. 70 The
      chosen bands of Jovians and Herculians, who acknowledged
      Magnentius as their leader, maintained the most respectable and
      important station in the Imperial camp. The friendship of
      Marcellinus, count of the sacred largesses, supplied with a
      liberal hand the means of seduction. The soldiers were convinced
      by the most specious arguments, that the republic summoned them
      to break the bonds of hereditary servitude; and, by the choice of
      an active and vigilant prince, to reward the same virtues which
      had raised the ancestors of the degenerate Constans from a
      private condition to the throne of the world. As soon as the
      conspiracy was ripe for execution, Marcellinus, under the
      pretence of celebrating his son’s birthday, gave a splendid
      entertainment to the _illustrious_ and _honorable_ persons of the
      court of Gaul, which then resided in the city of Autun. The
      intemperance of the feast was artfully protracted till a very
      late hour of the night; and the unsuspecting guests were tempted
      to indulge themselves in a dangerous and guilty freedom of
      conversation. On a sudden the doors were thrown open, and
      Magnentius, who had retired for a few moments, returned into the
      apartment, invested with the diadem and purple. The conspirators
      instantly saluted him with the titles of Augustus and Emperor.
      The surprise, the terror, the intoxication, the ambitious hopes,
      and the mutual ignorance of the rest of the assembly, prompted
      them to join their voices to the general acclamation. The guards
      hastened to take the oath of fidelity; the gates of the town were
      shut; and before the dawn of day, Magnentius became master of the
      troops and treasure of the palace and city of Autun. By his
      secrecy and diligence he entertained some hopes of surprising the
      person of Constans, who was pursuing in the adjacent forest his
      favorite amusement of hunting, or perhaps some pleasures of a
      more private and criminal nature. The rapid progress of fame
      allowed him, however, an instant for flight, though the desertion
      of his soldiers and subjects deprived him of the power of
      resistance. Before he could reach a seaport in Spain, where he
      intended to embark, he was overtaken near Helena, 71 at the foot
      of the Pyrenees, by a party of light cavalry, whose chief,
      regardless of the sanctity of a temple, executed his commission
      by the murder of the son of Constantine. 72

      69 (return) [ Quarum (_gentium_) obsides pretio quæsitos pueros
      venustiore quod cultius habuerat libidine hujusmodi arsisse _pro
      certo_ habet. Had not the depraved taste of Constans been
      publicly avowed, the elder Victor, who held a considerable office
      in his brother’s reign, would not have asserted it in such
      positive terms.]

      70 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. and ii. Zosim. l. ii. p. 134.
      Victor in Epitome. There is reason to believe that Magnentius was
      born in one of those Barbarian colonies which Constantius Chlorus
      had established in Gaul, (see this History, vol. i. p. 414.) His
      behavior may remind us of the patriot earl of Leicester, the
      famous Simon de Montfort, who could persuade the good people of
      England, that he, a Frenchman by birth had taken arms to deliver
      them from foreign favorites.]

      71 (return) [ This ancient city had once flourished under the
      name of Illiberis (Pomponius Mela, ii. 5.) The munificence of
      Constantine gave it new splendor, and his mother’s name. Helena
      (it is still called Elne) became the seat of a bishop, who long
      afterwards transferred his residence to Perpignan, the capital of
      modern Rousillon. See D’Anville. Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p.
      380. Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 223, and the Marca
      Hispanica, l. i. c. 2.]

      72 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 119, 120. Zonaras, tom. ii. l.
      xiii. p. 13, and the Abbreviators.]

      As soon as the death of Constans had decided this easy but
      important revolution, the example of the court of Autun was
      imitated by the provinces of the West. The authority of
      Magnentius was acknowledged through the whole extent of the two
      great præfectures of Gaul and Italy; and the usurper prepared, by
      every act of oppression, to collect a treasure, which might
      discharge the obligation of an immense donative, and supply the
      expenses of a civil war. The martial countries of Illyricum, from
      the Danube to the extremity of Greece, had long obeyed the
      government of Vetranio, an aged general, beloved for the
      simplicity of his manners, and who had acquired some reputation
      by his experience and services in war. 73 Attached by habit, by
      duty, and by gratitude, to the house of Constantine, he
      immediately gave the strongest assurances to the only surviving
      son of his late master, that he would expose, with unshaken
      fidelity, his person and his troops, to inflict a just revenge on
      the traitors of Gaul. But the legions of Vetranio were seduced,
      rather than provoked, by the example of rebellion; their leader
      soon betrayed a want of firmness, or a want of sincerity; and his
      ambition derived a specious pretence from the approbation of the
      princess Constantina. That cruel and aspiring woman, who had
      obtained from the great Constantine, her father, the rank of
      _Augusta_, placed the diadem with her own hands on the head of
      the Illyrian general; and seemed to expect from his victory the
      accomplishment of those unbounded hopes, of which she had been
      disappointed by the death of her husband Hannibalianus. Perhaps
      it was without the consent of Constantina, that the new emperor
      formed a necessary, though dishonorable, alliance with the
      usurper of the West, whose purple was so recently stained with
      her brother’s blood. 74

      73 (return) [ Eutropius (x. 10) describes Vetranio with more
      temper, and probably with more truth, than either of the two
      Victors. Vetranio was born of obscure parents in the wildest
      parts of Mæsia; and so much had his education been neglected,
      that, after his elevation, he studied the alphabet.]

      74 (return) [ The doubtful, fluctuating conduct of Vetranio is
      described by Julian in his first oration, and accurately
      explained by Spanheim, who discusses the situation and behavior
      of Constantina.]

      The intelligence of these important events, which so deeply
      affected the honor and safety of the Imperial house, recalled the
      arms of Constantius from the inglorious prosecution of the
      Persian war. He recommended the care of the East to his
      lieutenants, and afterwards to his cousin Gallus, whom he raised
      from a prison to a throne; and marched towards Europe, with a
      mind agitated by the conflict of hope and fear, of grief and
      indignation. On his arrival at Heraclea in Thrace, the emperor
      gave audience to the ambassadors of Magnentius and Vetranio. The
      first author of the conspiracy Marcellinus, who in some measure
      had bestowed the purple on his new master, boldly accepted this
      dangerous commission; and his three colleagues were selected from
      the illustrious personages of the state and army. These deputies
      were instructed to soothe the resentment, and to alarm the fears,
      of Constantius. They were empowered to offer him the friendship
      and alliance of the western princes, to cement their union by a
      double marriage; of Constantius with the daughter of Magnentius,
      and of Magnentius himself with the ambitious Constantina; and to
      acknowledge in the treaty the preëminence of rank, which might
      justly be claimed by the emperor of the East. Should pride and
      mistaken piety urge him to refuse these equitable conditions, the
      ambassadors were ordered to expatiate on the inevitable ruin
      which must attend his rashness, if he ventured to provoke the
      sovereigns of the West to exert their superior strength; and to
      employ against him that valor, those abilities, and those
      legions, to which the house of Constantine had been indebted for
      so many triumphs. Such propositions and such arguments appeared
      to deserve the most serious attention; the answer of Constantius
      was deferred till the next day; and as he had reflected on the
      importance of justifying a civil war in the opinion of the
      people, he thus addressed his council, who listened with real or
      affected credulity: “Last night,” said he, “after I retired to
      rest, the shade of the great Constantine, embracing the corpse of
      my murdered brother, rose before my eyes; his well-known voice
      awakened me to revenge, forbade me to despair of the republic,
      and assured me of the success and immortal glory which would
      crown the justice of my arms.” The authority of such a vision, or
      rather of the prince who alleged it, silenced every doubt, and
      excluded all negotiation. The ignominious terms of peace were
      rejected with disdain. One of the ambassadors of the tyrant was
      dismissed with the haughty answer of Constantius; his colleagues,
      as unworthy of the privileges of the law of nations, were put in
      irons; and the contending powers prepared to wage an implacable
      war. 75

      75 (return) [ See Peter the Patrician, in the Excerpta Legationem
      p. 27.]

      Such was the conduct, and such perhaps was the duty, of the
      brother of Constans towards the perfidious usurper of Gaul. The
      situation and character of Vetranio admitted of milder measures;
      and the policy of the Eastern emperor was directed to disunite
      his antagonists, and to separate the forces of Illyricum from the
      cause of rebellion. It was an easy task to deceive the frankness
      and simplicity of Vetranio, who, fluctuating some time between
      the opposite views of honor and interest, displayed to the world
      the insincerity of his temper, and was insensibly engaged in the
      snares of an artful negotiation. Constantius acknowledged him as
      a legitimate and equal colleague in the empire, on condition that
      he would renounce his disgraceful alliance with Magnentius, and
      appoint a place of interview on the frontiers of their respective
      provinces; where they might pledge their friendship by mutual
      vows of fidelity, and regulate by common consent the future
      operations of the civil war. In consequence of this agreement,
      Vetranio advanced to the city of Sardica, 76 at the head of
      twenty thousand horse, and of a more numerous body of infantry; a
      power so far superior to the forces of Constantius, that the
      Illyrian emperor appeared to command the life and fortunes of his
      rival, who, depending on the success of his private negotiations,
      had seduced the troops, and undermined the throne, of Vetranio.
      The chiefs, who had secretly embraced the party of Constantius,
      prepared in his favor a public spectacle, calculated to discover
      and inflame the passions of the multitude. 77 The united armies
      were commanded to assemble in a large plain near the city. In the
      centre, according to the rules of ancient discipline, a military
      tribunal, or rather scaffold, was erected, from whence the
      emperors were accustomed, on solemn and important occasions, to
      harangue the troops. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and
      Barbarians, with drawn swords, or with erected spears, the
      squadrons of cavalry, and the cohorts of infantry, distinguished
      by the variety of their arms and ensigns, formed an immense
      circle round the tribunal; and the attentive silence which they
      preserved was sometimes interrupted by loud bursts of clamor or
      of applause. In the presence of this formidable assembly, the two
      emperors were called upon to explain the situation of public
      affairs: the precedency of rank was yielded to the royal birth of
      Constantius; and though he was indifferently skilled in the arts
      of rhetoric, he acquitted himself, under these difficult
      circumstances, with firmness, dexterity, and eloquence. The first
      part of his oration seemed to be pointed only against the tyrant
      of Gaul; but while he tragically lamented the cruel murder of
      Constans, he insinuated, that none, except a brother, could claim
      a right to the succession of his brother. He displayed, with some
      complacency, the glories of his Imperial race; and recalled to
      the memory of the troops the valor, the triumphs, the liberality
      of the great Constantine, to whose sons they had engaged their
      allegiance by an oath of fidelity, which the ingratitude of his
      most favored servants had tempted them to violate. The officers,
      who surrounded the tribunal, and were instructed to act their
      part in this extraordinary scene, confessed the irresistible
      power of reason and eloquence, by saluting the emperor
      Constantius as their lawful sovereign. The contagion of loyalty
      and repentance was communicated from rank to rank; till the plain
      of Sardica resounded with the universal acclamation of “Away with
      these upstart usurpers! Long life and victory to the son of
      Constantine! Under his banners alone we will fight and conquer.”
      The shout of thousands, their menacing gestures, the fierce
      clashing of their arms, astonished and subdued the courage of
      Vetranio, who stood, amidst the defection of his followers, in
      anxious and silent suspense. Instead of embracing the last refuge
      of generous despair, he tamely submitted to his fate; and taking
      the diadem from his head, in the view of both armies fell
      prostrate at the feet of his conqueror. Constantius used his
      victory with prudence and moderation; and raising from the ground
      the aged suppliant, whom he affected to style by the endearing
      name of Father, he gave him his hand to descend from the throne.
      The city of Prusa was assigned for the exile or retirement of the
      abdicated monarch, who lived six years in the enjoyment of ease
      and affluence. He often expressed his grateful sense of the
      goodness of Constantius, and, with a very amiable simplicity,
      advised his benefactor to resign the sceptre of the world, and to
      seek for content (where alone it could be found) in the peaceful
      obscurity of a private condition. 78

      76 (return) [ Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 16. The position of
      Sardica, near the modern city of Sophia, appears better suited to
      this interview than the situation of either Naissus or Sirmium,
      where it is placed by Jerom, Socrates, and Sozomen.]

      77 (return) [ See the two first orations of Julian, particularly
      p. 31; and Zosimus, l. ii. p. 122. The distinct narrative of the
      historian serves to illustrate the diffuse but vague descriptions
      of the orator.]

      78 (return) [ The younger Victor assigns to his exile the
      emphatical appellation of “Voluptarium otium.” Socrates (l. ii.
      c. 28) is the voucher for the correspondence with the emperor,
      which would seem to prove that Vetranio was indeed, prope ad
      stultitiam simplicissimus.]

      The behavior of Constantius on this memorable occasion was
      celebrated with some appearance of justice; and his courtiers
      compared the studied orations which a Pericles or a Demosthenes
      addressed to the populace of Athens, with the victorious
      eloquence which had persuaded an armed multitude to desert and
      depose the object of their partial choice. 79 The approaching
      contest with Magnentius was of a more serious and bloody kind.
      The tyrant advanced by rapid marches to encounter Constantius, at
      the head of a numerous army, composed of Gauls and Spaniards, of
      Franks and Saxons; of those provincials who supplied the strength
      of the legions, and of those barbarians who were dreaded as the
      most formidable enemies of the republic. The fertile plains 80 of
      the Lower Pannonia, between the Drave, the Save, and the Danube,
      presented a spacious theatre; and the operations of the civil war
      were protracted during the summer months by the skill or timidity
      of the combatants. 81 Constantius had declared his intention of
      deciding the quarrel in the fields of Cibalis, a name that would
      animate his troops by the remembrance of the victory, which, on
      the same auspicious ground, had been obtained by the arms of his
      father Constantine. Yet by the impregnable fortifications with
      which the emperor encompassed his camp, he appeared to decline,
      rather than to invite, a general engagement.

      It was the object of Magnentius to tempt or to compel his
      adversary to relinquish this advantageous position; and he
      employed, with that view, the various marches, evolutions, and
      stratagems, which the knowledge of the art of war could suggest
      to an experienced officer. He carried by assault the important
      town of Siscia; made an attack on the city of Sirmium, which lay
      in the rear of the Imperial camp, attempted to force a passage
      over the Save into the eastern provinces of Illyricum; and cut in
      pieces a numerous detachment, which he had allured into the
      narrow passes of Adarne. During the greater part of the summer,
      the tyrant of Gaul showed himself master of the field. The troops
      of Constantius were harassed and dispirited; his reputation
      declined in the eye of the world; and his pride condescended to
      solicit a treaty of peace, which would have resigned to the
      assassin of Constans the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the
      Alps. These offers were enforced by the eloquence of Philip the
      Imperial ambassador; and the council as well as the army of
      Magnentius were disposed to accept them. But the haughty usurper,
      careless of the remonstrances of his friends, gave orders that
      Philip should be detained as a captive, or, at least, as a
      hostage; while he despatched an officer to reproach Constantius
      with the weakness of his reign, and to insult him by the promise
      of a pardon if he would instantly abdicate the purple. “That he
      should confide in the justice of his cause, and the protection of
      an avenging Deity,” was the only answer which honor permitted the
      emperor to return. But he was so sensible of the difficulties of
      his situation, that he no longer dared to retaliate the indignity
      which had been offered to his representative. The negotiation of
      Philip was not, however, ineffectual, since he determined
      Sylvanus the Frank, a general of merit and reputation, to desert
      with a considerable body of cavalry, a few days before the battle
      of Mursa.

      79 (return) [ Eum Constantius..... facundiæ vi dejectum Imperio
      in pri vatum otium removit. Quæ gloria post natum Imperium soli
      proces sit eloquio clementiâque, &c. Aurelius Victor, Julian, and
      Themistius (Orat. iii. and iv.) adorn this exploit with all the
      artificial and gaudy coloring of their rhetoric.]

      80 (return) [ Busbequius (p. 112) traversed the Lower Hungary and
      Sclavonia at a time when they were reduced almost to a desert, by
      the reciprocal hostilities of the Turks and Christians. Yet he
      mentions with admiration the unconquerable fertility of the soil;
      and observes that the height of the grass was sufficient to
      conceal a loaded wagon from his sight. See likewise Browne’s
      Travels, in Harris’s Collection, vol ii. p. 762 &c.]

      81 (return) [ Zosimus gives a very large account of the war, and
      the negotiation, (l. ii. p. 123-130.) But as he neither shows
      himself a soldier nor a politician, his narrative must be weighed
      with attention, and received with caution.]

      The city of Mursa, or Essek, celebrated in modern times for a
      bridge of boats, five miles in length, over the River Drave, and
      the adjacent morasses, 82 has been always considered as a place
      of importance in the wars of Hungary. Magnentius, directing his
      march towards Mursa, set fire to the gates, and, by a sudden
      assault, had almost scaled the walls of the town. The vigilance
      of the garrison extinguished the flames; the approach of
      Constantius left him no time to continue the operations of the
      siege; and the emperor soon removed the only obstacle that could
      embarrass his motions, by forcing a body of troops which had
      taken post in an adjoining amphitheatre. The field of battle
      round Mursa was a naked and level plain: on this ground the army
      of Constantius formed, with the Drave on their right; while their
      left, either from the nature of their disposition, or from the
      superiority of their cavalry, extended far beyond the right flank
      of Magnentius. 83 The troops on both sides remained under arms,
      in anxious expectation, during the greatest part of the morning;
      and the son of Constantine, after animating his soldiers by an
      eloquent speech, retired into a church at some distance from the
      field of battle, and committed to his generals the conduct of
      this decisive day. 84 They deserved his confidence by the valor
      and military skill which they exerted. They wisely began the
      action upon the left; and advancing their whole wing of cavalry
      in an oblique line, they suddenly wheeled it on the right flank
      of the enemy, which was unprepared to resist the impetuosity of
      their charge. But the Romans of the West soon rallied, by the
      habits of discipline; and the Barbarians of Germany supported the
      renown of their national bravery. The engagement soon became
      general; was maintained with various and singular turns of
      fortune; and scarcely ended with the darkness of the night. The
      signal victory which Constantius obtained is attributed to the
      arms of his cavalry. His cuirassiers are described as so many
      massy statues of steel, glittering with their scaly armor, and
      breaking with their ponderous lances the firm array of the Gallic
      legions. As soon as the legions gave way, the lighter and more
      active squadrons of the second line rode sword in hand into the
      intervals, and completed the disorder. In the mean while, the
      huge bodies of the Germans were exposed almost naked to the
      dexterity of the Oriental archers; and whole troops of those
      Barbarians were urged by anguish and despair to precipitate
      themselves into the broad and rapid stream of the Drave. 85 The
      number of the slain was computed at fifty-four thousand men, and
      the slaughter of the conquerors was more considerable than that
      of the vanquished; 86 a circumstance which proves the obstinacy
      of the contest, and justifies the observation of an ancient
      writer, that the forces of the empire were consumed in the fatal
      battle of Mursa, by the loss of a veteran army, sufficient to
      defend the frontiers, or to add new triumphs to the glory of
      Rome. 87 Notwithstanding the invectives of a servile orator,
      there is not the least reason to believe that the tyrant deserted
      his own standard in the beginning of the engagement. He seems to
      have displayed the virtues of a general and of a soldier till the
      day was irrecoverably lost, and his camp in the possession of the
      enemy. Magnentius then consulted his safety, and throwing away
      the Imperial ornaments, escaped with some difficulty from the
      pursuit of the light horse, who incessantly followed his rapid
      flight from the banks of the Drave to the foot of the Julian
      Alps. 88

      82 (return) [ This remarkable bridge, which is flanked with
      towers, and supported on large wooden piles, was constructed A.
      D. 1566, by Sultan Soliman, to facilitate the march of his armies
      into Hungary.]

      83 (return) [ This position, and the subsequent evolutions, are
      clearly, though concisely, described by Julian, Orat. i. p. 36.]

      84 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus, l. ii. p. 405. The emperor
      passed the day in prayer with Valens, the Arian bishop of Mursa,
      who gained his confidence by announcing the success of the
      battle. M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1110)
      very properly remarks the silence of Julian with regard to the
      personal prowess of Constantius in the battle of Mursa. The
      silence of flattery is sometimes equal to the most positive and
      authentic evidence.]

      85 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 36, 37; and Orat. ii. p. 59,
      60. Zonaras, tom ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 130-133.
      The last of these celebrates the dexterity of the archer
      Menelaus, who could discharge three arrows at the same time; an
      advantage which, according to his apprehension of military
      affairs, materially contributed to the victory of Constantius.]

      86 (return) [ According to Zonaras, Constantius, out of 80,000
      men, lost 30,000; and Magnentius lost 24,000 out of 36,000. The
      other articles of this account seem probable and authentic, but
      the numbers of the tyrant’s army must have been mistaken, either
      by the author or his transcribers. Magnentius had collected the
      whole force of the West, Romans and Barbarians, into one
      formidable body, which cannot fairly be estimated at less than
      100,000 men. Julian. Orat. i. p. 34, 35.]

      87 (return) [ Ingentes R. I. vires eâ dimicatione consumptæ sunt,
      ad quælibet bella externa idoneæ, quæ multum triumphorum possent
      securitatisque conferre. Eutropius, x. 13. The younger Victor
      expresses himself to the same effect.]

      88 (return) [ On this occasion, we must prefer the unsuspected
      testimony of Zosimus and Zonaras to the flattering assertions of
      Julian. The younger Victor paints the character of Magnentius in
      a singular light: “Sermonis acer, animi tumidi, et immodice
      timidus; artifex tamen ad occultandam audaciæ specie formidinem.”
      Is it most likely that in the battle of Mursa his behavior was
      governed by nature or by art should incline for the latter.]

      The approach of winter supplied the indolence of Constantius with
      specious reasons for deferring the prosecution of the war till
      the ensuing spring. Magnentius had fixed his residence in the
      city of Aquileia, and showed a seeming resolution to dispute the
      passage of the mountains and morasses which fortified the
      confines of the Venetian province. The surprisal of a castle in
      the Alps by the secret march of the Imperialists, could scarcely
      have determined him to relinquish the possession of Italy, if the
      inclinations of the people had supported the cause of their
      tyrant. 89 But the memory of the cruelties exercised by his
      ministers, after the unsuccessful revolt of Nepotian, had left a
      deep impression of horror and resentment on the minds of the
      Romans. That rash youth, the son of the princess Eutropia, and
      the nephew of Constantine, had seen with indignation the sceptre
      of the West usurped by a perfidious barbarian. Arming a desperate
      troop of slaves and gladiators, he overpowered the feeble guard
      of the domestic tranquillity of Rome, received the homage of the
      senate, and assuming the title of Augustus, precariously reigned
      during a tumult of twenty-eight days. The march of some regular
      forces put an end to his ambitious hopes: the rebellion was
      extinguished in the blood of Nepotian, of his mother Eutropia,
      and of his adherents; and the proscription was extended to all
      who had contracted a fatal alliance with the name and family of
      Constantine. 90 But as soon as Constantius, after the battle of
      Mursa, became master of the sea-coast of Dalmatia, a band of
      noble exiles, who had ventured to equip a fleet in some harbor of
      the Adriatic, sought protection and revenge in his victorious
      camp. By their secret intelligence with their countrymen, Rome
      and the Italian cities were persuaded to display the banners of
      Constantius on their walls. The grateful veterans, enriched by
      the liberality of the father, signalized their gratitude and
      loyalty to the son. The cavalry, the legions, and the auxiliaries
      of Italy, renewed their oath of allegiance to Constantius; and
      the usurper, alarmed by the general desertion, was compelled,
      with the remains of his faithful troops, to retire beyond the
      Alps into the provinces of Gaul. The detachments, however, which
      were ordered either to press or to intercept the flight of
      Magnentius, conducted themselves with the usual imprudence of
      success; and allowed him, in the plains of Pavia, an opportunity
      of turning on his pursuers, and of gratifying his despair by the
      carnage of a useless victory. 91

      89 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 38, 39. In that place, however,
      as well as in Oration ii. p. 97, he insinuates the general
      disposition of the senate, the people, and the soldiers of Italy,
      towards the party of the emperor.]

      90 (return) [ The elder Victor describes, in a pathetic manner,
      the miserable condition of Rome: “Cujus stolidum ingenium adeo P.
      R. patribusque exitio fuit, uti passim domus, fora, viæ,
      templaque, cruore, cadaveri busque opplerentur bustorum modo.”
      Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677) deplores the fate of several
      illustrious victims, and Julian (Orat. ii p 58) execrates the
      cruelty of Marcellinus, the implacable enemy of the house of
      Constantine.]

      91 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Victor in Epitome. The
      panegyrists of Constantius, with their usual candor, forget to
      mention this accidental defeat.]

      The pride of Magnentius was reduced, by repeated misfortunes, to
      sue, and to sue in vain, for peace. He first despatched a
      senator, in whose abilities he confided, and afterwards several
      bishops, whose holy character might obtain a more favorable
      audience, with the offer of resigning the purple, and the promise
      of devoting the remainder of his life to the service of the
      emperor. But Constantius, though he granted fair terms of pardon
      and reconciliation to all who abandoned the standard of
      rebellion, 92 avowed his inflexible resolution to inflict a just
      punishment on the crimes of an assassin, whom he prepared to
      overwhelm on every side by the effort of his victorious arms. An
      Imperial fleet acquired the easy possession of Africa and Spain,
      confirmed the wavering faith of the Moorish nations, and landed a
      considerable force, which passed the Pyrenees, and advanced
      towards Lyons, the last and fatal station of Magnentius. 93 The
      temper of the tyrant, which was never inclined to clemency, was
      urged by distress to exercise every act of oppression which could
      extort an immediate supply from the cities of Gaul. 94 Their
      patience was at length exhausted; and Treves, the seat of
      Prætorian government, gave the signal of revolt, by shutting her
      gates against Decentius, who had been raised by his brother to
      the rank either of Cæsar or of Augustus. 95 From Treves,
      Decentius was obliged to retire to Sens, where he was soon
      surrounded by an army of Germans, whom the pernicious arts of
      Constantius had introduced into the civil dissensions of Rome. 96
      In the mean time, the Imperial troops forced the passages of the
      Cottian Alps, and in the bloody combat of Mount Seleucus
      irrevocably fixed the title of rebels on the party of Magnentius.
      97 He was unable to bring another army into the field; the
      fidelity of his guards was corrupted; and when he appeared in
      public to animate them by his exhortations, he was saluted with a
      unanimous shout of “Long live the emperor Constantius!” The
      tyrant, who perceived that they were preparing to deserve pardon
      and rewards by the sacrifice of the most obnoxious criminal,
      prevented their design by falling on his sword; 98 a death more
      easy and more honorable than he could hope to obtain from the
      hands of an enemy, whose revenge would have been colored with the
      specious pretence of justice and fraternal piety. The example of
      suicide was imitated by Decentius, who strangled himself on the
      news of his brother’s death. The author of the conspiracy,
      Marcellinus, had long since disappeared in the battle of Mursa,
      99 and the public tranquillity was confirmed by the execution of
      the surviving leaders of a guilty and unsuccessful faction. A
      severe inquisition was extended over all who, either from choice
      or from compulsion, had been involved in the cause of rebellion.
      Paul, surnamed Catena from his superior skill in the judicial
      exercise of tyranny, 9911 was sent to explore the latent remains
      of the conspiracy in the remote province of Britain. The honest
      indignation expressed by Martin, vice-præfect of the island, was
      interpreted as an evidence of his own guilt; and the governor was
      urged to the necessity of turning against his breast the sword
      with which he had been provoked to wound the Imperial minister.
      The most innocent subjects of the West were exposed to exile and
      confiscation, to death and torture; and as the timid are always
      cruel, the mind of Constantius was inaccessible to mercy. 100

      92 (return) [ Zonaras, tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 17. Julian, in
      several places of the two orations, expatiates on the clemency of
      Constantius to the rebels.]

      93 (return) [ Zosim. l. ii. p. 133. Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii.
      p. 74.]

      94 (return) [ Ammian. xv. 6. Zosim. l. ii. p. 123. Julian, who
      (Orat. i. p. 40) unveighs against the cruel effects of the
      tyrant’s despair, mentions (Orat. i. p. 34) the oppressive edicts
      which were dictated by his necessities, or by his avarice. His
      subjects were compelled to purchase the Imperial demesnes; a
      doubtful and dangerous species of property, which, in case of a
      revolution, might be imputed to them as a treasonable
      usurpation.]

      95 (return) [ The medals of Magnentius celebrate the victories of
      the _two_ Augusti, and of the Cæsar. The Cæsar was another
      brother, named Desiderius. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. iv. p. 757.]

      96 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 40, ii. p. 74; with Spanheim,
      p. 263. His Commentary illustrates the transactions of this civil
      war. Mons Seleuci was a small place in the Cottian Alps, a few
      miles distant from Vapincum, or Gap, an episcopal city of
      Dauphine. See D’Anville, Notice de la Gaule, p. 464; and
      Longuerue, Description de la France, p. 327.—— The Itinerary of
      Antoninus (p. 357, ed. Wess.) places Mons Seleucu twenty-four
      miles from Vapinicum, (Gap,) and twenty-six from Lucus. (le Luc,)
      on the road to Die, (Dea Vocontiorum.) The situation answers to
      Mont Saleon, a little place on the right of the small river
      Buech, which falls into the Durance. Roman antiquities have been
      found in this place. St. Martin. Note to Le Beau, ii. 47.—M.]

      97 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134. Liban. Orat. x. p. 268,
      269. The latter most vehemently arraigns this cruel and selfish
      policy of Constantius.]

      98 (return) [ Julian. Orat. i. p. 40. Zosimus, l. ii. p. 134.
      Socrates, l. ii. c. 32. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 7. The younger Victor
      describes his death with some horrid circumstances: Transfosso
      latere, ut erat vasti corporis, vulnere naribusque et ore cruorem
      effundens, exspiravit. If we can give credit to Zonaras, the
      tyrant, before he expired, had the pleasure of murdering, with
      his own hand, his mother and his brother Desiderius.]

      99 (return) [ Julian (Orat. i. p. 58, 59) seems at a loss to
      determine, whether he inflicted on himself the punishment of his
      crimes, whether he was drowned in the Drave, or whether he was
      carried by the avenging dæmons from the field of battle to his
      destined place of eternal tortures.]

      9911 (return) [ This is scarcely correct, ut erat in complicandis
      negotiis artifex dirum made ei Catenæ inditum est cognomentum.
      Amm. Mar. loc. cit.—M.]

      100 (return) [ Ammian. xiv. 5, xxi. 16.]




      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part I.

     Constantius Sole Emperor.—Elevation And Death Of Gallus.— Danger
     And Elevation Of Julian.—Sarmatian And Persian Wars.—Victories Of
     Julian In Gaul.


      The divided provinces of the empire were again united by the
      victory of Constantius; but as that feeble prince was destitute
      of personal merit, either in peace or war; as he feared his
      generals, and distrusted his ministers; the triumph of his arms
      served only to establish the reign of the _eunuchs_ over the
      Roman world. Those unhappy beings, the ancient production of
      Oriental jealousy and despotism, 1 were introduced into Greece
      and Rome by the contagion of Asiatic luxury. 2 Their progress was
      rapid; and the eunuchs, who, in the time of Augustus, had been
      abhorred, as the monstrous retinue of an Egyptian queen, 3 were
      gradually admitted into the families of matrons, of senators, and
      of the emperors themselves. 4 Restrained by the severe edicts of
      Domitian and Nerva, cherished by the pride of Diocletian, reduced
      to an humble station by the prudence of Constantine, 6 they
      multiplied in the palaces of his degenerate sons, and insensibly
      acquired the knowledge, and at length the direction, of the
      secret councils of Constantius. The aversion and contempt which
      mankind had so uniformly entertained for that imperfect species,
      appears to have degraded their character, and to have rendered
      them almost as incapable as they were supposed to be, of
      conceiving any generous sentiment, or of performing any worthy
      action. 7 But the eunuchs were skilled in the arts of flattery
      and intrigue; and they alternately governed the mind of
      Constantius by his fears, his indolence, and his vanity. 8 Whilst
      he viewed in a deceitful mirror the fair appearance of public
      prosperity, he supinely permitted them to intercept the
      complaints of the injured provinces, to accumulate immense
      treasures by the sale of justice and of honors; to disgrace the
      most important dignities, by the promotion of those who had
      purchased at their hands the powers of oppression, 9 and to
      gratify their resentment against the few independent spirits, who
      arrogantly refused to solicit the protection of slaves. Of these
      slaves the most distinguished was the chamberlain Eusebius, who
      ruled the monarch and the palace with such absolute sway, that
      Constantius, according to the sarcasm of an impartial historian,
      possessed some credit with this haughty favorite. 10 By his
      artful suggestions, the emperor was persuaded to subscribe the
      condemnation of the unfortunate Gallus, and to add a new crime to
      the long list of unnatural murders which pollute the honor of the
      house of Constantine.

      1 (return) [ Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 6) imputes the first practice
      of castration to the cruel ingenuity of Semiramis, who is
      supposed to have reigned above nineteen hundred years before
      Christ. The use of eunuchs is of high antiquity, both in Asia and
      Egypt. They are mentioned in the law of Moses, Deuteron. xxxiii.
      1. See Goguet, Origines des Loix, &c., Part i. l. i. c. 3.]

      2 (return) [ Eunuchum dixti velle te; Quia solæ utuntur his
      reginæ—Terent. Eunuch. act i. scene 2. This play is translated
      from Meander, and the original must have appeared soon after the
      eastern conquests of Alexander.]

      3 (return) [ Miles.... spadonibus Servire rugosis potest. Horat.
      Carm. v. 9, and Dacier ad loe. By the word _spado_, the Romans
      very forcibly expressed their abhorrence of this mutilated
      condition. The Greek appellation of eunuchs, which insensibly
      prevailed, had a milder sound, and a more ambiguous sense.]

      4 (return) [ We need only mention Posides, a freedman and eunuch
      of Claudius, in whose favor the emperor prostituted some of the
      most honorable rewards of military valor. See Sueton. in Claudio,
      c. 28. Posides employed a great part of his wealth in building.

     Ut _Spado_ vincebat Capitolia Nostra Posides. Juvenal. Sat. xiv.]

      Castrari mares vetuit. Sueton. in Domitian. c. 7. See Dion
      Cassius, l. lxvii. p. 1107, l. lxviii. p. 1119.]

      6 (return) [ There is a passage in the Augustan History, p. 137,
      in which Lampridius, whilst he praises Alexander Severus and
      Constantine for restraining the tyranny of the eunuchs, deplores
      the mischiefs which they occasioned in other reigns. Huc accedit
      quod eunuchos nec in consiliis nec in ministeriis habuit; qui
      soli principes perdunt, dum eos more gentium aut regum Persarum
      volunt vivere; qui a populo etiam amicissimum semovent; qui
      internuntii sunt, aliud quam respondetur, referentes; claudentes
      principem suum, et agentes ante omnia ne quid sciat.]

      7 (return) [ Xenophon (Cyropædia, l. viii. p. 540) has stated the
      specious reasons which engaged Cyrus to intrust his person to the
      guard of eunuchs. He had observed in animals, that although the
      practice of castration might tame their ungovernable fierceness,
      it did not diminish their strength or spirit; and he persuaded
      himself, that those who were separated from the rest of human
      kind, would be more firmly attached to the person of their
      benefactor. But a long experience has contradicted the judgment
      of Cyrus. Some particular instances may occur of eunuchs
      distinguished by their fidelity, their valor, and their
      abilities; but if we examine the general history of Persia,
      India, and China, we shall find that the power of the eunuchs has
      uniformly marked the decline and fall of every dynasty.]

      8 (return) [ See Ammianus Marcellinus, l. xxi. c. 16, l. xxii. c.
      4. The whole tenor of his impartial history serves to justify the
      invectives of Mamertinus, of Libanius, and of Julian himself, who
      have insulted the vices of the court of Constantius.]

      9 (return) [ Aurelius Victor censures the negligence of his
      sovereign in choosing the governors of the provinces, and the
      generals of the army, and concludes his history with a very bold
      observation, as it is much more dangerous under a feeble reign to
      attack the ministers than the master himself. “Uti verum absolvam
      brevi, ut Imperatore ipso clarius ita apparitorum plerisque magis
      atrox nihil.”]

      10 (return) [ Apud quem (si vere dici debeat) multum Constantius
      potuit. Ammian. l. xviii. c. 4.]

      When the two nephews of Constantine, Gallus and Julian, were
      saved from the fury of the soldiers, the former was about twelve,
      and the latter about six, years of age; and, as the eldest was
      thought to be of a sickly constitution, they obtained with the
      less difficulty a precarious and dependent life, from the
      affected pity of Constantius, who was sensible that the execution
      of these helpless orphans would have been esteemed, by all
      mankind, an act of the most deliberate cruelty. 11 Different
      cities of Ionia and Bithynia were assigned for the places of
      their exile and education; but as soon as their growing years
      excited the jealousy of the emperor, he judged it more prudent to
      secure those unhappy youths in the strong castle of Macellum,
      near Cæsarea. The treatment which they experienced during a six
      years’ confinement, was partly such as they could hope from a
      careful guardian, and partly such as they might dread from a
      suspicious tyrant. 12 Their prison was an ancient palace, the
      residence of the kings of Cappadocia; the situation was pleasant,
      the buildings stately, the enclosure spacious. They pursued their
      studies, and practised their exercises, under the tuition of the
      most skilful masters; and the numerous household appointed to
      attend, or rather to guard, the nephews of Constantine, was not
      unworthy of the dignity of their birth. But they could not
      disguise to themselves that they were deprived of fortune, of
      freedom, and of safety; secluded from the society of all whom
      they could trust or esteem, and condemned to pass their
      melancholy hours in the company of slaves devoted to the commands
      of a tyrant who had already injured them beyond the hope of
      reconciliation. At length, however, the emergencies of the state
      compelled the emperor, or rather his eunuchs, to invest Gallus,
      in the twenty-fifth year of his age, with the title of Cæsar, and
      to cement this political connection by his marriage with the
      princess Constantina. After a formal interview, in which the two
      princes mutually engaged their faith never to undertake any thing
      to the prejudice of each other, they repaired without delay to
      their respective stations. Constantius continued his march
      towards the West, and Gallus fixed his residence at Antioch; from
      whence, with a delegated authority, he administered the five
      great dioceses of the eastern præfecture. 13 In this fortunate
      change, the new Cæsar was not unmindful of his brother Julian,
      who obtained the honors of his rank, the appearances of liberty,
      and the restitution of an ample patrimony. 14

      11 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 90) reproaches the
      apostate with his ingratitude towards Mark, bishop of Arethusa,
      who had contributed to save his life; and we learn, though from a
      less respectable authority, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      iv. p. 916,) that Julian was concealed in the sanctuary of a
      church. * Note: Gallus and Julian were not sons of the same
      mother. Their father, Julius Constantius, had had Gallus by his
      first wife, named Galla: Julian was the son of Basilina, whom he
      had espoused in a second marriage. Tillemont. Hist. des Emp. Vie
      de Constantin. art. 3.—G.]

      12 (return) [ The most authentic account of the education and
      adventures of Julian is contained in the epistle or manifesto
      which he himself addressed to the senate and people of Athens.
      Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis,) on the side of the Pagans, and
      Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,) on that of the Christians, have
      preserved several interesting circumstances.]

      13 (return) [ For the promotion of Gallus, see Idatius, Zosimus,
      and the two Victors. According to Philostorgius, (l. iv. c. 1,)
      Theophilus, an Arian bishop, was the witness, and, as it were,
      the guarantee of this solemn engagement. He supported that
      character with generous firmness; but M. de Tillemont (Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 1120) thinks it very improbable that a
      heretic should have possessed such virtue.]

      14 (return) [ Julian was at first permitted to pursue his studies
      at Constantinople, but the reputation which he acquired soon
      excited the jealousy of Constantius; and the young prince was
      advised to withdraw himself to the less conspicuous scenes of
      Bithynia and Ionia.]

      The writers the most indulgent to the memory of Gallus, and even
      Julian himself, though he wished to cast a veil over the
      frailties of his brother, are obliged to confess that the Cæsar
      was incapable of reigning. Transported from a prison to a throne,
      he possessed neither genius nor application, nor docility to
      compensate for the want of knowledge and experience. A temper
      naturally morose and violent, instead of being corrected, was
      soured by solitude and adversity; the remembrance of what he had
      endured disposed him to retaliation rather than to sympathy; and
      the ungoverned sallies of his rage were often fatal to those who
      approached his person, or were subject to his power. 15
      Constantina, his wife, is described, not as a woman, but as one
      of the infernal furies tormented with an insatiate thirst of
      human blood. 16 Instead of employing her influence to insinuate
      the mild counsels of prudence and humanity, she exasperated the
      fierce passions of her husband; and as she retained the vanity,
      though she had renounced, the gentleness of her sex, a pearl
      necklace was esteemed an equivalent price for the murder of an
      innocent and virtuous nobleman. 17 The cruelty of Gallus was
      sometimes displayed in the undissembled violence of popular or
      military executions; and was sometimes disguised by the abuse of
      law, and the forms of judicial proceedings. The private houses of
      Antioch, and the places of public resort, were besieged by spies
      and informers; and the Cæsar himself, concealed in a a plebeian
      habit, very frequently condescended to assume that odious
      character. Every apartment of the palace was adorned with the
      instruments of death and torture, and a general consternation was
      diffused through the capital of Syria. The prince of the East, as
      if he had been conscious how much he had to fear, and how little
      he deserved to reign, selected for the objects of his resentment
      the provincials accused of some imaginary treason, and his own
      courtiers, whom with more reason he suspected of incensing, by
      their secret correspondence, the timid and suspicious mind of
      Constantius. But he forgot that he was depriving himself of his
      only support, the affection of the people; whilst he furnished
      the malice of his enemies with the arms of truth, and afforded
      the emperor the fairest pretence of exacting the forfeit of his
      purple, and of his life. 18

      15 (return) [ See Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 271. Jerom. in Chron.
      Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, x. 14. I shall copy the words of
      Eutropius, who wrote his abridgment about fifteen years after the
      death of Gallus, when there was no longer any motive either to
      flatter or to depreciate his character. “Multis incivilibus
      gestis Gallus Cæsar.... vir natura ferox et ad tyrannidem
      pronior, si suo jure imperare licuisset.”]

      16 (return) [ Megæra quidem mortalis, inflammatrix sævientis
      assidua, humani cruoris avida, &c. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xiv. c.
      1. The sincerity of Ammianus would not suffer him to misrepresent
      facts or characters, but his love of _ambitious_ ornaments
      frequently betrayed him into an unnatural vehemence of
      expression.]

      17 (return) [ His name was Clematius of Alexandria, and his only
      crime was a refusal to gratify the desires of his mother-in-law;
      who solicited his death, because she had been disappointed of his
      love. Ammian. xiv. c. i.]

      18 (return) [ See in Ammianus (l. xiv. c. 1, 7) a very ample
      detail of the cruelties of Gallus. His brother Julian (p. 272)
      insinuates, that a secret conspiracy had been formed against him;
      and Zosimus names (l. ii. p. 135) the persons engaged in it; a
      minister of considerable rank, and two obscure agents, who were
      resolved to make their fortune.]

      As long as the civil war suspended the fate of the Roman world,
      Constantius dissembled his knowledge of the weak and cruel
      administration to which his choice had subjected the East; and
      the discovery of some assassins, secretly despatched to Antioch
      by the tyrant of Gaul, was employed to convince the public, that
      the emperor and the Cæsar were united by the same interest, and
      pursued by the same enemies. 19 But when the victory was decided
      in favor of Constantius, his dependent colleague became less
      useful and less formidable. Every circumstance of his conduct was
      severely and suspiciously examined, and it was privately
      resolved, either to deprive Gallus of the purple, or at least to
      remove him from the indolent luxury of Asia to the hardships and
      dangers of a German war. The death of Theophilus, consular of the
      province of Syria, who in a time of scarcity had been massacred
      by the people of Antioch, with the connivance, and almost at the
      instigation, of Gallus, was justly resented, not only as an act
      of wanton cruelty, but as a dangerous insult on the supreme
      majesty of Constantius. Two ministers of illustrious rank,
      Domitian the Oriental præfect, and Montius, quæstor of the
      palace, were empowered by a special commission 1911 to visit and
      reform the state of the East. They were instructed to behave
      towards Gallus with moderation and respect, and, by the gentlest
      arts of persuasion, to engage him to comply with the invitation
      of his brother and colleague. The rashness of the præfect
      disappointed these prudent measures, and hastened his own ruin,
      as well as that of his enemy. On his arrival at Antioch, Domitian
      passed disdainfully before the gates of the palace, and alleging
      a slight pretence of indisposition, continued several days in
      sullen retirement, to prepare an inflammatory memorial, which he
      transmitted to the Imperial court. Yielding at length to the
      pressing solicitations of Gallus, the præfect condescended to
      take his seat in council; but his first step was to signify a
      concise and haughty mandate, importing that the Cæsar should
      immediately repair to Italy, and threatening that he himself
      would punish his delay or hesitation, by suspending the usual
      allowance of his household. The nephew and daughter of
      Constantine, who could ill brook the insolence of a subject,
      expressed their resentment by instantly delivering Domitian to
      the custody of a guard. The quarrel still admitted of some terms
      of accommodation. They were rendered impracticable by the
      imprudent behavior of Montius, a statesman whose arts and
      experience were frequently betrayed by the levity of his
      disposition. 20 The quæstor reproached Gallus in a haughty
      language, that a prince who was scarcely authorized to remove a
      municipal magistrate, should presume to imprison a Prætorian
      præfect; convoked a meeting of the civil and military officers;
      and required them, in the name of their sovereign, to defend the
      person and dignity of his representatives. By this rash
      declaration of war, the impatient temper of Gallus was provoked
      to embrace the most desperate counsels. He ordered his guards to
      stand to their arms, assembled the populace of Antioch, and
      recommended to their zeal the care of his safety and revenge. His
      commands were too fatally obeyed. They rudely seized the præfect
      and the quæstor, and tying their legs together with ropes, they
      dragged them through the streets of the city, inflicted a
      thousand insults and a thousand wounds on these unhappy victims,
      and at last precipitated their mangled and lifeless bodies into
      the stream of the Orontes. 21

      19 (return) [ Zonaras, l. xiii. tom. ii. p. 17, 18. The assassins
      had seduced a great number of legionaries; but their designs were
      discovered and revealed by an old woman in whose cottage they
      lodged.]

      1911 (return) [ The commission seems to have been granted to
      Domitian alone. Montius interfered to support his authority. Amm.
      Marc. loc. cit.—M]

      20 (return) [ In the present text of Ammianus, we read _Asper_,
      quidem, sed ad _lenitatem_ propensior; which forms a sentence of
      contradictory nonsense. With the aid of an old manuscript,
      Valesius has rectified the first of these corruptions, and we
      perceive a ray of light in the substitution of the word _vafer_.
      If we venture to change _lenitatem_ into _levitatem_, this
      alteration of a single letter will render the whole passage clear
      and consistent.]

      21 (return) [ Instead of being obliged to collect scattered and
      imperfect hints from various sources, we now enter into the full
      stream of the history of Ammianus, and need only refer to the
      seventh and ninth chapters of his fourteenth book. Philostorgius,
      however, (l. iii. c. 28) though partial to Gallus, should not be
      entirely overlooked.]

      After such a deed, whatever might have been the designs of
      Gallus, it was only in a field of battle that he could assert his
      innocence with any hope of success. But the mind of that prince
      was formed of an equal mixture of violence and weakness. Instead
      of assuming the title of Augustus, instead of employing in his
      defence the troops and treasures of the East, he suffered himself
      to be deceived by the affected tranquillity of Constantius, who,
      leaving him the vain pageantry of a court, imperceptibly recalled
      the veteran legions from the provinces of Asia. But as it still
      appeared dangerous to arrest Gallus in his capital, the slow and
      safer arts of dissimulation were practised with success. The
      frequent and pressing epistles of Constantius were filled with
      professions of confidence and friendship; exhorting the Cæsar to
      discharge the duties of his high station, to relieve his
      colleague from a part of the public cares, and to assist the West
      by his presence, his counsels, and his arms. After so many
      reciprocal injuries, Gallus had reason to fear and to distrust.
      But he had neglected the opportunities of flight and of
      resistance; he was seduced by the flattering assurances of the
      tribune Scudilo, who, under the semblance of a rough soldier,
      disguised the most artful insinuation; and he depended on the
      credit of his wife Constantina, till the unseasonable death of
      that princess completed the ruin in which he had been involved by
      her impetuous passions. 22

      22 (return) [ She had preceded her husband, but died of a fever
      on the road at a little place in Bithynia, called Coenum
      Gallicanum.]




      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part II.


      After a long delay, the reluctant Cæsar set forwards on his
      journey to the Imperial court. From Antioch to Hadrianople, he
      traversed the wide extent of his dominions with a numerous and
      stately train; and as he labored to conceal his apprehensions
      from the world, and perhaps from himself, he entertained the
      people of Constantinople with an exhibition of the games of the
      circus. The progress of the journey might, however, have warned
      him of the impending danger. In all the principal cities he was
      met by ministers of confidence, commissioned to seize the offices
      of government, to observe his motions, and to prevent the hasty
      sallies of his despair. The persons despatched to secure the
      provinces which he left behind, passed him with cold salutations,
      or affected disdain; and the troops, whose station lay along the
      public road, were studiously removed on his approach, lest they
      might be tempted to offer their swords for the service of a civil
      war. 23 After Gallus had been permitted to repose himself a few
      days at Hadrianople, he received a mandate, expressed in the most
      haughty and absolute style, that his splendid retinue should halt
      in that city, while the Cæsar himself, with only ten
      post-carriages, should hasten to the Imperial residence at Milan.

      In this rapid journey, the profound respect which was due to the
      brother and colleague of Constantius, was insensibly changed into
      rude familiarity; and Gallus, who discovered in the countenances
      of the attendants that they already considered themselves as his
      guards, and might soon be employed as his executioners, began to
      accuse his fatal rashness, and to recollect, with terror and
      remorse, the conduct by which he had provoked his fate. The
      dissimulation which had hitherto been preserved, was laid aside
      at Petovio, 2311 in Pannonia. He was conducted to a palace in the
      suburbs, where the general Barbatio, with a select band of
      soldiers, who could neither be moved by pity, nor corrupted by
      rewards, expected the arrival of his illustrious victim. In the
      close of the evening he was arrested, ignominiously stripped of
      the ensigns of Cæsar, and hurried away to Pola, [23b] in Istria,
      a sequestered prison, which had been so recently polluted with
      royal blood. The horror which he felt was soon increased by the
      appearance of his implacable enemy the eunuch Eusebius, who, with
      the assistance of a notary and a tribune, proceeded to
      interrogate him concerning the administration of the East. The
      Cæsar sank under the weight of shame and guilt, confessed all the
      criminal actions and all the treasonable designs with which he
      was charged; and by imputing them to the advice of his wife,
      exasperated the indignation of Constantius, who reviewed with
      partial prejudice the minutes of the examination. The emperor was
      easily convinced, that his own safety was incompatible with the
      life of his cousin: the sentence of death was signed, despatched,
      and executed; and the nephew of Constantine, with his hands tied
      behind his back, was beheaded in prison like the vilest
      malefactor. 24 Those who are inclined to palliate the cruelties
      of Constantius, assert that he soon relented, and endeavored to
      recall the bloody mandate; but that the second messenger,
      intrusted with the reprieve, was detained by the eunuchs, who
      dreaded the unforgiving temper of Gallus, and were desirous of
      reuniting to _their_ empire the wealthy provinces of the East. 25

      23 (return) [ The Thebæan legions, which were then quartered at
      Hadrianople, sent a deputation to Gallus, with a tender of their
      services. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The Notitia (s. 6, 20, 38, edit.
      Labb.) mentions three several legions which bore the name of
      Thebæan. The zeal of M. de Voltaire to destroy a despicable
      though celebrated legion, has tempted him on the slightest
      grounds to deny the existence of a Thebæan legion in the Roman
      armies. See Œuvres de Voltaire, tom. xv. p. 414, quarto edition.]

      2311 (return) [ Pettau in Styria.—M ---- Rather to Flanonia. now
      Fianone, near Pola. St. Martin.—M.]

      24 (return) [ See the complete narrative of the journey and death
      of Gallus in Ammianus, l. xiv. c. 11. Julian complains that his
      brother was put to death without a trial; attempts to justify, or
      at least to excuse, the cruel revenge which he had inflicted on
      his enemies; but seems at last to acknowledge that he might
      justly have been deprived of the purple.]

      25 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iv. c. 1. Zonaras, l. xiii. tom.
      ii. p. 19. But the former was partial towards an Arian monarch,
      and the latter transcribed, without choice or criticism, whatever
      he found in the writings of the ancients.]

      Besides the reigning emperor, Julian alone survived, of all the
      numerous posterity of Constantius Chlorus. The misfortune of his
      royal birth involved him in the disgrace of Gallus. From his
      retirement in the happy country of Ionia, he was conveyed under a
      strong guard to the court of Milan; where he languished above
      seven months, in the continual apprehension of suffering the same
      ignominious death, which was daily inflicted almost before his
      eyes, on the friends and adherents of his persecuted family. His
      looks, his gestures, his silence, were scrutinized with malignant
      curiosity, and he was perpetually assaulted by enemies whom he
      had never offended, and by arts to which he was a stranger. 26
      But in the school of adversity, Julian insensibly acquired the
      virtues of firmness and discretion. He defended his honor, as
      well as his life, against the insnaring subtleties of the
      eunuchs, who endeavored to extort some declaration of his
      sentiments; and whilst he cautiously suppressed his grief and
      resentment, he nobly disdained to flatter the tyrant, by any
      seeming approbation of his brother’s murder. Julian most devoutly
      ascribes his miraculous deliverance to the protection of the
      gods, who had exempted his innocence from the sentence of
      destruction pronounced by their justice against the impious house
      of Constantine. 27 As the most effectual instrument of their
      providence, he gratefully acknowledges the steady and generous
      friendship of the empress Eusebia, 28 a woman of beauty and
      merit, who, by the ascendant which she had gained over the mind
      of her husband, counterbalanced, in some measure, the powerful
      conspiracy of the eunuchs. By the intercession of his patroness,
      Julian was admitted into the Imperial presence: he pleaded his
      cause with a decent freedom, he was heard with favor; and,
      notwithstanding the efforts of his enemies, who urged the danger
      of sparing an avenger of the blood of Gallus, the milder
      sentiment of Eusebia prevailed in the council. But the effects of
      a second interview were dreaded by the eunuchs; and Julian was
      advised to withdraw for a while into the neighborhood of Milan,
      till the emperor thought proper to assign the city of Athens for
      the place of his honorable exile. As he had discovered, from his
      earliest youth, a propensity, or rather passion, for the
      language, the manners, the learning, and the religion of the
      Greeks, he obeyed with pleasure an order so agreeable to his
      wishes. Far from the tumult of arms, and the treachery of courts,
      he spent six months under the groves of the academy, in a free
      intercourse with the philosophers of the age, who studied to
      cultivate the genius, to encourage the vanity, and to inflame the
      devotion of their royal pupil. Their labors were not
      unsuccessful; and Julian inviolably preserved for Athens that
      tender regard which seldom fails to arise in a liberal mind, from
      the recollection of the place where it has discovered and
      exercised its growing powers. The gentleness and affability of
      manners, which his temper suggested and his situation imposed,
      insensibly engaged the affections of the strangers, as well as
      citizens, with whom he conversed. Some of his fellow-students
      might perhaps examine his behavior with an eye of prejudice and
      aversion; but Julian established, in the schools of Athens, a
      general prepossession in favor of his virtues and talents, which
      was soon diffused over the Roman world. 29

      26 (return) [ See Ammianus Marcellin. l. xv. c. 1, 3, 8. Julian
      himself in his epistle to the Athenians, draws a very lively and
      just picture of his own danger, and of his sentiments. He shows,
      however, a tendency to exaggerate his sufferings, by insinuating,
      though in obscure terms, that they lasted above a year; a period
      which cannot be reconciled with the truth of chronology.]

      27 (return) [ Julian has worked the crimes and misfortunes of the
      family of Constantine into an allegorical fable, which is happily
      conceived and agreeably related. It forms the conclusion of the
      seventh Oration, from whence it has been detached and translated
      by the Abbé de la Bleterie, Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 385-408.]

      28 (return) [ She was a native of Thessalonica, in Macedonia, of
      a noble family, and the daughter, as well as sister, of consuls.
      Her marriage with the emperor may be placed in the year 352. In a
      divided age, the historians of all parties agree in her praises.
      See their testimonies collected by Tillemont, Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 750-754.]

      29 (return) [ Libanius and Gregory Nazianzen have exhausted the
      arts as well as the powers of their eloquence, to represent
      Julian as the first of heroes, or the worst of tyrants. Gregory
      was his fellow-student at Athens; and the symptoms which he so
      tragically describes, of the future wickedness of the apostate,
      amount only to some bodily imperfections, and to some
      peculiarities in his speech and manner. He protests, however,
      that he _then_ foresaw and foretold the calamities of the church
      and state. (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 121, 122.)]

      Whilst his hours were passed in studious retirement, the empress,
      resolute to achieve the generous design which she had undertaken,
      was not unmindful of the care of his fortune. The death of the
      late Cæsar had left Constantius invested with the sole command,
      and oppressed by the accumulated weight, of a mighty empire.
      Before the wounds of civil discord could be healed, the provinces
      of Gaul were overwhelmed by a deluge of Barbarians. The
      Sarmatians no longer respected the barrier of the Danube. The
      impunity of rapine had increased the boldness and numbers of the
      wild Isaurians: those robbers descended from their craggy
      mountains to ravage the adjacent country, and had even presumed,
      though without success, to besiege the important city of
      Seleucia, which was defended by a garrison of three Roman
      legions. Above all, the Persian monarch, elated by victory, again
      threatened the peace of Asia, and the presence of the emperor was
      indispensably required, both in the West and in the East. For the
      first time, Constantius sincerely acknowledged, that his single
      strength was unequal to such an extent of care and of dominion.
      30 Insensible to the voice of flattery, which assured him that
      his all-powerful virtue, and celestial fortune, would still
      continue to triumph over every obstacle, he listened with
      complacency to the advice of Eusebia, which gratified his
      indolence, without offending his suspicious pride. As she
      perceived that the remembrance of Gallus dwelt on the emperor’s
      mind, she artfully turned his attention to the opposite
      characters of the two brothers, which from their infancy had been
      compared to those of Domitian and of Titus. 31 She accustomed her
      husband to consider Julian as a youth of a mild, unambitious
      disposition, whose allegiance and gratitude might be secured by
      the gift of the purple, and who was qualified to fill with honor
      a subordinate station, without aspiring to dispute the commands,
      or to shade the glories, of his sovereign and benefactor. After
      an obstinate, though secret struggle, the opposition of the
      favorite eunuchs submitted to the ascendency of the empress; and
      it was resolved that Julian, after celebrating his nuptials with
      Helena, sister of Constantius, should be appointed, with the
      title of Cæsar, to reign over the countries beyond the Alps. 32

      30 (return) [ Succumbere tot necessitatibus tamque crebris unum
      se, quod nunquam fecerat, aperte demonstrans. Ammian. l. xv. c.
      8. He then expresses, in their own words, the fattering
      assurances of the courtiers.]

      31 (return) [ Tantum a temperatis moribus Juliani differens
      fratris quantum inter Vespasiani filios fuit, Domitianum et
      Titum. Ammian. l. xiv. c. 11. The circumstances and education of
      the two brothers, were so nearly the same, as to afford a strong
      example of the innate difference of characters.]

      32 (return) [ Ammianus, l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 137,
      138.]

      Although the order which recalled him to court was probably
      accompanied by some intimation of his approaching greatness, he
      appeals to the people of Athens to witness his tears of
      undissembled sorrow, when he was reluctantly torn away from his
      beloved retirement. 33 He trembled for his life, for his fame,
      and even for his virtue; and his sole confidence was derived from
      the persuasion, that Minerva inspired all his actions, and that
      he was protected by an invisible guard of angels, whom for that
      purpose she had borrowed from the Sun and Moon. He approached,
      with horror, the palace of Milan; nor could the ingenuous youth
      conceal his indignation, when he found himself accosted with
      false and servile respect by the assassins of his family.
      Eusebia, rejoicing in the success of her benevolent schemes,
      embraced him with the tenderness of a sister; and endeavored, by
      the most soothing caresses, to dispel his terrors, and reconcile
      him to his fortune. But the ceremony of shaving his beard, and
      his awkward demeanor, when he first exchanged the cloak of a
      Greek philosopher for the military habit of a Roman prince,
      amused, during a few days, the levity of the Imperial court. 34

      33 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. A. p. 275, 276. Libanius, Orat.
      x. p. 268. Julian did not yield till the gods had signified their
      will by repeated visions and omens. His piety then forbade him to
      resist.]

      34 (return) [ Julian himself relates, (p. 274) with some humor,
      the circumstances of his own metamorphoses, his downcast looks,
      and his perplexity at being thus suddenly transported into a new
      world, where every object appeared strange and hostile.]

      The emperors of the age of Constantine no longer deigned to
      consult with the senate in the choice of a colleague; but they
      were anxious that their nomination should be ratified by the
      consent of the army. On this solemn occasion, the guards, with
      the other troops whose stations were in the neighborhood of
      Milan, appeared under arms; and Constantius ascended his lofty
      tribunal, holding by the hand his cousin Julian, who entered the
      same day into the twenty-fifth year of his age. 35 In a studied
      speech, conceived and delivered with dignity, the emperor
      represented the various dangers which threatened the prosperity
      of the republic, the necessity of naming a Cæsar for the
      administration of the West, and his own intention, if it was
      agreeable to their wishes, of rewarding with the honors of the
      purple the promising virtues of the nephew of Constantine. The
      approbation of the soldiers was testified by a respectful murmur;
      they gazed on the manly countenance of Julian, and observed with
      pleasure, that the fire which sparkled in his eyes was tempered
      by a modest blush, on being thus exposed, for the first time, to
      the public view of mankind. As soon as the ceremony of his
      investiture had been performed, Constantius addressed him with
      the tone of authority which his superior age and station
      permitted him to assume; and exhorting the new Cæsar to deserve,
      by heroic deeds, that sacred and immortal name, the emperor gave
      his colleague the strongest assurances of a friendship which
      should never be impaired by time, nor interrupted by their
      separation into the most distant climes. As soon as the speech
      was ended, the troops, as a token of applause, clashed their
      shields against their knees; 36 while the officers who surrounded
      the tribunal expressed, with decent reserve, their sense of the
      merits of the representative of Constantius.

      35 (return) [ See Ammian. Marcellin. l. xv. c. 8. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 139. Aurelius Victor. Victor Junior in Epitom. Eutrop. x.
      14.]

      36 (return) [ Militares omnes horrendo fragore scuta genibus
      illidentes; quod est prosperitatis indicium plenum; nam contra
      cum hastis clypei feriuntur, iræ documentum est et doloris... ...
      Ammianus adds, with a nice distinction, Eumque ut potiori
      reverentia servaretur, nec supra modum laudabant nec infra quam
      decebat.]

      The two princes returned to the palace in the same chariot; and
      during the slow procession, Julian repeated to himself a verse of
      his favorite Homer, which he might equally apply to his fortune
      and to his fears. 37 The four-and-twenty days which the Cæsar
      spent at Milan after his investiture, and the first months of his
      Gallic reign, were devoted to a splendid but severe captivity;
      nor could the acquisition of honor compensate for the loss of
      freedom. 38 His steps were watched, his correspondence was
      intercepted; and he was obliged, by prudence, to decline the
      visits of his most intimate friends. Of his former domestics,
      four only were permitted to attend him; two pages, his physician,
      and his librarian; the last of whom was employed in the care of a
      valuable collection of books, the gift of the empress, who
      studied the inclinations as well as the interest of her friend.
      In the room of these faithful servants, a household was formed,
      such indeed as became the dignity of a Cæsar; but it was filled
      with a crowd of slaves, destitute, and perhaps incapable, of any
      attachment for their new master, to whom, for the most part, they
      were either unknown or suspected. His want of experience might
      require the assistance of a wise council; but the minute
      instructions which regulated the service of his table, and the
      distribution of his hours, were adapted to a youth still under
      the discipline of his preceptors, rather than to the situation of
      a prince intrusted with the conduct of an important war. If he
      aspired to deserve the esteem of his subjects, he was checked by
      the fear of displeasing his sovereign; and even the fruits of his
      marriage-bed were blasted by the jealous artifices of Eusebia 39
      herself, who, on this occasion alone, seems to have been
      unmindful of the tenderness of her sex, and the generosity of her
      character. The memory of his father and of his brothers reminded
      Julian of his own danger, and his apprehensions were increased by
      the recent and unworthy fate of Sylvanus. In the summer which
      preceded his own elevation, that general had been chosen to
      deliver Gaul from the tyranny of the Barbarians; but Sylvanus
      soon discovered that he had left his most dangerous enemies in
      the Imperial court. A dexterous informer, countenanced by several
      of the principal ministers, procured from him some recommendatory
      letters; and erasing the whole of the contents, except the
      signature, filled up the vacant parchment with matters of high
      and treasonable import. By the industry and courage of his
      friends, the fraud was however detected, and in a great council
      of the civil and military officers, held in the presence of the
      emperor himself, the innocence of Sylvanus was publicly
      acknowledged. But the discovery came too late; the report of the
      calumny, and the hasty seizure of his estate, had already
      provoked the indignant chief to the rebellion of which he was so
      unjustly accused. He assumed the purple at his head- quarters of
      Cologne, and his active powers appeared to menace Italy with an
      invasion, and Milan with a siege. In this emergency, Ursicinus, a
      general of equal rank, regained, by an act of treachery, the
      favor which he had lost by his eminent services in the East.
      Exasperated, as he might speciously allege, by the injuries of a
      similar nature, he hastened with a few followers to join the
      standard, and to betray the confidence, of his too credulous
      friend. After a reign of only twenty-eight days, Sylvanus was
      assassinated: the soldiers who, without any criminal intention,
      had blindly followed the example of their leader, immediately
      returned to their allegiance; and the flatterers of Constantius
      celebrated the wisdom and felicity of the monarch who had
      extinguished a civil war without the hazard of a battle. 40

      37 (return) [ The word _purple_ which Homer had used as a vague
      but common epithet for death, was applied by Julian to express,
      very aptly, the nature and object of his own apprehensions.]

      38 (return) [ He represents, in the most pathetic terms, (p.
      277,) the distress of his new situation. The provision for his
      table was, however, so elegant and sumptuous, that the young
      philosopher rejected it with disdain. Quum legeret libellum
      assidue, quem Constantius ut privignum ad studia mittens manû suâ
      conscripserat, prælicenter disponens quid in convivio Cæsaris
      impendi deberit: Phasianum, et vulvam et sumen exigi vetuit et
      inferri. Ammian. Marcellin. l. xvi. c. 5.]

      39 (return) [ If we recollect that Constantine, the father of
      Helena, died above eighteen years before, in a mature old age, it
      will appear probable, that the daughter, though a virgin, could
      not be very young at the time of her marriage. She was soon
      afterwards delivered of a son, who died immediately, quod
      obstetrix corrupta mercede, mox natum præsecto plusquam
      convenerat umbilico necavit. She accompanied the emperor and
      empress in their journey to Rome, and the latter, quæsitum
      venenum bibere per fraudem illexit, ut quotiescunque concepisset,
      immaturum abjicerit partum. Ammian. l. xvi. c. 10. Our physicians
      will determine whether there exists such a poison. For my own
      part I am inclined to hope that the public malignity imputed the
      effects of accident as the guilt of Eusebia.]

      40 (return) [ Ammianus (xv. v.) was perfectly well informed of
      the conduct and fate of Sylvanus. He himself was one of the few
      followers who attended Ursicinus in his dangerous enterprise.]

      The protection of the Rhætian frontier, and the persecution of
      the Catholic church, detained Constantius in Italy above eighteen
      months after the departure of Julian. Before the emperor returned
      into the East, he indulged his pride and curiosity in a visit to
      the ancient capital. 41 He proceeded from Milan to Rome along the
      Æmilian and Flaminian ways, and as soon as he approached within
      forty miles of the city, the march of a prince who had never
      vanquished a foreign enemy, assumed the appearance of a triumphal
      procession. His splendid train was composed of all the ministers
      of luxury; but in a time of profound peace, he was encompassed by
      the glittering arms of the numerous squadrons of his guards and
      cuirassiers. Their streaming banners of silk, embossed with gold,
      and shaped in the form of dragons, waved round the person of the
      emperor. Constantius sat alone in a lofty car, resplendent with
      gold and precious gems; and, except when he bowed his head to
      pass under the gates of the cities, he affected a stately
      demeanor of inflexible, and, as it might seem, of insensible
      gravity. The severe discipline of the Persian youth had been
      introduced by the eunuchs into the Imperial palace; and such were
      the habits of patience which they had inculcated, that during a
      slow and sultry march, he was never seen to move his hand towards
      his face, or to turn his eyes either to the right or to the left.
      He was received by the magistrates and senate of Rome; and the
      emperor surveyed, with attention, the civil honors of the
      republic, and the consular images of the noble families. The
      streets were lined with an innumerable multitude. Their repeated
      acclamations expressed their joy at beholding, after an absence
      of thirty-two years, the sacred person of their sovereign, and
      Constantius himself expressed, with some pleasantry, he affected
      surprise that the human race should thus suddenly be collected on
      the same spot. The son of Constantine was lodged in the ancient
      palace of Augustus: he presided in the senate, harangued the
      people from the tribunal which Cicero had so often ascended,
      assisted with unusual courtesy at the games of the Circus, and
      accepted the crowns of gold, as well as the Panegyrics which had
      been prepared for the ceremony by the deputies of the principal
      cities. His short visit of thirty days was employed in viewing
      the monuments of art and power which were scattered over the
      seven hills and the interjacent valleys. He admired the awful
      majesty of the Capitol, the vast extent of the baths of Caracalla
      and Diocletian, the severe simplicity of the Pantheon, the massy
      greatness of the amphitheatre of Titus, the elegant architecture
      of the theatre of Pompey and the Temple of Peace, and, above all,
      the stately structure of the Forum and column of Trajan;
      acknowledging that the voice of fame, so prone to invent and to
      magnify, had made an inadequate report of the metropolis of the
      world. The traveller, who has contemplated the ruins of ancient
      Rome, may conceive some imperfect idea of the sentiments which
      they must have inspired when they reared their heads in the
      splendor of unsullied beauty.

      [See The Pantheon: The severe simplicity of the Pantheon]

      41 (return) [ For the particulars of the visit of Constantius to
      Rome, see Ammianus, l. xvi. c. 10. We have only to add, that
      Themistius was appointed deputy from Constantinople, and that he
      composed his fourth oration for his ceremony.]

      The satisfaction which Constantius had received from this journey
      excited him to the generous emulation of bestowing on the Romans
      some memorial of his own gratitude and munificence. His first
      idea was to imitate the equestrian and colossal statue which he
      had seen in the Forum of Trajan; but when he had maturely weighed
      the difficulties of the execution, 42 he chose rather to
      embellish the capital by the gift of an Egyptian obelisk. In a
      remote but polished age, which seems to have preceded the
      invention of alphabetical writing, a great number of these
      obelisks had been erected, in the cities of Thebes and
      Heliopolis, by the ancient sovereigns of Egypt, in a just
      confidence that the simplicity of their form, and the hardness of
      their substance, would resist the injuries of time and violence.
      43 Several of these extraordinary columns had been transported to
      Rome by Augustus and his successors, as the most durable
      monuments of their power and victory; 44 but there remained one
      obelisk, which, from its size or sanctity, escaped for a long
      time the rapacious vanity of the conquerors. It was designed by
      Constantine to adorn his new city; 45 and, after being removed by
      his order from the pedestal where it stood before the Temple of
      the Sun at Heliopolis, was floated down the Nile to Alexandria.
      The death of Constantine suspended the execution of his purpose,
      and this obelisk was destined by his son to the ancient capital
      of the empire. A vessel of uncommon strength and capaciousness
      was provided to convey this enormous weight of granite, at least
      a hundred and fifteen feet in length, from the banks of the Nile
      to those of the Tyber. The obelisk of Constantius was landed
      about three miles from the city, and elevated, by the efforts of
      art and labor, in the great Circus of Rome. 46 4611

      42 (return) [ Hormisdas, a fugitive prince of Persia, observed to
      the emperor, that if he made such a horse, he must think of
      preparing a similar stable, (the Forum of Trajan.) Another saying
      of Hormisdas is recorded, “that one thing only had _displeased_
      him, to find that men died at Rome as well as elsewhere.” If we
      adopt this reading of the text of Ammianus, (_displicuisse_,
      instead of _placuisse_,) we may consider it as a reproof of Roman
      vanity. The contrary sense would be that of a misanthrope.]

      43 (return) [ When Germanicus visited the ancient monuments of
      Thebes, the eldest of the priests explained to him the meaning of
      these hiero glyphics. Tacit. Annal. ii. c. 60. But it seems
      probable, that before the useful invention of an alphabet, these
      natural or arbitrary signs were the common characters of the
      Egyptian nation. See Warburton’s Divine Legation of Moses, vol.
      iii. p. 69-243.]

      44 (return) [ See Plin. Hist. Natur. l. xxxvi. c. 14, 15.]

      45 (return) [ Ammian. Marcellin l. xvii. c. 4. He gives us a
      Greek interpretation of the hieroglyphics, and his commentator
      Lindenbrogius adds a Latin inscription, which, in twenty verses
      of the age of Constantius, contain a short history of the
      obelisk.]

      46 (return) [ See Donat. Roma. Antiqua, l. iii. c. 14, l. iv. c.
      12, and the learned, though confused, Dissertation of Bargæus on
      Obelisks, inserted in the fourth volume of Grævius’s Roman
      Antiquities, p. 1897- 1936. This dissertation is dedicated to
      Pope Sixtus V., who erected the obelisk of Constantius in the
      square before the patriarchal church of at. John Lateran.]

      4611 (return) [ It is doubtful whether the obelisk transported by
      Constantius to Rome now exists. Even from the text of Ammianus,
      it is uncertain whether the interpretation of Hermapion refers to
      the older obelisk, (obelisco incisus est veteri quem videmus in
      Circo,) raised, as he himself states, in the Circus Maximus, long
      before, by Augustus, or to the one brought by Constantius. The
      obelisk in the square before the church of St. John Lateran is
      ascribed not to Rameses the Great but to Thoutmos II.
      Champollion, 1. Lettre a M. de Blacas, p. 32.—M]

      The departure of Constantius from Rome was hastened by the
      alarming intelligence of the distress and danger of the Illyrian
      provinces. The distractions of civil war, and the irreparable
      loss which the Roman legions had sustained in the battle of
      Mursa, exposed those countries, almost without defence, to the
      light cavalry of the Barbarians; and particularly to the inroads
      of the Quadi, a fierce and powerful nation, who seem to have
      exchanged the institutions of Germany for the arms and military
      arts of their Sarmatian allies. 47 The garrisons of the frontiers
      were insufficient to check their progress; and the indolent
      monarch was at length compelled to assemble, from the extremities
      of his dominions, the flower of the Palatine troops, to take the
      field in person, and to employ a whole campaign, with the
      preceding autumn and the ensuing spring, in the serious
      prosecution of the war. The emperor passed the Danube on a bridge
      of boats, cut in pieces all that encountered his march,
      penetrated into the heart of the country of the Quadi, and
      severely retaliated the calamities which they had inflicted on
      the Roman province. The dismayed Barbarians were soon reduced to
      sue for peace: they offered the restitution of his captive
      subjects as an atonement for the past, and the noblest hostages
      as a pledge of their future conduct. The generous courtesy which
      was shown to the first among their chieftains who implored the
      clemency of Constantius, encouraged the more timid, or the more
      obstinate, to imitate their example; and the Imperial camp was
      crowded with the princes and ambassadors of the most distant
      tribes, who occupied the plains of the Lesser Poland, and who
      might have deemed themselves secure behind the lofty ridge of the
      Carpathian Mountains. While Constantius gave laws to the
      Barbarians beyond the Danube, he distinguished, with specious
      compassion, the Sarmatian exiles, who had been expelled from
      their native country by the rebellion of their slaves, and who
      formed a very considerable accession to the power of the Quadi.
      The emperor, embracing a generous but artful system of policy,
      released the Sarmatians from the bands of this humiliating
      dependence, and restored them, by a separate treaty, to the
      dignity of a nation united under the government of a king, the
      friend and ally of the republic. He declared his resolution of
      asserting the justice of their cause, and of securing the peace
      of the provinces by the extirpation, or at least the banishment,
      of the Limigantes, whose manners were still infected with the
      vices of their servile origin. The execution of this design was
      attended with more difficulty than glory. The territory of the
      Limigantes was protected against the Romans by the Danube,
      against the hostile Barbarians by the Teyss. The marshy lands
      which lay between those rivers, and were often covered by their
      inundations, formed an intricate wilderness, pervious only to the
      inhabitants, who were acquainted with its secret paths and
      inaccessible fortresses. On the approach of Constantius, the
      Limigantes tried the efficacy of prayers, of fraud, and of arms;
      but he sternly rejected their supplications, defeated their rude
      stratagems, and repelled with skill and firmness the efforts of
      their irregular valor. One of their most warlike tribes,
      established in a small island towards the conflux of the Teyss
      and the Danube, consented to pass the river with the intention of
      surprising the emperor during the security of an amicable
      conference. They soon became the victims of the perfidy which
      they meditated. Encompassed on every side, trampled down by the
      cavalry, slaughtered by the swords of the legions, they disdained
      to ask for mercy; and with an undaunted countenance, still
      grasped their weapons in the agonies of death. After this
      victory, a considerable body of Romans was landed on the opposite
      banks of the Danube; the Taifalæ, a Gothic tribe engaged in the
      service of the empire, invaded the Limigantes on the side of the
      Teyss; and their former masters, the free Sarmatians, animated by
      hope and revenge, penetrated through the hilly country, into the
      heart of their ancient possessions. A general conflagration
      revealed the huts of the Barbarians, which were seated in the
      depth of the wilderness; and the soldier fought with confidence
      on marshy ground, which it was dangerous for him to tread. In
      this extremity, the bravest of the Limigantes were resolved to
      die in arms, rather than to yield: but the milder sentiment,
      enforced by the authority of their elders, at length prevailed;
      and the suppliant crowd, followed by their wives and children,
      repaired to the Imperial camp, to learn their fate from the mouth
      of the conqueror. After celebrating his own clemency, which was
      still inclined to pardon their repeated crimes, and to spare the
      remnant of a guilty nation, Constantius assigned for the place of
      their exile a remote country, where they might enjoy a safe and
      honorable repose. The Limigantes obeyed with reluctance; but
      before they could reach, at least before they could occupy, their
      destined habitations, they returned to the banks of the Danube,
      exaggerating the hardships of their situation, and requesting,
      with fervent professions of fidelity, that the emperor would
      grant them an undisturbed settlement within the limits of the
      Roman provinces. Instead of consulting his own experience of
      their incurable perfidy, Constantius listened to his flatterers,
      who were ready to represent the honor and advantage of accepting
      a colony of soldiers, at a time when it was much easier to obtain
      the pecuniary contributions than the military service of the
      subjects of the empire. The Limigantes were permitted to pass the
      Danube; and the emperor gave audience to the multitude in a large
      plain near the modern city of Buda. They surrounded the tribunal,
      and seemed to hear with respect an oration full of mildness and
      dignity when one of the Barbarians, casting his shoe into the
      air, exclaimed with a loud voice, _Marha! Marha!_ 4711 a word of
      defiance, which was received as a signal of the tumult. They
      rushed with fury to seize the person of the emperor; his royal
      throne and golden couch were pillaged by these rude hands; but
      the faithful defence of his guards, who died at his feet, allowed
      him a moment to mount a fleet horse, and to escape from the
      confusion. The disgrace which had been incurred by a treacherous
      surprise was soon retrieved by the numbers and discipline of the
      Romans; and the combat was only terminated by the extinction of
      the name and nation of the Limigantes. The free Sarmatians were
      reinstated in the possession of their ancient seats; and although
      Constantius distrusted the levity of their character, he
      entertained some hopes that a sense of gratitude might influence
      their future conduct. He had remarked the lofty stature and
      obsequious demeanor of Zizais, one of the noblest of their
      chiefs. He conferred on him the title of King; and Zizais proved
      that he was not unworthy to reign, by a sincere and lasting
      attachment to the interests of his benefactor, who, after this
      splendid success, received the name of _Sarmaticus_ from the
      acclamations of his victorious army. 48

      47 (return) [ The events of this Quadian and Sarmatian war are
      related by Ammianus, xvi. 10, xvii. 12, 13, xix. 11]

      4711 (return) [ Reinesius reads Warrha, Warrha, Guerre, War.
      Wagner note as a mm. Marc xix. ll.—M.]

      48 (return) [ Genti Sarmatarum magno decori confidens apud eos
      regem dedit. Aurelius Victor. In a pompous oration pronounced by
      Constantius himself, he expatiates on his own exploits with much
      vanity, and some truth]




      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part III.


      While the Roman emperor and the Persian monarch, at the distance
      of three thousand miles, defended their extreme limits against
      the Barbarians of the Danube and of the Oxus, their intermediate
      frontier experienced the vicissitudes of a languid war, and a
      precarious truce. Two of the eastern ministers of Constantius,
      the Prætorian præfect Musonian, whose abilities were disgraced by
      the want of truth and integrity, and Cassian, duke of
      Mesopotamia, a hardy and veteran soldier, opened a secret
      negotiation with the satrap Tamsapor. 49 4911 These overtures of
      peace, translated into the servile and flattering language of
      Asia, were transmitted to the camp of the Great King; who
      resolved to signify, by an ambassador, the terms which he was
      inclined to grant to the suppliant Romans. Narses, whom he
      invested with that character, was honorably received in his
      passage through Antioch and Constantinople: he reached Sirmium
      after a long journey, and, at his first audience, respectfully
      unfolded the silken veil which covered the haughty epistle of his
      sovereign. Sapor, King of Kings, and Brother of the Sun and Moon,
      (such were the lofty titles affected by Oriental vanity,)
      expressed his satisfaction that his brother, Constantius Cæsar,
      had been taught wisdom by adversity. As the lawful successor of
      Darius Hystaspes, Sapor asserted, that the River Strymon, in
      Macedonia, was the true and ancient boundary of his empire;
      declaring, however, that as an evidence of his moderation, he
      would content himself with the provinces of Armenia and
      Mesopotamia, which had been fraudulently extorted from his
      ancestors. He alleged, that, without the restitution of these
      disputed countries, it was impossible to establish any treaty on
      a solid and permanent basis; and he arrogantly threatened, that
      if his ambassador returned in vain, he was prepared to take the
      field in the spring, and to support the justice of his cause by
      the strength of his invincible arms. Narses, who was endowed with
      the most polite and amiable manners, endeavored, as far as was
      consistent with his duty, to soften the harshness of the message.
      50 Both the style and substance were maturely weighed in the
      Imperial council, and he was dismissed with the following answer:
      “Constantius had a right to disclaim the officiousness of his
      ministers, who had acted without any specific orders from the
      throne: he was not, however, averse to an equal and honorable
      treaty; but it was highly indecent, as well as absurd, to propose
      to the sole and victorious emperor of the Roman world, the same
      conditions of peace which he had indignantly rejected at the time
      when his power was contracted within the narrow limits of the
      East: the chance of arms was uncertain; and Sapor should
      recollect, that if the Romans had sometimes been vanquished in
      battle, they had almost always been successful in the event of
      the war.” A few days after the departure of Narses, three
      ambassadors were sent to the court of Sapor, who was already
      returned from the Scythian expedition to his ordinary residence
      of Ctesiphon. A count, a notary, and a sophist, had been selected
      for this important commission; and Constantius, who was secretly
      anxious for the conclusion of the peace, entertained some hopes
      that the dignity of the first of these ministers, the dexterity
      of the second, and the rhetoric of the third, 51 would persuade
      the Persian monarch to abate of the rigor of his demands. But the
      progress of their negotiation was opposed and defeated by the
      hostile arts of Antoninus, 52 a Roman subject of Syria, who had
      fled from oppression, and was admitted into the councils of
      Sapor, and even to the royal table, where, according to the
      custom of the Persians, the most important business was
      frequently discussed. 53 The dexterous fugitive promoted his
      interest by the same conduct which gratified his revenge. He
      incessantly urged the ambition of his new master to embrace the
      favorable opportunity when the bravest of the Palatine troops
      were employed with the emperor in a distant war on the Danube. He
      pressed Sapor to invade the exhausted and defenceless provinces
      of the East, with the numerous armies of Persia, now fortified by
      the alliance and accession of the fiercest Barbarians. The
      ambassadors of Rome retired without success, and a second
      embassy, of a still more honorable rank, was detained in strict
      confinement, and threatened either with death or exile.

      49 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 9.]

      4911 (return) [ In Persian, Ten-schah-pour. St. Martin, ii.
      177.—M.]

      50 (return) [ Ammianus (xvii. 5) transcribes the haughty letter.
      Themistius (Orat. iv. p. 57, edit. Petav.) takes notice of the
      silken covering. Idatius and Zonaras mention the journey of the
      ambassador; and Peter the Patrician (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 58)
      has informed us of his behavior.]

      51 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 5, and Valesius ad loc. The
      sophist, or philosopher, (in that age these words were almost
      synonymous,) was Eustathius the Cappadocian, the disciple of
      Jamblichus, and the friend of St. Basil. Eunapius (in Vit.
      Ædesii, p. 44-47) fondly attributes to this philosophic
      ambassador the glory of enchanting the Barbarian king by the
      persuasive charms of reason and eloquence. See Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 828, 1132.]

      52 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 5, 6, 8. The decent and respectful
      behavior of Antoninus towards the Roman general, sets him in a
      very interesting light; and Ammianus himself speaks of the
      traitor with some compassion and esteem.]

      53 (return) [ This circumstance, as it is noticed by Ammianus,
      serves to prove the veracity of Herodotus, (l. i. c. 133,) and
      the permanency of the Persian manners. In every age the Persians
      have been addicted to intemperance, and the wines of Shiraz have
      triumphed over the law of Mahomet. Brisson de Regno Pers. l. ii.
      p. 462-472, and Voyages en Perse, tom, iii. p. 90.]

      The military historian, 54 who was himself despatched to observe
      the army of the Persians, as they were preparing to construct a
      bridge of boats over the Tigris, beheld from an eminence the
      plain of Assyria, as far as the edge of the horizon, covered with
      men, with horses, and with arms. Sapor appeared in the front,
      conspicuous by the splendor of his purple. On his left hand, the
      place of honor among the Orientals, Grumbates, king of the
      Chionites, displayed the stern countenance of an aged and
      renowned warrior. The monarch had reserved a similar place on his
      right hand for the king of the Albanians, who led his independent
      tribes from the shores of the Caspian. 5411 The satraps and
      generals were distributed according to their several ranks, and
      the whole army, besides the numerous train of Oriental luxury,
      consisted of more than one hundred thousand effective men, inured
      to fatigue, and selected from the bravest nations of Asia. The
      Roman deserter, who in some measure guided the councils of Sapor,
      had prudently advised, that, instead of wasting the summer in
      tedious and difficult sieges, he should march directly to the
      Euphrates, and press forwards without delay to seize the feeble
      and wealthy metropolis of Syria. But the Persians were no sooner
      advanced into the plains of Mesopotamia, than they discovered
      that every precaution had been used which could retard their
      progress, or defeat their design. The inhabitants, with their
      cattle, were secured in places of strength, the green forage
      throughout the country was set on fire, the fords of the rivers
      were fortified by sharp stakes; military engines were planted on
      the opposite banks, and a seasonable swell of the waters of the
      Euphrates deterred the Barbarians from attempting the ordinary
      passage of the bridge of Thapsacus. Their skilful guide, changing
      his plan of operations, then conducted the army by a longer
      circuit, but through a fertile territory, towards the head of the
      Euphrates, where the infant river is reduced to a shallow and
      accessible stream. Sapor overlooked, with prudent disdain, the
      strength of Nisibis; but as he passed under the walls of Amida,
      he resolved to try whether the majesty of his presence would not
      awe the garrison into immediate submission. The sacrilegious
      insult of a random dart, which glanced against the royal tiara,
      convinced him of his error; and the indignant monarch listened
      with impatience to the advice of his ministers, who conjured him
      not to sacrifice the success of his ambition to the gratification
      of his resentment. The following day Grumbates advanced towards
      the gates with a select body of troops, and required the instant
      surrender of the city, as the only atonement which could be
      accepted for such an act of rashness and insolence. His proposals
      were answered by a general discharge, and his only son, a
      beautiful and valiant youth, was pierced through the heart by a
      javelin, shot from one of the balistæ. The funeral of the prince
      of the Chionites was celebrated according to the rites of the
      country; and the grief of his aged father was alleviated by the
      solemn promise of Sapor, that the guilty city of Amida should
      serve as a funeral pile to expiate the death, and to perpetuate
      the memory, of his son.

      54 (return) [ Ammian. lxviii. 6, 7, 8, 10.]

      5411 (return) [ These perhaps were the barbarous tribes who
      inhabit the northern part of the present Schirwan, the Albania of
      the ancients. This country, now inhabited by the Lezghis, the
      terror of the neighboring districts, was then occupied by the
      same people, called by the ancients Legæ, by the Armenians Gheg,
      or Leg. The latter represent them as constant allies of the
      Persians in their wars against Armenia and the Empire. A little
      after this period, a certain Schergir was their king, and it is
      of him doubtless Ammianus Marcellinus speaks. St. Martin, ii.
      285.—M.]

      The ancient city of Amid or Amida, 55 which sometimes assumes the
      provincial appellation of Diarbekir, 56 is advantageously situate
      in a fertile plain, watered by the natural and artificial
      channels of the Tigris, of which the least inconsiderable stream
      bends in a semicircular form round the eastern part of the city.
      The emperor Constantius had recently conferred on Amida the honor
      of his own name, and the additional fortifications of strong
      walls and lofty towers. It was provided with an arsenal of
      military engines, and the ordinary garrison had been reenforced
      to the amount of seven legions, when the place was invested by
      the arms of Sapor. 57 His first and most sanguine hopes depended
      on the success of a general assault. To the several nations which
      followed his standard, their respective posts were assigned; the
      south to the Vertæ; the north to the Albanians; the east to the
      Chionites, inflamed with grief and indignation; the west to the
      Segestans, the bravest of his warriors, who covered their front
      with a formidable line of Indian elephants. 58 The Persians, on
      every side, supported their efforts, and animated their courage;
      and the monarch himself, careless of his rank and safety,
      displayed, in the prosecution of the siege, the ardor of a
      youthful soldier. After an obstinate combat, the Barbarians were
      repulsed; they incessantly returned to the charge; they were
      again driven back with a dreadful slaughter, and two rebel
      legions of Gauls, who had been banished into the East, signalized
      their undisciplined courage by a nocturnal sally into the heart
      of the Persian camp. In one of the fiercest of these repeated
      assaults, Amida was betrayed by the treachery of a deserter, who
      indicated to the Barbarians a secret and neglected staircase,
      scooped out of the rock that hangs over the stream of the Tigris.
      Seventy chosen archers of the royal guard ascended in silence to
      the third story of a lofty tower, which commanded the precipice;
      they elevated on high the Persian banner, the signal of
      confidence to the assailants, and of dismay to the besieged; and
      if this devoted band could have maintained their post a few
      minutes longer, the reduction of the place might have been
      purchased by the sacrifice of their lives. After Sapor had tried,
      without success, the efficacy of force and of stratagem, he had
      recourse to the slower but more certain operations of a regular
      siege, in the conduct of which he was instructed by the skill of
      the Roman deserters. The trenches were opened at a convenient
      distance, and the troops destined for that service advanced under
      the portable cover of strong hurdles, to fill up the ditch, and
      undermine the foundations of the walls. Wooden towers were at the
      same time constructed, and moved forwards on wheels, till the
      soldiers, who were provided with every species of missile
      weapons, could engage almost on level ground with the troops who
      defended the rampart. Every mode of resistance which art could
      suggest, or courage could execute, was employed in the defence of
      Amida, and the works of Sapor were more than once destroyed by
      the fire of the Romans. But the resources of a besieged city may
      be exhausted. The Persians repaired their losses, and pushed
      their approaches; a large preach was made by the battering-ram,
      and the strength of the garrison, wasted by the sword and by
      disease, yielded to the fury of the assault. The soldiers, the
      citizens, their wives, their children, all who had not time to
      escape through the opposite gate, were involved by the conquerors
      in a promiscuous massacre.

      55 (return) [ For the description of Amida, see D’Herbelot,
      Bebliotheque Orientale, p. Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 108.
      Histoire de Timur Bec, par Cherefeddin Ali, l. iii. c. 41. Ahmed
      Arabsiades, tom. i. p. 331, c. 43. Voyages de Tavernier, tom. i.
      p. 301. Voyages d’Otter, tom. ii. p. 273, and Voyages de Niebuhr,
      tom. ii. p. 324-328. The last of these travellers, a learned and
      accurate Dane, has given a plan of Amida, which illustrates the
      operations of the siege.]

      56 (return) [ Diarbekir, which is styled Amid, or Kara Amid, in
      the public writings of the Turks, contains above 16,000 houses,
      and is the residence of a pacha with three tails. The epithet of
      _Kara_ is derived from the _blackness_ of the stone which
      composes the strong and ancient wall of Amida. ——In my Mém. Hist.
      sur l’Armenie, l. i. p. 166, 173, I conceive that I have proved
      this city, still called, by the Armenians, Dirkranagerd, the city
      of Tigranes, to be the same with the famous Tigranocerta, of
      which the situation was unknown. St. Martin, i. 432. On the siege
      of Amida, see St. Martin’s Notes, ii. 290. Faustus of Byzantium,
      nearly a contemporary, (Armenian,) states that the Persians, on
      becoming masters of it, destroyed 40,000 houses though Ammianus
      describes the city as of no great extent, (civitatis ambitum non
      nimium amplæ.) Besides the ordinary population, and those who
      took refuge from the country, it contained 20,000 soldiers. St.
      Martin, ii. 290. This interpretation is extremely doubtful.
      Wagner (note on Ammianus) considers the whole population to
      amount only to—M.]

      57 (return) [ The operations of the siege of Amida are very
      minutely described by Ammianus, (xix. 1-9,) who acted an
      honorable part in the defence, and escaped with difficulty when
      the city was stormed by the Persians.]

      58 (return) [ Of these four nations, the Albanians are too well
      known to require any description. The Segestans [_Sacastenè. St.
      Martin._] inhabited a large and level country, which still
      preserves their name, to the south of Khorasan, and the west of
      Hindostan. (See Geographia Nubiensis. p. 133, and D’Herbelot,
      Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 797.) Notwithstanding the boasted
      victory of Bahram, (vol. i. p. 410,) the Segestans, above
      fourscore years afterwards, appear as an independent nation, the
      ally of Persia. We are ignorant of the situation of the Vertæ and
      Chionites, but I am inclined to place them (at least the latter)
      towards the confines of India and Scythia. See Ammian. ——Klaproth
      considers the real Albanians the same with the ancient Alani, and
      quotes a passage of the emperor Julian in support of his opinion.
      They are the Ossetæ, now inhabiting part of Caucasus. Tableaux
      Hist. de l’Asie, p. 179, 180.—M. ——The Vertæ are still unknown.
      It is possible that the Chionites are the same as the Huns. These
      people were already known; and we find from Armenian authors that
      they were making, at this period, incursions into Asia. They were
      often at war with the Persians. The name was perhaps pronounced
      differently in the East and in the West, and this prevents us
      from recognizing it. St. Martin, ii. 177.—M.]

      But the ruin of Amida was the safety of the Roman provinces.

      As soon as the first transports of victory had subsided, Sapor
      was at leisure to reflect, that to chastise a disobedient city,
      he had lost the flower of his troops, and the most favorable
      season for conquest. 59 Thirty thousand of his veterans had
      fallen under the walls of Amida, during the continuance of a
      siege, which lasted seventy-three days; and the disappointed
      monarch returned to his capital with affected triumph and secret
      mortification. It is more than probable, that the inconstancy of
      his Barbarian allies was tempted to relinquish a war in which
      they had encountered such unexpected difficulties; and that the
      aged king of the Chionites, satiated with revenge, turned away
      with horror from a scene of action where he had been deprived of
      the hope of his family and nation. The strength as well as the
      spirit of the army with which Sapor took the field in the ensuing
      spring was no longer equal to the unbounded views of his
      ambition. Instead of aspiring to the conquest of the East, he was
      obliged to content himself with the reduction of two fortified
      cities of Mesopotamia, Singara and Bezabde; 60 the one situate in
      the midst of a sandy desert, the other in a small peninsula,
      surrounded almost on every side by the deep and rapid stream of
      the Tigris. Five Roman legions, of the diminutive size to which
      they had been reduced in the age of Constantine, were made
      prisoners, and sent into remote captivity on the extreme confines
      of Persia. After dismantling the walls of Singara, the conqueror
      abandoned that solitary and sequestered place; but he carefully
      restored the fortifications of Bezabde, and fixed in that
      important post a garrison or colony of veterans; amply supplied
      with every means of defence, and animated by high sentiments of
      honor and fidelity. Towards the close of the campaign, the arms
      of Sapor incurred some disgrace by an unsuccessful enterprise
      against Virtha, or Tecrit, a strong, or, as it was universally
      esteemed till the age of Tamerlane, an impregnable fortress of
      the independent Arabs. 61 6111

      59 (return) [ Ammianus has marked the chronology of this year by
      three signs, which do not perfectly coincide with each other, or
      with the series of the history. 1 The corn was ripe when Sapor
      invaded Mesopotamia; “Cum jam stipula flaveate turgerent;” a
      circumstance, which, in the latitude of Aleppo, would naturally
      refer us to the month of April or May. See Harmer’s Observations
      on Scripture vol. i. p. 41. Shaw’s Travels, p. 335, edit 4to. 2.
      The progress of Sapor was checked by the overflowing of the
      Euphrates, which generally happens in July and August. Plin.
      Hist. Nat. v. 21. Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. p. 696.
      3. When Sapor had taken Amida, after a siege of seventy-three
      days, the autumn was far advanced. “Autumno præcipiti hædorumque
      improbo sidere exorto.” To reconcile these apparent
      contradictions, we must allow for some delay in the Persian king,
      some inaccuracy in the historian, and some disorder in the
      seasons.]

      60 (return) [ The account of these sieges is given by Ammianus,
      xx. 6, 7. ——The Christian bishop of Bezabde went to the camp of
      the king of Persia, to persuade him to check the waste of human
      blood Amm. Mare xx. 7.—M.]

      61 (return) [ For the identity of Virtha and Tecrit, see
      D’Anville, Geographie. For the siege of that castle by Timur Bec
      or Tamerlane, see Cherefeddin, l. iii. c. 33. The Persian
      biographer exaggerates the merit and difficulty of this exploit,
      which delivered the caravans of Bagdad from a formidable gang of
      robbers.]

      6111 (return) [ St. Martin doubts whether it lay so much to the
      south. “The word Girtha means in Syriac a castle or fortress, and
      might be applied to many places.”]

      The defence of the East against the arms of Sapor required and
      would have exercised, the abilities of the most consummate
      general; and it seemed fortunate for the state, that it was the
      actual province of the brave Ursicinus, who alone deserved the
      confidence of the soldiers and people. In the hour of danger, 62
      Ursicinus was removed from his station by the intrigues of the
      eunuchs; and the military command of the East was bestowed, by
      the same influence, on Sabinian, a wealthy and subtle veteran,
      who had attained the infirmities, without acquiring the
      experience, of age. By a second order, which issued from the same
      jealous and inconstant councils, Ursicinus was again despatched
      to the frontier of Mesopotamia, and condemned to sustain the
      labors of a war, the honors of which had been transferred to his
      unworthy rival. Sabinian fixed his indolent station under the
      walls of Edessa; and while he amused himself with the idle parade
      of military exercise, and moved to the sound of flutes in the
      Pyrrhic dance, the public defence was abandoned to the boldness
      and diligence of the former general of the East. But whenever
      Ursicinus recommended any vigorous plan of operations; when he
      proposed, at the head of a light and active army, to wheel round
      the foot of the mountains, to intercept the convoys of the enemy,
      to harass the wide extent of the Persian lines, and to relieve
      the distress of Amida; the timid and envious commander alleged,
      that he was restrained by his positive orders from endangering
      the safety of the troops. Amida was at length taken; its bravest
      defenders, who had escaped the sword of the Barbarians, died in
      the Roman camp by the hand of the executioner: and Ursicinus
      himself, after supporting the disgrace of a partial inquiry, was
      punished for the misconduct of Sabinian by the loss of his
      military rank. But Constantius soon experienced the truth of the
      prediction which honest indignation had extorted from his injured
      lieutenant, that as long as such maxims of government were
      suffered to prevail, the emperor himself would find it is no easy
      task to defend his eastern dominions from the invasion of a
      foreign enemy. When he had subdued or pacified the Barbarians of
      the Danube, Constantius proceeded by slow marches into the East;
      and after he had wept over the smoking ruins of Amida, he formed,
      with a powerful army, the siege of Becabde. The walls were shaken
      by the reiterated efforts of the most enormous of the
      battering-rams; the town was reduced to the last extremity; but
      it was still defended by the patient and intrepid valor of the
      garrison, till the approach of the rainy season obliged the
      emperor to raise the siege, and ingloviously to retreat into his
      winter quarters at Antioch. 63 The pride of Constantius, and the
      ingenuity of his courtiers, were at a loss to discover any
      materials for panegyric in the events of the Persian war; while
      the glory of his cousin Julian, to whose military command he had
      intrusted the provinces of Gaul, was proclaimed to the world in
      the simple and concise narrative of his exploits.

      62 (return) [ Ammianus (xviii. 5, 6, xix. 3, xx. 2) represents
      the merit and disgrace of Ursicinus with that faithful attention
      which a soldier owed to his general. Some partiality may be
      suspected, yet the whole account is consistent and probable.]

      63 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 11. Omisso vano incepto, hiematurus
      Antiochiæ redit in Syriam ærumnosam, perpessus et ulcerum sed et
      atrocia, diuque deflenda. It is _thus_ that James Gronovius has
      restored an obscure passage; and he thinks that this correction
      alone would have deserved a new edition of his author: whose
      sense may now be darkly perceived. I expected some additional
      light from the recent labors of the learned Ernestus. (Lipsiæ,
      1773.) * Note: The late editor (Wagner) has nothing better to
      suggest, and le menta with Gibbon, the silence of Ernesti.—M.]

      In the blind fury of civil discord, Constantius had abandoned to
      the Barbarians of Germany the countries of Gaul, which still
      acknowledged the authority of his rival. A numerous swarm of
      Franks and Alemanni were invited to cross the Rhine by presents
      and promises, by the hopes of spoil, and by a perpetual grant of
      all the territories which they should be able to subdue. 64 But
      the emperor, who for a temporary service had thus imprudently
      provoked the rapacious spirit of the Barbarians, soon discovered
      and lamented the difficulty of dismissing these formidable
      allies, after they had tasted the richness of the Roman soil.
      Regardless of the nice distinction of loyalty and rebellion,
      these undisciplined robbers treated as their natural enemies all
      the subjects of the empire, who possessed any property which they
      were desirous of acquiring Forty-five flourishing cities,
      Tongres, Cologne, Treves, Worms, Spires, Strasburgh, &c., besides
      a far greater number of towns and villages, were pillaged, and
      for the most part reduced to ashes. The Barbarians of Germany,
      still faithful to the maxims of their ancestors, abhorred the
      confinement of walls, to which they applied the odious names of
      prisons and sepulchres; and fixing their independent habitations
      on the banks of rivers, the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse,
      they secured themselves against the danger of a surprise, by a
      rude and hasty fortification of large trees, which were felled
      and thrown across the roads. The Alemanni were established in the
      modern countries of Alsace and Lorraine; the Franks occupied the
      island of the Batavians, together with an extensive district of
      Brabant, which was then known by the appellation of Toxandria, 65
      and may deserve to be considered as the original seat of their
      Gallic monarchy. 66 From the sources, to the mouth, of the Rhine,
      the conquests of the Germans extended above forty miles to the
      west of that river, over a country peopled by colonies of their
      own name and nation: and the scene of their devastations was
      three times more extensive than that of their conquests. At a
      still greater distance the open towns of Gaul were deserted, and
      the inhabitants of the fortified cities, who trusted to their
      strength and vigilance, were obliged to content themselves with
      such supplies of corn as they could raise on the vacant land
      within the enclosure of their walls. The diminished legions,
      destitute of pay and provisions, of arms and discipline, trembled
      at the approach, and even at the name, of the Barbarians.

      64 (return) [ The ravages of the Germans, and the distress of
      Gaul, may be collected from Julian himself. Orat. ad S. P. Q.
      Athen. p. 277. Ammian. xv. ll. Libanius, Orat. x. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 140. Sozomen, l. iii. c. l. (Mamertin. Grat. Art. c.
      iv.)]

      65 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 8. This name seems to be derived
      from the Toxandri of Pliny, and very frequently occurs in the
      histories of the middle age. Toxandria was a country of woods and
      morasses, which extended from the neighborhood of Tongres to the
      conflux of the Vahal and the Rhine. See Valesius, Notit. Galliar.
      p. 558.]

      66 (return) [ The paradox of P. Daniel, that the Franks never
      obtained any permanent settlement on this side of the Rhine
      before the time of Clovis, is refuted with much learning and good
      sense by M. Biet, who has proved by a chain of evidence, their
      uninterrupted possession of Toxandria, one hundred and thirty
      years before the accession of Clovis. The Dissertation of M. Biet
      was crowned by the Academy of Soissons, in the year 1736, and
      seems to have been justly preferred to the discourse of his more
      celebrated competitor, the Abbé le Bœuf, an antiquarian, whose
      name was happily expressive of his talents.]




      Chapter XIX: Constantius Sole Emperor.—Part IV.


      Under these melancholy circumstances, an unexperienced youth was
      appointed to save and to govern the provinces of Gaul, or rather,
      as he expressed it himself, to exhibit the vain image of Imperial
      greatness. The retired scholastic education of Julian, in which
      he had been more conversant with books than with arms, with the
      dead than with the living, left him in profound ignorance of the
      practical arts of war and government; and when he awkwardly
      repeated some military exercise which it was necessary for him to
      learn, he exclaimed with a sigh, “O Plato, Plato, what a task for
      a philosopher!” Yet even this speculative philosophy, which men
      of business are too apt to despise, had filled the mind of Julian
      with the noblest precepts and the most shining examples; had
      animated him with the love of virtue, the desire of fame, and the
      contempt of death. The habits of temperance recommended in the
      schools, are still more essential in the severe discipline of a
      camp. The simple wants of nature regulated the measure of his
      food and sleep. Rejecting with disdain the delicacies provided
      for his table, he satisfied his appetite with the coarse and
      common fare which was allotted to the meanest soldiers. During
      the rigor of a Gallic winter, he never suffered a fire in his
      bed-chamber; and after a short and interrupted slumber, he
      frequently rose in the middle of the night from a carpet spread
      on the floor, to despatch any urgent business, to visit his
      rounds, or to steal a few moments for the prosecution of his
      favorite studies. 67 The precepts of eloquence, which he had
      hitherto practised on fancied topics of declamation, were more
      usefully applied to excite or to assuage the passions of an armed
      multitude: and although Julian, from his early habits of
      conversation and literature, was more familiarly acquainted with
      the beauties of the Greek language, he had attained a competent
      knowledge of the Latin tongue. 68 Since Julian was not originally
      designed for the character of a legislator, or a judge, it is
      probable that the civil jurisprudence of the Romans had not
      engaged any considerable share of his attention: but he derived
      from his philosophic studies an inflexible regard for justice,
      tempered by a disposition to clemency; the knowledge of the
      general principles of equity and evidence, and the faculty of
      patiently investigating the most intricate and tedious questions
      which could be proposed for his discussion. The measures of
      policy, and the operations of war, must submit to the various
      accidents of circumstance and character, and the unpractised
      student will often be perplexed in the application of the most
      perfect theory.

      But in the acquisition of this important science, Julian was
      assisted by the active vigor of his own genius, as well as by the
      wisdom and experience of Sallust, and officer of rank, who soon
      conceived a sincere attachment for a prince so worthy of his
      friendship; and whose incorruptible integrity was adorned by the
      talent of insinuating the harshest truths without wounding the
      delicacy of a royal ear. 69

      67 (return) [ The private life of Julian in Gaul, and the severe
      discipline which he embraced, are displayed by Ammianus, (xvi.
      5,) who professes to praise, and by Julian himself, who affects
      to ridicule, (Misopogon, p. 340,) a conduct, which, in a prince
      of the house of Constantine, might justly excite the surprise of
      mankind.]

      68 (return) [ Aderat Latine quoque disserenti sufficiens sermo.
      Ammianus xvi. 5. But Julian, educated in the schools of Greece,
      always considered the language of the Romans as a foreign and
      popular dialect which he might use on necessary occasions.]

      69 (return) [ We are ignorant of the actual office of this
      excellent minister, whom Julian afterwards created præfect of
      Gaul. Sallust was speedly recalled by the jealousy of the
      emperor; and we may still read a sensible but pedantic discourse,
      (p. 240-252,) in which Julian deplores the loss of so valuable a
      friend, to whom he acknowledges himself indebted for his
      reputation. See La Bleterie, Preface a la Vie de lovien, p. 20.]

      Immediately after Julian had received the purple at Milan, he was
      sent into Gaul with a feeble retinue of three hundred and sixty
      soldiers. At Vienna, where he passed a painful and anxious winter
      in the hands of those ministers to whom Constantius had intrusted
      the direction of his conduct, the Cæsar was informed of the siege
      and deliverance of Autun. That large and ancient city, protected
      only by a ruined wall and pusillanimous garrison, was saved by
      the generous resolution of a few veterans, who resumed their arms
      for the defence of their country. In his march from Autun,
      through the heart of the Gallic provinces, Julian embraced with
      ardor the earliest opportunity of signalizing his courage. At the
      head of a small body of archers and heavy cavalry, he preferred
      the shorter but the more dangerous of two roads; 6911 and
      sometimes eluding, and sometimes resisting, the attacks of the
      Barbarians, who were masters of the field, he arrived with honor
      and safety at the camp near Rheims, where the Roman troops had
      been ordered to assemble. The aspect of their young prince
      revived the drooping spirits of the soldiers, and they marched
      from Rheims in search of the enemy, with a confidence which had
      almost proved fatal to them. The Alemanni, familiarized to the
      knowledge of the country, secretly collected their scattered
      forces, and seizing the opportunity of a dark and rainy day,
      poured with unexpected fury on the rear-guard of the Romans.
      Before the inevitable disorder could be remedied, two legions
      were destroyed; and Julian was taught by experience that caution
      and vigilance are the most important lessons of the art of war.
      In a second and more successful action, he recovered and
      established his military fame; but as the agility of the
      Barbarians saved them from the pursuit, his victory was neither
      bloody nor decisive. He advanced, however, to the banks of the
      Rhine, surveyed the ruins of Cologne, convinced himself of the
      difficulties of the war, and retreated on the approach of winter,
      discontented with the court, with his army, and with his own
      success. 70 The power of the enemy was yet unbroken; and the
      Cæsar had no sooner separated his troops, and fixed his own
      quarters at Sens, in the centre of Gaul, than he was surrounded
      and besieged, by a numerous host of Germans. Reduced, in this
      extremity, to the resources of his own mind, he displayed a
      prudent intrepidity, which compensated for all the deficiencies
      of the place and garrison; and the Barbarians, at the end of
      thirty days, were obliged to retire with disappointed rage.

      6911 (return) [ Aliis per Arbor—quibusdam per Sedelaucum et Coram
      in debere firrantibus. Amm. Marc. xvi. 2. I do not know what
      place can be meant by the mutilated name Arbor. Sedelanus is
      Saulieu, a small town of the department of the Cote d’Or, six
      leagues from Autun. Cora answers to the village of Cure, on the
      river of the same name, between Autun and Nevera 4; Martin, ii.
      162.—M. ——Note: At Brocomages, Brumat, near Strasburgh. St.
      Martin, ii. 184.—M.]

      70 (return) [ Ammianus (xvi. 2, 3) appears much better satisfied
      with the success of his first campaign than Julian himself; who
      very fairly owns that he did nothing of consequence, and that he
      fled before the enemy.]

      The conscious pride of Julian, who was indebted only to his sword
      for this signal deliverance, was imbittered by the reflection,
      that he was abandoned, betrayed, and perhaps devoted to
      destruction, by those who were bound to assist him, by every tie
      of honor and fidelity. Marcellus, master-general of the cavalry
      in Gaul, interpreting too strictly the jealous orders of the
      court, beheld with supine indifference the distress of Julian,
      and had restrained the troops under his command from marching to
      the relief of Sens. If the Cæsar had dissembled in silence so
      dangerous an insult, his person and authority would have been
      exposed to the contempt of the world; and if an action so
      criminal had been suffered to pass with impunity, the emperor
      would have confirmed the suspicions, which received a very
      specious color from his past conduct towards the princes of the
      Flavian family. Marcellus was recalled, and gently dismissed from
      his office. 71 In his room Severus was appointed general of the
      cavalry; an experienced soldier, of approved courage and
      fidelity, who could advise with respect, and execute with zeal;
      and who submitted, without reluctance to the supreme command
      which Julian, by the inrerest of his patroness Eusebia, at length
      obtained over the armies of Gaul. 72 A very judicious plan of
      operations was adopted for the approaching campaign. Julian
      himself, at the head of the remains of the veteran bands, and of
      some new levies which he had been permitted to form, boldly
      penetrated into the centre of the German cantonments, and
      carefully reestablished the fortifications of Saverne, in an
      advantageous post, which would either check the incursions, or
      intercept the retreat, of the enemy. At the same time, Barbatio,
      general of the infantry, advanced from Milan with an army of
      thirty thousand men, and passing the mountains, prepared to throw
      a bridge over the Rhine, in the neighborhood of Basil. It was
      reasonable to expect that the Alemanni, pressed on either side by
      the Roman arms, would soon be forced to evacuate the provinces of
      Gaul, and to hasten to the defence of their native country. But
      the hopes of the campaign were defeated by the incapacity, or the
      envy, or the secret instructions, of Barbatio; who acted as if he
      had been the enemy of the Cæsar, and the secret ally of the
      Barbarians. The negligence with which he permitted a troop of
      pillagers freely to pass, and to return almost before the gates
      of his camp, may be imputed to his want of abilities; but the
      treasonable act of burning a number of boats, and a superfluous
      stock of provisions, which would have been of the most essential
      service to the army of Gaul, was an evidence of his hostile and
      criminal intentions. The Germans despised an enemy who appeared
      destitute either of power or of inclination to offend them; and
      the ignominious retreat of Barbatio deprived Julian of the
      expected support; and left him to extricate himself from a
      hazardous situation, where he could neither remain with safety,
      nor retire with honor. 73

      71 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 7. Libanius speaks rather more
      advantageously of the military talents of Marcellus, Orat. x. p.
      272. And Julian insinuates, that he would not have been so easily
      recalled, unless he had given other reasons of offence to the
      court, p. 278.]

      72 (return) [ Severus, non discors, non arrogans, sed longa
      militiæ frugalitate compertus; et eum recta præeuntem secuturus,
      ut duetorem morigeran miles. Ammian xvi. 11. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
      140.]

      73 (return) [ On the design and failure of the cooperation
      between Julian and Barbatio, see Ammianus (xvi. 11) and Libanius,
      (Orat. x. p. 273.) Note: Barbatio seems to have allowed himself
      to be surprised and defeated—M.]

      As soon as they were delivered from the fears of invasion, the
      Alemanni prepared to chastise the Roman youth, who presumed to
      dispute the possession of that country, which they claimed as
      their own by the right of conquest and of treaties. They employed
      three days, and as many nights, in transporting over the Rhine
      their military powers. The fierce Chnodomar, shaking the
      ponderous javelin which he had victoriously wielded against the
      brother of Magnentius, led the van of the Barbarians, and
      moderated by his experience the martial ardor which his example
      inspired. 74 He was followed by six other kings, by ten princes
      of regal extraction, by a long train of high-spirited nobles, and
      by thirty-five thousand of the bravest warriors of the tribes of
      Germany. The confidence derived from the view of their own
      strength, was increased by the intelligence which they received
      from a deserter, that the Cæsar, with a feeble army of thirteen
      thousand men, occupied a post about one-and-twenty miles from
      their camp of Strasburgh. With this inadequate force, Julian
      resolved to seek and to encounter the Barbarian host; and the
      chance of a general action was preferred to the tedious and
      uncertain operation of separately engaging the dispersed parties
      of the Alemanni. The Romans marched in close order, and in two
      columns; the cavalry on the right, the infantry on the left; and
      the day was so far spent when they appeared in sight of the
      enemy, that Julian was desirous of deferring the battle till the
      next morning, and of allowing his troops to recruit their
      exhausted strength by the necessary refreshments of sleep and
      food. Yielding, however, with some reluctance, to the clamors of
      the soldiers, and even to the opinion of his council, he exhorted
      them to justify by their valor the eager impatience, which, in
      case of a defeat, would be universally branded with the epithets
      of rashness and presumption. The trumpets sounded, the military
      shout was heard through the field, and the two armies rushed with
      equal fury to the charge. The Cæsar, who conducted in person his
      right wing, depended on the dexterity of his archers, and the
      weight of his cuirassiers. But his ranks were instantly broken by
      an irregular mixture of light horse and of light infantry, and he
      had the mortification of beholding the flight of six hundred of
      his most renowned cuirassiers. 75 The fugitives were stopped and
      rallied by the presence and authority of Julian, who, careless of
      his own safety, threw himself before them, and urging every
      motive of shame and honor, led them back against the victorious
      enemy. The conflict between the two lines of infantry was
      obstinate and bloody. The Germans possessed the superiority of
      strength and stature, the Romans that of discipline and temper;
      and as the Barbarians, who served under the standard of the
      empire, united the respective advantages of both parties, their
      strenuous efforts, guided by a skilful leader, at length
      determined the event of the day. The Romans lost four tribunes,
      and two hundred and forty-three soldiers, in this memorable
      battle of Strasburgh, so glorious to the Cæsar, 76 and so
      salutary to the afflicted provinces of Gaul. Six thousand of the
      Alemanni were slain in the field, without including those who
      were drowned in the Rhine, or transfixed with darts while they
      attempted to swim across the river. 77 Chnodomar himself was
      surrounded and taken prisoner, with three of his brave
      companions, who had devoted themselves to follow in life or death
      the fate of their chieftain. Julian received him with military
      pomp in the council of his officers; and expressing a generous
      pity for the fallen state, dissembled his inward contempt for the
      abject humiliation, of his captive. Instead of exhibiting the
      vanquished king of the Alemanni, as a grateful spectacle to the
      cities of Gaul, he respectfully laid at the feet of the emperor
      this splendid trophy of his victory. Chnodomar experienced an
      honorable treatment: but the impatient Barbarian could not long
      survive his defeat, his confinement, and his exile. 78

      74 (return) [ Ammianus (xvi. 12) describes with his inflated
      eloquence the figure and character of Chnodomar. Audax et fidens
      ingenti robore lacertorum, ubi ardor prœlii sperabatur immanis,
      equo spumante sublimior, erectus in jaculum formidandæ
      vastitatis, armorumque nitore conspicuus: antea strenuus et
      miles, et utilis præter cæteros ductor... Decentium Cæsarem
      superavit æquo marte congressus.]

      75 (return) [ After the battle, Julian ventured to revive the
      rigor of ancient discipline, by exposing these fugitives in
      female apparel to the derision of the whole camp. In the next
      campaign, these troops nobly retrieved their honor. Zosimus, l.
      iii. p. 142.]

      76 (return) [ Julian himself (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 279) speaks
      of the battle of Strasburgh with the modesty of conscious merit;
      Zosimus compares it with the victory of Alexander over Darius;
      and yet we are at a loss to discover any of those strokes of
      military genius which fix the attention of ages on the conduct
      and success of a single day.]

      77 (return) [ Ammianus, xvi. 12. Libanius adds 2000 more to the
      number of the slain, (Orat. x. p. 274.) But these trifling
      differences disappear before the 60,000 Barbarians, whom Zosimus
      has sacrificed to the glory of his hero, (l. iii. p. 141.) We
      might attribute this extravagant number to the carelessness of
      transcribers, if this credulous or partial historian had not
      swelled the army of 35,000 Alemanni to an innumerable multitude
      of Barbarians,. It is our own fault if this detection does not
      inspire us with proper distrust on similar occasions.]

      78 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 12. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 276.]

      After Julian had repulsed the Alemanni from the provinces of the
      Upper Rhine, he turned his arms against the Franks, who were
      seated nearer to the ocean, on the confines of Gaul and Germany;
      and who, from their numbers, and still more from their intrepid
      valor, had ever been esteemed the most formidable of the
      Barbarians. 79 Although they were strongly actuated by the
      allurements of rapine, they professed a disinterested love of
      war; which they considered as the supreme honor and felicity of
      human nature; and their minds and bodies were so completely
      hardened by perpetual action, that, according to the lively
      expression of an orator, the snows of winter were as pleasant to
      them as the flowers of spring. In the month of December, which
      followed the battle of Strasburgh, Julian attacked a body of six
      hundred Franks, who had thrown themselves into two castles on the
      Meuse. 80 In the midst of that severe season they sustained, with
      inflexible constancy, a siege of fifty-four days; till at length,
      exhausted by hunger, and satisfied that the vigilance of the
      enemy, in breaking the ice of the river, left them no hopes of
      escape, the Franks consented, for the first time, to dispense
      with the ancient law which commanded them to conquer or to die.
      The Cæsar immediately sent his captives to the court of
      Constantius, who, accepting them as a valuable present, 81
      rejoiced in the opportunity of adding so many heroes to the
      choicest troops of his domestic guards. The obstinate resistance
      of this handful of Franks apprised Julian of the difficulties of
      the expedition which he meditated for the ensuing spring, against
      the whole body of the nation. His rapid diligence surprised and
      astonished the active Barbarians. Ordering his soldiers to
      provide themselves with biscuit for twenty days, he suddenly
      pitched his camp near Tongres, while the enemy still supposed him
      in his winter quarters of Paris, expecting the slow arrival of
      his convoys from Aquitain. Without allowing the Franks to unite
      or deliberate, he skilfully spread his legions from Cologne to
      the ocean; and by the terror, as well as by the success, of his
      arms, soon reduced the suppliant tribes to implore the clemency,
      and to obey the commands, of their conqueror. The Chamavians
      submissively retired to their former habitations beyond the
      Rhine; but the Salians were permitted to possess their new
      establishment of Toxandria, as the subjects and auxiliaries of
      the Roman empire. 82 The treaty was ratified by solemn oaths; and
      perpetual inspectors were appointed to reside among the Franks,
      with the authority of enforcing the strict observance of the
      conditions. An incident is related, interesting enough in itself,
      and by no means repugnant to the character of Julian, who
      ingeniously contrived both the plot and the catastrophe of the
      tragedy. When the Chamavians sued for peace, he required the son
      of their king, as the only hostage on whom he could rely. A
      mournful silence, interrupted by tears and groans, declared the
      sad perplexity of the Barbarians; and their aged chief lamented
      in pathetic language, that his private loss was now imbittered by
      a sense of public calamity. While the Chamavians lay prostrate at
      the foot of his throne, the royal captive, whom they believed to
      have been slain, unexpectedly appeared before their eyes; and as
      soon as the tumult of joy was hushed into attention, the Cæsar
      addressed the assembly in the following terms: “Behold the son,
      the prince, whom you wept. You had lost him by your fault. God
      and the Romans have restored him to you. I shall still preserve
      and educate the youth, rather as a monument of my own virtue,
      than as a pledge of your sincerity. Should you presume to violate
      the faith which you have sworn, the arms of the republic will
      avenge the perfidy, not on the innocent, but on the guilty.” The
      Barbarians withdrew from his presence, impressed with the warmest
      sentiments of gratitude and admiration. 83

      79 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. iii. p. 137) draws a very lively
      picture of the manners of the Franks.]

      80 (return) [ Ammianus, xvii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 278. The
      Greek orator, by misapprehending a passage of Julian, has been
      induced to represent the Franks as consisting of a thousand men;
      and as his head was always full of the Peloponnesian war, he
      compares them to the Lacedæmonians, who were besieged and taken
      in the Island of Sphatoria.]

      81 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280. Libanius, Orat.
      x. p. 278. According to the expression of Libanius, the emperor,
      which La Bleterie understands (Vie de Julien, p. 118) as an
      honest confession, and Valesius (ad Ammian. xvii. 2) as a mean
      evasion, of the truth. Dom Bouquet, (Historiens de France, tom.
      i. p. 733,) by substituting another word, would suppress both the
      difficulty and the spirit of this passage.]

      82 (return) [ Ammian. xvii. 8. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 146-150, (his
      narrative is darkened by a mixture of fable,) and Julian. ad S.
      P. Q. Athen. p. 280. His expression. This difference of treatment
      confirms the opinion that the Salian Franks were permitted to
      retain the settlements in Toxandria. Note: A newly discovered
      fragment of Eunapius, whom Zosimus probably transcribed,
      illustrates this transaction. “Julian commanded the Romans to
      abstain from all hostile measures against the Salians, neither to
      waste or ravage _their own_ country, for he called every country
      _their own_ which was surrendered without resistance or toil on
      the part of the conquerors.” Mai, Script. Vez Nov. Collect. ii.
      256, and Eunapius in Niebuhr, Byzant. Hist.]

      83 (return) [ This interesting story, which Zosimus has abridged,
      is related by Eunapius, (in Excerpt. Legationum, p. 15, 16, 17,)
      with all the amplifications of Grecian rhetoric: but the silence
      of Libanius, of Ammianus, and of Julian himself, renders the
      truth of it extremely suspicious.]

      It was not enough for Julian to have delivered the provinces of
      Gaul from the Barbarians of Germany. He aspired to emulate the
      glory of the first and most illustrious of the emperors; after
      whose example, he composed his own commentaries of the Gallic
      war. 84 Cæsar has related, with conscious pride, the manner in
      which he _twice_ passed the Rhine. Julian could boast, that
      before he assumed the title of Augustus, he had carried the Roman
      eagles beyond that great river in _three_ successful expeditions.
      85 The consternation of the Germans, after the battle of
      Strasburgh, encouraged him to the first attempt; and the
      reluctance of the troops soon yielded to the persuasive eloquence
      of a leader, who shared the fatigues and dangers which he imposed
      on the meanest of the soldiers. The villages on either side of
      the Meyn, which were plentifully stored with corn and cattle,
      felt the ravages of an invading army. The principal houses,
      constructed with some imitation of Roman elegance, were consumed
      by the flames; and the Cæsar boldly advanced about ten miles,
      till his progress was stopped by a dark and impenetrable forest,
      undermined by subterraneous passages, which threatened with
      secret snares and ambush every step of the assailants. The ground
      was already covered with snow; and Julian, after repairing an
      ancient castle which had been erected by Trajan, granted a truce
      of ten months to the submissive Barbarians. At the expiration of
      the truce, Julian undertook a second expedition beyond the Rhine,
      to humble the pride of Surmar and Hortaire, two of the kings of
      the Alemanni, who had been present at the battle of Strasburgh.
      They promised to restore all the Roman captives who yet remained
      alive; and as the Cæsar had procured an exact account from the
      cities and villages of Gaul, of the inhabitants whom they had
      lost, he detected every attempt to deceive him, with a degree of
      readiness and accuracy, which almost established the belief of
      his supernatural knowledge. His third expedition was still more
      splendid and important than the two former. The Germans had
      collected their military powers, and moved along the opposite
      banks of the river, with a design of destroying the bridge, and
      of preventing the passage of the Romans. But this judicious plan
      of defence was disconcerted by a skilful diversion. Three hundred
      light-armed and active soldiers were detached in forty small
      boats, to fall down the stream in silence, and to land at some
      distance from the posts of the enemy. They executed their orders
      with so much boldness and celerity, that they had almost
      surprised the Barbarian chiefs, who returned in the fearless
      confidence of intoxication from one of their nocturnal festivals.
      Without repeating the uniform and disgusting tale of slaughter
      and devastation, it is sufficient to observe, that Julian
      dictated his own conditions of peace to six of the haughtiest
      kings of the Alemanni, three of whom were permitted to view the
      severe discipline and martial pomp of a Roman camp. Followed by
      twenty thousand captives, whom he had rescued from the chains of
      the Barbarians, the Cæsar repassed the Rhine, after terminating a
      war, the success of which has been compared to the ancient
      glories of the Punic and Cimbric victories.

      84 (return) [ Libanius, the friend of Julian, clearly insinuates
      (Orat. ix. p. 178) that his hero had composed the history of his
      Gallic campaigns But Zosimus (l. iii. p, 140) seems to have
      derived his information only from the Orations and the Epistles
      of Julian. The discourse which is addressed to the Athenians
      contains an accurate, though general, account of the war against
      the Germans.]

      85 (return) [ See Ammian. xvii. 1, 10, xviii. 2, and Zosim. l.
      iii. p. 144. Julian ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 280.]

      As soon as the valor and conduct of Julian had secured an
      interval of peace, he applied himself to a work more congenial to
      his humane and philosophic temper. The cities of Gaul, which had
      suffered from the inroads of the Barbarians, he diligently
      repaired; and seven important posts, between Mentz and the mouth
      of the Rhine, are particularly mentioned, as having been rebuilt
      and fortified by the order of Julian. 86 The vanquished Germans
      had submitted to the just but humiliating condition of preparing
      and conveying the necessary materials. The active zeal of Julian
      urged the prosecution of the work; and such was the spirit which
      he had diffused among the troops, that the auxiliaries
      themselves, waiving their exemption from any duties of fatigue,
      contended in the most servile labors with the diligence of the
      Roman soldiers. It was incumbent on the Cæsar to provide for the
      subsistence, as well as for the safety, of the inhabitants and of
      the garrisons. The desertion of the former, and the mutiny of the
      latter, must have been the fatal and inevitable consequences of
      famine. The tillage of the provinces of Gaul had been interrupted
      by the calamities of war; but the scanty harvests of the
      continent were supplied, by his paternal care, from the plenty of
      the adjacent island. Six hundred large barks, framed in the
      forest of the Ardennes, made several voyages to the coast of
      Britain; and returning from thence, laden with corn, sailed up
      the Rhine, and distributed their cargoes to the several towns and
      fortresses along the banks of the river. 87 The arms of Julian
      had restored a free and secure navigation, which Constantinius
      had offered to purchase at the expense of his dignity, and of a
      tributary present of two thousand pounds of silver. The emperor
      parsimoniously refused to his soldiers the sums which he granted
      with a lavish and trembling hand to the Barbarians. The
      dexterity, as well as the firmness, of Julian was put to a severe
      trial, when he took the field with a discontented army, which had
      already served two campaigns, without receiving any regular pay
      or any extraordinary donative. 88

      86 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 2. Libanius, Orat. x. p. 279, 280.
      Of these seven posts, four are at present towns of some
      consequence; Bingen, Andernach, Bonn, and Nuyss. The other three,
      Tricesimæ, Quadriburgium, and Castra Herculis, or Heraclea, no
      longer subsist; but there is room to believe, that on the ground
      of Quadriburgium the Dutch have constructed the fort of Schenk, a
      name so offensive to the fastidious delicacy of Boileau. See
      D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 183. Boileau, Epitre
      iv. and the notes. Note: Tricesimæ, Kellen, Mannert, quoted by
      Wagner. Heraclea, Erkeleus in the district of Juliers. St.
      Martin, ii. 311.—M.]

      87 (return) [ We may credit Julian himself, (Orat. ad S. P. Q.
      Atheniensem, p. 280,) who gives a very particular account of the
      transaction. Zosimus adds two hundred vessels more, (l. iii. p.
      145.) If we compute the 600 corn ships of Julian at only seventy
      tons each, they were capable of exporting 120,000 quarters, (see
      Arbuthnot’s Weights and Measures, p. 237;) and the country which
      could bear so large an exportation, must already have attained an
      improved state of agriculture.]

      88 (return) [ The troops once broke out into a mutiny,
      immediately before the second passage of the Rhine. Ammian. xvii.
      9.]

      A tender regard for the peace and happiness of his subjects was
      the ruling principle which directed, or seemed to direct, the
      administration of Julian. 89 He devoted the leisure of his winter
      quarters to the offices of civil government; and affected to
      assume, with more pleasure, the character of a magistrate than
      that of a general. Before he took the field, he devolved on the
      provincial governors most of the public and private causes which
      had been referred to his tribunal; but, on his return, he
      carefully revised their proceedings, mitigated the rigor of the
      law, and pronounced a second judgment on the judges themselves.
      Superior to the last temptation of virtuous minds, an indiscreet
      and intemperate zeal for justice, he restrained, with calmness
      and dignity, the warmth of an advocate, who prosecuted, for
      extortion, the president of the Narbonnese province. “Who will
      ever be found guilty,” exclaimed the vehement Delphidius, “if it
      be enough to deny?” “And who,” replied Julian, “will ever be
      innocent, if it be sufficient to affirm?” In the general
      administration of peace and war, the interest of the sovereign is
      commonly the same as that of his people; but Constantius would
      have thought himself deeply injured, if the virtues of Julian had
      defrauded him of any part of the tribute which he extorted from
      an oppressed and exhausted country. The prince who was invested
      with the ensigns of royalty, might sometimes presume to correct
      the rapacious insolence of his inferior agents, to expose their
      corrupt arts, and to introduce an equal and easier mode of
      collection. But the management of the finances was more safely
      intrusted to Florentius, prætorian præfect of Gaul, an effeminate
      tyrant, incapable of pity or remorse: and the haughty minister
      complained of the most decent and gentle opposition, while Julian
      himself was rather inclined to censure the weakness of his own
      behavior. The Cæsar had rejected, with abhorrence, a mandate for
      the levy of an extraordinary tax; a new superindiction, which the
      præfect had offered for his signature; and the faithful picture
      of the public misery, by which he had been obliged to justify his
      refusal, offended the court of Constantius. We may enjoy the
      pleasure of reading the sentiments of Julian, as he expresses
      them with warmth and freedom in a letter to one of his most
      intimate friends. After stating his own conduct, he proceeds in
      the following terms: “Was it possible for the disciple of Plato
      and Aristotle to act otherwise than I have done? Could I abandon
      the unhappy subjects intrusted to my care? Was I not called upon
      to defend them from the repeated injuries of these unfeeling
      robbers? A tribune who deserts his post is punished with death,
      and deprived of the honors of burial. With what justice could I
      pronounce _his_ sentence, if, in the hour of danger, I myself
      neglected a duty far more sacred and far more important? God has
      placed me in this elevated post; his providence will guard and
      support me. Should I be condemned to suffer, I shall derive
      comfort from the testimony of a pure and upright conscience.
      Would to Heaven that I still possessed a counsellor like Sallust!
      If they think proper to send me a successor, I shall submit
      without reluctance; and had much rather improve the short
      opportunity of doing good, than enjoy a long and lasting impunity
      of evil.” 90 The precarious and dependent situation of Julian
      displayed his virtues and concealed his defects. The young hero
      who supported, in Gaul, the throne of Constantius, was not
      permitted to reform the vices of the government; but he had
      courage to alleviate or to pity the distress of the people.
      Unless he had been able to revive the martial spirit of the
      Romans, or to introduce the arts of industry and refinement among
      their savage enemies, he could not entertain any rational hopes
      of securing the public tranquillity, either by the peace or
      conquest of Germany. Yet the victories of Julian suspended, for a
      short time, the inroads of the Barbarians, and delayed the ruin
      of the Western Empire.

      89 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 5, xviii. 1. Mamertinus in Panegyr.
      Vet. xi. 4]

      90 (return) [ Ammian. xvii. 3. Julian. Epistol. xv. edit.
      Spanheim. Such a conduct almost justifies the encomium of
      Mamertinus. Ita illi anni spatia divisa sunt, ut aut Barbaros
      domitet, aut civibus jura restituat, perpetuum professus, aut
      contra hostem, aut contra vitia, certamen.]

      His salutary influence restored the cities of Gaul, which had
      been so long exposed to the evils of civil discord, Barbarian
      war, and domestic tyranny; and the spirit of industry was revived
      with the hopes of enjoyment. Agriculture, manufactures, and
      commerce, again flourished under the protection of the laws; and
      the _curiæ_, or civil corporations, were again filled with useful
      and respectable members: the youth were no longer apprehensive of
      marriage; and married persons were no longer apprehensive of
      posterity: the public and private festivals were celebrated with
      customary pomp; and the frequent and secure intercourse of the
      provinces displayed the image of national prosperity. 91 A mind
      like that of Julian must have felt the general happiness of which
      he was the author; but he viewed, with particular satisfaction
      and complacency, the city of Paris; the seat of his winter
      residence, and the object even of his partial affection. 92 That
      splendid capital, which now embraces an ample territory on either
      side of the Seine, was originally confined to the small island in
      the midst of the river, from whence the inhabitants derived a
      supply of pure and salubrious water. The river bathed the foot of
      the walls; and the town was accessible only by two wooden
      bridges. A forest overspread the northern side of the Seine, but
      on the south, the ground, which now bears the name of the
      University, was insensibly covered with houses, and adorned with
      a palace and amphitheatre, baths, an aqueduct, and a field of
      Mars for the exercise of the Roman troops. The severity of the
      climate was tempered by the neighborhood of the ocean; and with
      some precautions, which experience had taught, the vine and
      fig-tree were successfully cultivated. But in remarkable winters,
      the Seine was deeply frozen; and the huge pieces of ice that
      floated down the stream, might be compared, by an Asiatic, to the
      blocks of white marble which were extracted from the quarries of
      Phrygia. The licentiousness and corruption of Antioch recalled to
      the memory of Julian the severe and simple manners of his beloved
      Lutetia; 93 where the amusements of the theatre were unknown or
      despised. He indignantly contrasted the effeminate Syrians with
      the brave and honest simplicity of the Gauls, and almost forgave
      the intemperance, which was the only stain of the Celtic
      character. 94 If Julian could now revisit the capital of France,
      he might converse with men of science and genius, capable of
      understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he
      might excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose
      martial spirit has never been enervated by the indulgence of
      luxury; and he must applaud the perfection of that inestimable
      art, which softens and refines and embellishes the intercourse of
      social life.

      91 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parental. in Imp. Julian. c. 38, in
      Fabricius Bibliothec. Græc. tom. vii. p. 263, 264.]

      92 (return) [ See Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340, 341. The
      primitive state of Paris is illustrated by Henry Valesius, (ad
      Ammian. xx. 4,) his brother Hadrian Valesius, or de Valois, and
      M. D’Anville, (in their respective Notitias of ancient Gaul,) the
      Abbé de Longuerue, (Description de la France, tom. i. p. 12, 13,)
      and M. Bonamy, (in the Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom.
      xv. p. 656-691.)]

      93 (return) [ Julian, in Misopogon, p. 340. Leuce tia, or
      Lutetia, was the ancient name of the city, which, according to
      the fashion of the fourth century, assumed the territorial
      appellation of _Parisii_.]

      94 (return) [ Julian in Misopogon, p. 359, 360.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part I.

The Motives, Progress, And Effects Of The Conversion Of
Constantine.—Legal Establishment And Constitution Of The Christian Or
Catholic Church.

The public establishment of Christianity may be considered as one of
those important and domestic revolutions which excite the most lively
curiosity, and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories and
the civil policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of
Europe; but a considerable portion of the globe still retains the
impression which it received from the conversion of that monarch; and
the ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are still connected, by an
indissoluble chain, with the opinions, the passions, and the interests
of the present generation. In the consideration of a subject which may
be examined with impartiality, but cannot be viewed with indifference,
a difficulty immediately arises of a very unexpected nature; that of
ascertaining the real and precise date of the conversion of
Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the midst of his court, seems
impatient 1 to proclaim to the world the glorious example of the
sovereign of Gaul; who, in the first moments of his reign, acknowledged
and adored the majesty of the true and only God. 2 The learned Eusebius
has ascribed the faith of Constantine to the miraculous sign which was
displayed in the heavens whilst he meditated and prepared the Italian
expedition. 3 The historian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the
emperor had imbrued his hands in the blood of his eldest son, before he
publicly renounced the gods of Rome and of his ancestors. 4 The
perplexity produced by these discordant authorities is derived from the
behavior of Constantine himself. According to the strictness of
ecclesiastical language, the first of the _Christian_ emperors was
unworthy of that name, till the moment of his death; since it was only
during his last illness that he received, as a catechumen, the
imposition of hands, 5 and was afterwards admitted, by the initiatory
rites of baptism, into the number of the faithful. 6 The Christianity
of Constantine must be allowed in a much more vague and qualified
sense; and the nicest accuracy is required in tracing the slow and
almost imperceptible gradations by which the monarch declared himself
the protector, and at length the proselyte, of the church. It was an
arduous task to eradicate the habits and prejudices of his education,
to acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to understand that the
truth of _his_ revelation was incompatible with the worship of the
gods. The obstacles which he had probably experienced in his own mind,
instructed him to proceed with caution in the momentous change of a
national religion; and he insensibly discovered his new opinions, as
far as he could enforce them with safety and with effect. During the
whole course of his reign, the stream of Christianity flowed with a
gentle, though accelerated, motion: but its general direction was
sometimes checked, and sometimes diverted, by the accidental
circumstances of the times, and by the prudence, or possibly by the
caprice, of the monarch. His ministers were permitted to signify the
intentions of their master in the various language which was best
adapted to their respective principles; 7 and he artfully balanced the
hopes and fears of his subjects, by publishing in the same year two
edicts; the first of which enjoined the solemn observance of Sunday, 8
and the second directed the regular consultation of the Aruspices. 9
While this important revolution yet remained in suspense, the
Christians and the Pagans watched the conduct of their sovereign with
the same anxiety, but with very opposite sentiments. The former were
prompted by every motive of zeal, as well as vanity, to exaggerate the
marks of his favor, and the evidences of his faith. The latter, till
their just apprehensions were changed into despair and resentment,
attempted to conceal from the world, and from themselves, that the gods
of Rome could no longer reckon the emperor in the number of their
votaries. The same passions and prejudices have engaged the partial
writers of the times to connect the public profession of Christianity
with the most glorious or the most ignominious æra of the reign of
Constantine.

1 (return) [ The date of the Divine Institutions of Lactantius has been
accurately discussed, difficulties have been started, solutions
proposed, and an expedient imagined of two _original_ editions; the
former published during the persecution of Diocletian, the latter under
that of Licinius. See Dufresnoy, Prefat. p. v. Tillemont, Mém.
Ecclesiast. tom. vi. p. 465-470. Lardner’s Credibility, part ii. vol.
vii. p. 78-86. For my own part, I am _almost_ convinced that Lactantius
dedicated his Institutions to the sovereign of Gaul, at a time when
Galerius, Maximin, and even Licinius, persecuted the Christians; that
is, between the years 306 and 311.]

2 (return) [ Lactant. Divin. Instit. i. l. vii. 27. The first and most
important of these passages is indeed wanting in twenty-eight
manuscripts; but it is found in nineteen. If we weigh the comparative
value of these manuscripts, one of 900 years old, in the king of
France’s library may be alleged in its favor; but the passage is
omitted in the correct manuscript of Bologna, which the P. de
Montfaucon ascribes to the sixth or seventh century (Diarium Italic. p.
489.) The taste of most of the editors (except Isæus; see Lactant.
edit. Dufresnoy, tom. i. p. 596) has felt the genuine style of
Lactantius.]

3 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. i. c. 27-32.]

4 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104.]

5 (return) [ That rite was _always_ used in making a catechumen, (see
Bingham’s Antiquities. l. x. c. i. p. 419. Dom Chardon, Hist. des
Sacramens, tom. i. p. 62,) and Constantine received it for the _first_
time (Euseb. in Vit Constant. l. iv. c. 61) immediately before his
baptism and death. From the connection of these two facts, Valesius (ad
loc. Euseb.) has drawn the conclusion which is reluctantly admitted by
Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 628,) and opposed with
feeble arguments by Mosheim, (p. 968.)]

6 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The legend
of Constantine’s baptism at Rome, thirteen years before his death, was
invented in the eighth century, as a proper motive for his _donation_.
Such has been the gradual progress of knowledge, that a story, of which
Cardinal Baronius (Annual Ecclesiast. A. D. 324, No. 43-49) declared
himself the unblushing advocate, is now feebly supported, even within
the verge of the Vatican. See the Antiquitates Christianæ, tom. ii. p.
232; a work published with six approbations at Rome, in the year 1751
by Father Mamachi, a learned Dominican.]

7 (return) [ The quæstor, or secretary, who composed the law of the
Theodosian Code, makes his master say with indifference, “hominibus
supradictæ religionis,” (l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 1.) The minister of
ecclesiastical affairs was allowed a more devout and respectful style,
[**Greek] the legal, most holy, and Catholic worship.]

8 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. ii. viii. tit. leg. 1. Cod. Justinian. l.
iii. tit. xii. leg. 3. Constantine styles the Lord’s day _dies solis_,
a name which could not offend the ears of his pagan subjects.]

9 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. l. Godefroy, in the
character of a commentator, endeavors (tom. vi. p. 257) to excuse
Constantine; but the more zealous Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 321,
No. 17) censures his profane conduct with truth and asperity.]

Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might transpire in the discourses
or actions of Constantine, he persevered till he was near forty years
of age in the practice of the established religion; 10 and the same
conduct which in the court of Nicomedia might be imputed to his fear,
could be ascribed only to the inclination or policy of the sovereign of
Gaul. His liberality restored and enriched the temples of the gods; the
medals which issued from his Imperial mint are impressed with the
figures and attributes of Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and Hercules; and
his filial piety increased the council of Olympus by the solemn
apotheosis of his father Constantius. 11 But the devotion of
Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the Sun, the
Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be
represented with the symbols of the God of Light and Poetry. The
unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel
wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seem to point him
out as the patron of a young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned
with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude
were taught to believe, that the emperor was permitted to behold with
mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity; and that,
either walking or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens
of a long and victorious reign. The Sun was universally celebrated as
the invincible guide and protector of Constantine; and the Pagans might
reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting
vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite. 12

10 (return) [ Theodoret. (l. i. c. 18) seems to insinuate that Helena
gave her son a Christian education; but we may be assured, from the
superior authority of Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l. iii. c. 47,) that
she herself was indebted to Constantine for the knowledge of
Christianity.]

11 (return) [ See the medals of Constantine in Ducange and Banduri. As
few cities had retained the privilege of coining, almost all the medals
of that age issued from the mint under the sanction of the Imperial
authority.]

12 (return) [ The panegyric of Eumenius, (vii. inter Panegyr. Vet.,)
which was pronounced a few months before the Italian war, abounds with
the most unexceptionable evidence of the Pagan superstition of
Constantine, and of his particular veneration for Apollo, or the Sun;
to which Julian alludes.]

As long as Constantine exercised a limited sovereignty over the
provinces of Gaul, his Christian subjects were protected by the
authority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince, who wisely left to the
gods the care of vindicating their own honor. If we may credit the
assertion of Constantine himself, he had been an indignant spectator of
the savage cruelties which were inflicted, by the hands of Roman
soldiers, on those citizens whose religion was their only crime. 13 In
the East and in the West, he had seen the different effects of severity
and indulgence; and as the former was rendered still more odious by the
example of Galerius, his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended
to his imitation by the authority and advice of a dying father. The son
of Constantius immediately suspended or repealed the edicts of
persecution, and granted the free exercise of their religious
ceremonies to all those who had already professed themselves members of
the church. They were soon encouraged to depend on the favor as well as
on the justice of their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret and sincere
reverence for the name of Christ, and for the God of the Christians. 14

13 (return) [ Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 25. But it might easily
be shown, that the Greek translator has improved the sense of the Latin
original; and the aged emperor might recollect the persecution of
Diocletian with a more lively abhorrence than he had actually felt to
the days of his youth and Paganism.]

14 (return) [ See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. viii. 13, l. ix. 9, and in
Vit. Const. l. i. c. 16, 17 Lactant. Divin. Institut. i. l. Cæcilius de
Mort. Persecut. c. 25.]

About five months after the conquest of Italy, the emperor made a
solemn and authentic declaration of his sentiments by the celebrated
edict of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic church. In the
personal interview of the two western princes, Constantine, by the
ascendant of genius and power, obtained the ready concurrence of his
colleague, Licinius; the union of their names and authority disarmed
the fury of Maximin; and after the death of the tyrant of the East, the
edict of Milan was received as a general and fundamental law of the
Roman world. 15

15 (return) [ Cæcilius (de Mort. Persecut. c. 48) has preserved the
Latin original; and Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 5) has given a
Greek translation of this perpetual edict, which refers to some
provisional regulations.]

The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution of all the
civil and religious rights of which the Christians had been so unjustly
deprived. It was enacted that the places of worship, and public lands,
which had been confiscated, should be restored to the church, without
dispute, without delay, and without expense; and this severe injunction
was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any of the purchasers
had paid a fair and adequate price, they should be indemnified from the
Imperial treasury. The salutary regulations which guard the future
tranquillity of the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged
and equal toleration; and such an equality must have been interpreted
by a recent sect as an advantageous and honorable distinction. The two
emperors proclaim to the world, that they have granted a free and
absolute power to the Christians, and to all others, of following the
religion which each individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he has
addicted his mind, and which he may deem the best adapted to his own
use. They carefully explain every ambiguous word, remove every
exception, and exact from the governors of the provinces a strict
obedience to the true and simple meaning of an edict, which was
designed to establish and secure, without any limitation, the claims of
religious liberty. They condescend to assign two weighty reasons which
have induced them to allow this universal toleration: the humane
intention of consulting the peace and happiness of their people; and
the pious hope, that, by such a conduct, they shall appease and
propitiate _the Deity_, whose seat is in heaven. They gratefully
acknowledge the many signal proofs which they have received of the
divine favor; and they trust that the same Providence will forever
continue to protect the prosperity of the prince and people. From these
vague and indefinite expressions of piety, three suppositions may be
deduced, of a different, but not of an incompatible nature. The mind of
Constantine might fluctuate between the Pagan and the Christian
religions. According to the loose and complying notions of Polytheism,
he might acknowledge the God of the Christians as _one_ of the _many_
deities who compose the hierarchy of heaven. Or perhaps he might
embrace the philosophic and pleasing idea, that, notwithstanding the
variety of names, of rites, and of opinions, all the sects, and all the
nations of mankind, are united in the worship of the common Father and
Creator of the universe. 16

16 (return) [ A panegyric of Constantine, pronounced seven or eight
months after the edict of Milan, (see Gothofred. Chronolog. Legum, p.
7, and Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 246,) uses the
following remarkable expression: “Summe rerum sator, cujus tot nomina
sant, quot linguas gentium esse voluisti, quem enim te ipse dici velin,
scire non possumus.” (Panegyr. Vet. ix. 26.) In explaining
Constantine’s progress in the faith, Mosheim (p. 971, &c.) is
ingenious, subtle, prolix.]

But the counsels of princes are more frequently influenced by views of
temporal advantage, than by considerations of abstract and speculative
truth. The partial and increasing favor of Constantine may naturally be
referred to the esteem which he entertained for the moral character of
the Christians; and to a persuasion, that the propagation of the gospel
would inculcate the practice of private and public virtue. Whatever
latitude an absolute monarch may assume in his own conduct, whatever
indulgence he may claim for his own passions, it is undoubtedly his
interest that all his subjects should respect the natural and civil
obligations of society. But the operation of the wisest laws is
imperfect and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot
always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prohibit all that
they condemn, nor can they always punish the actions which they
prohibit. The legislators of antiquity had summoned to their aid the
powers of education and of opinion. But every principle which had once
maintained the vigor and purity of Rome and Sparta, was long since
extinguished in a declining and despotic empire. Philosophy still
exercised her temperate sway over the human mind, but the cause of
virtue derived very feeble support from the influence of the Pagan
superstition. Under these discouraging circumstances, a prudent
magistrate might observe with pleasure the progress of a religion which
diffused among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal system of
ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition of life; recommended
as the will and reason of the supreme Deity, and enforced by the
sanction of eternal rewards or punishments. The experience of Greek and
Roman history could not inform the world how far the system of national
manners might be reformed and improved by the precepts of a divine
revelation; and Constantine might listen with some confidence to the
flattering, and indeed reasonable, assurances of Lactantius. The
eloquent apologist seemed firmly to expect, and almost ventured to
promise, _that_ the establishment of Christianity would restore the
innocence and felicity of the primitive age; _that_ the worship of the
true God would extinguish war and dissension among those who mutually
considered themselves as the children of a common parent; _that_ every
impure desire, every angry or selfish passion, would be restrained by
the knowledge of the gospel; and _that_ the magistrates might sheath
the sword of justice among a people who would be universally actuated
by the sentiments of truth and piety, of equity and moderation, of
harmony and universal love. 17

17 (return) [ See the elegant description of Lactantius, (Divin
Institut. v. 8,) who is much more perspicuous and positive than becomes
a discreet prophet.]

The passive and unresisting obedience, which bows under the yoke of
authority, or even of oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes of an
absolute monarch, the most conspicuous and useful of the evangelic
virtues. 18 The primitive Christians derived the institution of civil
government, not from the consent of the people, but from the decrees of
Heaven. The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre by
treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of
vicegerent of the Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the
abuse of his power; and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their
oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, who had violated every law of nature and
society. The humble Christians were sent into the world as sheep among
wolves; and since they were not permitted to employ force even in the
defence of their religion, they should be still more criminal if they
were tempted to shed the blood of their fellow-creatures in disputing
the vain privileges, or the sordid possessions, of this transitory
life. Faithful to the doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero
had preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Christians of
the three first centuries preserved their conscience pure and innocent
of the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open rebellion. While they
experienced the rigor of persecution, they were never provoked either
to meet their tyrants in the field, or indignantly to withdraw
themselves into some remote and sequestered corner of the globe. 19 The
Protestants of France, of Germany, and of Britain, who asserted with
such intrepid courage their civil and religious freedom, have been
insulted by the invidious comparison between the conduct of the
primitive and of the reformed Christians. 20 Perhaps, instead of
censure, some applause may be due to the superior sense and spirit of
our ancestors, who had convinced themselves that religion cannot
abolish the unalienable rights of human nature. 21 Perhaps the patience
of the primitive church may be ascribed to its weakness, as well as to
its virtue.

A sect of unwarlike plebeians, without leaders, without arms, without
fortifications, must have encountered inevitable destruction in a rash
and fruitless resistance to the master of the Roman legions. But the
Christians, when they deprecated the wrath of Diocletian, or solicited
the favor of Constantine, could allege, with truth and confidence, that
they held the principle of passive obedience, and that, in the space of
three centuries, their conduct had always been conformable to their
principles. They might add, that the throne of the emperors would be
established on a fixed and permanent basis, if all their subjects,
embracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to suffer and to obey.

18 (return) [ The political system of the Christians is explained by
Grotius, de Jure Belli et Pacis, l. i. c. 3, 4. Grotius was a
republican and an exile, but the mildness of his temper inclined him to
support the established powers.]

19 (return) [ Tertullian. Apolog. c. 32, 34, 35, 36. Tamen nunquam
Albiniani, nec Nigriani vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani. Ad
Scapulam, c. 2. If this assertion be strictly true, it excludes the
Christians of that age from all civil and military employments, which
would have compelled them to take an active part in the service of
their respective governors. See Moyle’s Works, vol. ii. p. 349.]

20 (return) [ See the artful Bossuet, (Hist. des Variations des Eglises
Protestantes, tom. iii. p. 210-258.) and the malicious Bayle, (tom ii.
p. 820.) I _name_ Bayle, for he was certainly the author of the Avis
aux Refugies; consult the Dictionnaire Critique de Chauffepié, tom. i.
part ii. p. 145.]

21 (return) [ Buchanan is the earliest, or at least the most
celebrated, of the reformers, who has justified the theory of
resistance. See his Dialogue de Jure Regni apud Scotos, tom. ii. p. 28,
30, edit. fol. Rudiman.]

In the general order of Providence, princes and tyrants are considered
as the ministers of Heaven, appointed to rule or to chastise the
nations of the earth. But sacred history affords many illustrious
examples of the more immediate interposition of the Deity in the
government of his chosen people. The sceptre and the sword were
committed to the hands of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the
Maccabees; the virtues of those heroes were the motive or the effect of
the divine favor, the success of their arms was destined to achieve the
deliverance or the triumph of the church. If the judges of Israel were
occasional and temporary magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from
the royal unction of their great ancestor an hereditary and
indefeasible right, which could not be forfeited by their own vices,
nor recalled by the caprice of their subjects. The same extraordinary
providence, which was no longer confined to the Jewish people, might
elect Constantine and his family as the protectors of the Christian
world; and the devout Lactantius announces, in a prophetic tone, the
future glories of his long and universal reign. 22 Galerius and
Maximin, Maxentius and Licinius, were the rivals who shared with the
favorite of heaven the provinces of the empire. The tragic deaths of
Galerius and Maximin soon gratified the resentment, and fulfilled the
sanguine expectations, of the Christians. The success of Constantine
against Maxentius and Licinius removed the two formidable competitors
who still opposed the triumph of the second David, and his cause might
seem to claim the peculiar interposition of Providence. The character
of the Roman tyrant disgraced the purple and human nature; and though
the Christians might enjoy his precarious favor, they were exposed,
with the rest of his subjects, to the effects of his wanton and
capricious cruelty. The conduct of Licinius soon betrayed the
reluctance with which he had consented to the wise and humane
regulations of the edict of Milan. The convocation of provincial synods
was prohibited in his dominions; his Christian officers were
ignominiously dismissed; and if he avoided the guilt, or rather danger,
of a general persecution, his partial oppressions were rendered still
more odious by the violation of a solemn and voluntary engagement. 23
While the East, according to the lively expression of Eusebius, was
involved in the shades of infernal darkness, the auspicious rays of
celestial light warmed and illuminated the provinces of the West. The
piety of Constantine was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the
justice of his arms; and his use of victory confirmed the opinion of
the Christians, that their hero was inspired, and conducted, by the
Lord of Hosts. The conquest of Italy produced a general edict of
toleration; and as soon as the defeat of Licinius had invested
Constantine with the sole dominion of the Roman world, he immediately,
by circular letters, exhorted all his subjects to imitate, without
delay, the example of their sovereign, and to embrace the divine truth
of Christianity. 24

22 (return) [ Lactant Divin. Institut. i. l. Eusebius in the course of
his history, his life, and his oration, repeatedly inculcates the
divine right of Constantine to the empire.]

23 (return) [ Our imperfect knowledge of the persecution of Licinius is
derived from Eusebius, (Hist. l. x. c. 8. Vit. Constantin. l. i. c.
49-56, l. ii. c. 1, 2.) Aurelius Victor mentions his cruelty in general
terms.]

24 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 24-42 48-60.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part II.

The assurance that the elevation of Constantine was intimately
connected with the designs of Providence, instilled into the minds of
the Christians two opinions, which, by very different means, assisted
the accomplishment of the prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty
exhausted in his favor every resource of human industry; and they
confidently expected that their strenuous efforts would be seconded by
some divine and miraculous aid. The enemies of Constantine have imputed
to interested motives the alliance which he insensibly contracted with
the Catholic church, and which apparently contributed to the success of
his ambition. In the beginning of the fourth century, the Christians
still bore a very inadequate proportion to the inhabitants of the
empire; but among a degenerate people, who viewed the change of masters
with the indifference of slaves, the spirit and union of a religious
party might assist the popular leader, to whose service, from a
principle of conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes. 25
The example of his father had instructed Constantine to esteem and to
reward the merit of the Christians; and in the distribution of public
offices, he had the advantage of strengthening his government, by the
choice of ministers or generals, in whose fidelity he could repose a
just and unreserved confidence. By the influence of these dignified
missionaries, the proselytes of the new faith must have multiplied in
the court and army; the Barbarians of Germany, who filled the ranks of
the legions, were of a careless temper, which acquiesced without
resistance in the religion of their commander; and when they passed the
Alps, it may fairly be presumed, that a great number of the soldiers
had already consecrated their swords to the service of Christ and of
Constantine. 26 The habits of mankind and the interests of religion
gradually abated the horror of war and bloodshed, which had so long
prevailed among the Christians; and in the councils which were
assembled under the gracious protection of Constantine, the authority
of the bishops was seasonably employed to ratify the obligation of the
military oath, and to inflict the penalty of excommunication on those
soldiers who threw away their arms during the peace of the church. 27
While Constantine, in his own dominions, increased the number and zeal
of his faithful adherents, he could depend on the support of a powerful
faction in those provinces which were still possessed or usurped by his
rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused among the Christian subjects
of Maxentius and Licinius; and the resentment, which the latter did not
attempt to conceal, served only to engage them still more deeply in the
interest of his competitor. The regular correspondence which connected
the bishops of the most distant provinces, enabled them freely to
communicate their wishes and their designs, and to transmit without
danger any useful intelligence, or any pious contributions, which might
promote the service of Constantine, who publicly declared that he had
taken up arms for the deliverance of the church. 28

25 (return) [ In the beginning of the last century, the Papists of
England were only a _thirtieth_, and the Protestants of France only a
_fifteenth_, part of the respective nations, to whom their spirit and
power were a constant object of apprehension. See the relations which
Bentivoglio (who was then nuncio at Brussels, and afterwards cardinal)
transmitted to the court of Rome, (Relazione, tom. ii. p. 211, 241.)
Bentivoglio was curious, well informed, but somewhat partial.]

26 (return) [ This careless temper of the Germans appears almost
uniformly on the history of the conversion of each of the tribes. The
legions of Constantine were recruited with Germans, (Zosimus, l. ii. p.
86;) and the court even of his father had been filled with Christians.
See the first book of the Life of Constantine, by Eusebius.]

27 (return) [ De his qui arma projiciunt in _pace_, placuit eos
abstinere a communione. Council. Arelat. Canon. iii. The best critics
apply these words to the _peace of the church_.]

28 (return) [ Eusebius always considers the second civil war against
Licinius as a sort of religious crusade. At the invitation of the
tyrant, some Christian officers had resumed their _zones;_ or, in other
words, had returned to the military service. Their conduct was
afterwards censured by the twelfth canon of the Council of Nice; if
this particular application may be received, instead of the lo se and
general sense of the Greek interpreters, Balsamor Zonaras, and Alexis
Aristenus. See Beveridge, Pandect. Eccles. Græc. tom. i. p. 72, tom.
ii. p. 73 Annotation.]

The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, and perhaps the emperor
himself, had sharpened their swords while it satisfied their
conscience. They marched to battle with the full assurance, that the
same God, who had formerly opened a passage to the Israelites through
the waters of Jordan, and had thrown down the walls of Jericho at the
sound of the trumpets of Joshua, would display his visible majesty and
power in the victory of Constantine. The evidence of ecclesiastical
history is prepared to affirm, that their expectations were justified
by the conspicuous miracle to which the conversion of the first
Christian emperor has been almost unanimously ascribed. The real or
imaginary cause of so important an event, deserves and demands the
attention of posterity; and I shall endeavor to form a just estimate of
the famous vision of Constantine, by a distinct consideration of the
_standard_, the _dream_, and the _celestial sign;_ by separating the
historical, the natural, and the marvellous parts of this extraordinary
story, which, in the composition of a specious argument, have been
artfully confounded in one splendid and brittle mass.

I. An instrument of the tortures which were inflicted only on slaves
and strangers, became on object of horror in the eyes of a Roman
citizen; and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of ignominy, were closely
united with the idea of the cross. 29 The piety, rather than the
humanity, of Constantine soon abolished in his dominions the punishment
which the Savior of mankind had condescended to suffer; 30 but the
emperor had already learned to despise the prejudices of his education,
and of his people, before he could erect in the midst of Rome his own
statue, bearing a cross in its right hand; with an inscription which
referred the victory of his arms, and the deliverance of Rome, to the
virtue of that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and courage. 31
The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers of Constantine; the
cross glittered on their helmet, was engraved on their shields, was
interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems which
adorned the person of the emperor himself, were distinguished only by
richer materials and more exquisite workmanship. 32 But the principal
standard which displayed the triumph of the cross was styled the
Labarum, 33 an obscure, though celebrated name, which has been vainly
derived from almost all the languages of the world. It is described 34
as a long pike intersected by a transversal beam. The silken veil,
which hung down from the beam, was curiously inwrought with the images
of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit of the pike
supported a crown of gold which enclosed the mysterious monogram, at
once expressive of the figure of the cross, and the initial letters, of
the name of Christ. 35 The safety of the labarum was intrusted to fifty
guards, of approved valor and fidelity; their station was marked by
honors and emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon introduced an
opinion, that as long as the guards of the labarum were engaged in the
execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the
darts of the enemy. In the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded
the power of this consecrated banner, the sight of which, in the
distress of battle, animated the soldiers of Constantine with an
invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and dismay through the
ranks of the adverse legions. 36 The Christian emperors, who respected
the example of Constantine, displayed in all their military expeditions
the standard of the cross; but when the degenerate successors of
Theodosius had ceased to appear in person at the head of their armies,
the labarum was deposited as a venerable but useless relic in the
palace of Constantinople. 37 Its honors are still preserved on the
medals of the Flavian family. Their grateful devotion has placed the
monogram of Christ in the midst of the ensigns of Rome. The solemn
epithets of, safety of the republic, glory of the army, restoration of
public happiness, are equally applied to the religious and military
trophies; and there is still extant a medal of the emperor Constantius,
where the standard of the labarum is accompanied with these memorable
words, BY THIS SIGN THOU SHALT CONQUER. 38

29 (return) [ Nomen ipsum _crucis_ absit non modo a corpore civium
Romano rum, sed etiam a cogitatione, oculis, auribus. Cicero pro
Raberio, c. 5. The Christian writers, Justin, Minucius Felix,
Tertullian, Jerom, and Maximus of Turin, have investigated with
tolerable success the figure or likeness of a cross in almost every
object of nature or art; in the intersection of the meridian and
equator, the human face, a bird flying, a man swimming, a mast and
yard, a plough, a _standard_, &c., &c., &c. See Lipsius de Cruce, l. i.
c. 9.]

30 (return) [ See Aurelius Victor, who considers this law as one of the
examples of Constantine’s piety. An edict so honorable to Christianity
deserved a place in the Theodosian Code, instead of the indirect
mention of it, which seems to result from the comparison of the fifth
and eighteenth titles of the ninth book.]

31 (return) [ Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 40. This statue,
or at least the cross and inscription, may be ascribed with more
probability to the second, or even third, visit of Constantine to Rome.
Immediately after the defeat of Maxentius, the minds of the senate and
people were scarcely ripe for this public monument.]

32 (return)
[ Agnoscas, regina, libens mea signa necesse est;
In quibus effigies crucis aut gemmata refulget
Aut longis solido ex auro præfertur in hastis.
Hoc signo invictus, transmissis Alpibus Ultor
Servitium solvit miserabile Constantinus.

Christus _purpureum_ gemmanti textus in auro
Signabat _Labarum_, clypeorum insignia Christus
Scripserat; ardebat summis crux addita cristis.

Prudent. in Symmachum, l. ii. 464, 486.]

33 (return) [ The derivation and meaning of the word _Labarum_ or
_Laborum_, which is employed by Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Prudentius,
&c., still remain totally unknown, in spite of the efforts of the
critics, who have ineffectually tortured the Latin, Greek, Spanish,
Celtic, Teutonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c., in search of an etymology.
See Ducange, in Gloss. Med. et infim. Latinitat. sub voce _Labarum_,
and Godefroy, ad Cod. Theodos. tom. ii. p. 143.]

34 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. i. c. 30, 31. Baronius
(Annal. Eccles. A. D. 312, No. 26) has engraved a representation of the
Labarum.]

35 (return) [ Transversâ X literâ, summo capite circumflexo, Christum
in scutis notat. Cæcilius de M. P. c. 44, Cuper, (ad M. P. in edit.
Lactant. tom. ii. p. 500,) and Baronius (A. D. 312, No. 25) have
engraved from ancient monuments several specimens (as thus of these
monograms) which became extremely fashionable in the Christian world.]

36 (return) [ Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 7, 8, 9. He
introduces the Labarum before the Italian expedition; but his narrative
seems to indicate that it was never shown at the head of an army till
Constantine above ten years afterwards, declared himself the enemy of
Licinius, and the deliverer of the church.]

37 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. vi. tit. xxv. Sozomen, l. i. c. 2.
Theophan. Chronograph. p. 11. Theophanes lived towards the end of the
eighth century, almost five hundred years after Constantine. The modern
Greeks were not inclined to display in the field the standard of the
empire and of Christianity; and though they depended on every
superstitious hope of _defence_, the promise of _victory_ would have
appeared too bold a fiction.]

38 (return) [ The Abbé du Voisín, p. 103, &c., alleges several of these
medals, and quotes a particular dissertation of a Jesuit the Père de
Grainville, on this subject.]

II. In all occasions of danger and distress, it was the practice of the
primitive Christians to fortify their minds and bodies by the sign of
the cross, which they used, in all their ecclesiastical rites, in all
the daily occurrences of life, as an infallible preservative against
every species of spiritual or temporal evil. 39 The authority of the
church might alone have had sufficient weight to justify the devotion
of Constantine, who in the same prudent and gradual progress
acknowledged the truth, and assumed the symbol, of Christianity. But
the testimony of a contemporary writer, who in a formal treatise has
avenged the cause of religion, bestows on the piety of the emperor a
more awful and sublime character. He affirms, with the most perfect
confidence, that in the night which preceded the last battle against
Maxentius, Constantine was admonished in a dream 39a to inscribe the
shields of his soldiers with the _celestial sign of God_, the sacred
monogram of the name of Christ; that he executed the commands of
Heaven, and that his valor and obedience were rewarded by the decisive
victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some considerations might perhaps
incline a sceptical mind to suspect the judgment or the veracity of the
rhetorician, whose pen, either from zeal or interest, was devoted to
the cause of the prevailing faction. 40 He appears to have published
his deaths of the persecutors at Nicomedia about three years after the
Roman victory; but the interval of a thousand miles, and a thousand
days, will allow an ample latitude for the invention of declaimers, the
credulity of party, and the tacit approbation of the emperor himself
who might listen without indignation to a marvellous tale, which
exalted his fame, and promoted his designs. In favor of Licinius, who
still dissembled his animosity to the Christians, the same author has
provided a similar vision, of a form of prayer, which was communicated
by an angel, and repeated by the whole army before they engaged the
legions of the tyrant Maximin. The frequent repetition of miracles
serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind; 41
but if the dream of Constantine is separately considered, it may be
naturally explained either by the policy or the enthusiasm of the
emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the approaching day, which must decide
the fate of the empire, was suspended by a short and interrupted
slumber, the venerable form of Christ, and the well-known symbol of his
religion, might forcibly offer themselves to the active fancy of a
prince who reverenced the name, and had perhaps secretly implored the
power, of the God of the Christians. As readily might a consummate
statesman indulge himself in the use of one of those military
stratagems, one of those pious frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had
employed with such art and effect. 42 The præternatural origin of
dreams was universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and a
considerable part of the Gallic army was already prepared to place
their confidence in the salutary sign of the Christian religion. The
secret vision of Constantine could be disproved only by the event; and
the intrepid hero who had passed the Alps and the Apennine, might view
with careless despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of
Rome. The senate and people, exulting in their own deliverance from an
odious tyrant, acknowledged that the victory of Constantine surpassed
the powers of man, without daring to insinuate that it had been
obtained by the protection of the _Gods_. The triumphal arch, which was
erected about three years after the event, proclaims, in ambiguous
language, that by the greatness of his own mind, and by an _instinct_
or impulse of the Divinity, he had saved and avenged the Roman
republic. 43 The Pagan orator, who had seized an earlier opportunity of
celebrating the virtues of the conqueror, supposes that he alone
enjoyed a secret and intimate commerce with the Supreme Being, who
delegated the care of mortals to his subordinate deities; and thus
assigns a very plausible reason why the subjects of Constantine should
not presume to embrace the new religion of their sovereign. 44

39 (return) [ Tertullian de Corona, c. 3. Athanasius, tom. i. p. 101.
The learned Jesuit Petavius (Dogmata Theolog. l. xv. c. 9, 10) has
collected many similar passages on the virtues of the cross, which in
the last age embarrassed our Protestant disputants.]

39a (return) [ Manso has observed, that Gibbon ought not to have
separated the vision of Constantine from the wonderful apparition in
the sky, as the two wonders are closely connected in Eusebius. Manso,
Leben Constantine, p. 82—M.]

40 (return) [ Cæcilius de M. P. c. 44. It is certain, that this
historical declamation was composed and published while Licinius,
sovereign of the East, still preserved the friendship of Constantine
and of the Christians. Every reader of taste must perceive that the
style is of a very different and inferior character to that of
Lactantius; and such indeed is the judgment of Le Clerc and Lardner,
(Bibliothèque Ancienne et Moderne, tom. iii. p. 438. Credibility of the
Gospel, &c., part ii. vol. vii. p. 94.) Three arguments from the title
of the book, and from the names of Donatus and Cæcilius, are produced
by the advocates for Lactantius. (See the P. Lestocq, tom. ii. p.
46-60.) Each of these proofs is singly weak and defective; but their
concurrence has great weight. I have often fluctuated, and shall
_tamely_ follow the Colbert Ms. in calling the author (whoever he was)
Cæcilius.]

41 (return) [ Cæcilius de M. P. c. 46. There seems to be some reason in
the observation of M. de Voltaire, (Œuvres, tom. xiv. p. 307.) who
ascribes to the success of Constantine the superior fame of his Labarum
above the angel of Licinius. Yet even this angel is favorably
entertained by Pagi, Tillemont, Fleury, &c., who are fond of increasing
their stock of miracles.]

42 (return) [ Besides these well-known examples, Tollius (Preface to
Boileau’s translation of Longinus) has discovered a vision of
Antigonus, who assured his troops that he had seen a pentagon (the
symbol of safety) with these words, “In this conquer.” But Tollius has
most inexcusably omitted to produce his authority, and his own
character, literary as well as moral, is not free from reproach. (See
Chauffepié, Dictionnaire Critique, tom. iv. p. 460.) Without insisting
on the silence of Diodorus Plutarch, Justin, &c., it may be observed
that Polyænus, who in a separate chapter (l. iv. c. 6) has collected
nineteen military stratagems of Antigonus, is totally ignorant of this
remarkable vision.]

43 (return) [ Instinctu Divinitatis, mentis magnitudine. The
inscription on the triumphal arch of Constantine, which has been copied
by Baronius, Gruter, &c., may still be perused by every curious
traveller.]

44 (return) [ Habes profecto aliquid cum illa mente Divinâ secretum;
quæ delegatâ nostrâ Diis Minoribus curâ uni se tibi dignatur ostendere
Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2.]

III. The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and
omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical
history, will probably conclude, that if the eyes of the spectators
have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers
has much more frequently been insulted by fiction. Every event, or
appearance, or accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary
course of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action of
the Deity; and the astonished fancy of the multitude has sometimes
given shape and color, language and motion, to the fleeting but
uncommon meteors of the air. 45 Nazarius and Eusebius are the two most
celebrated orators, who, in studied panegyrics, have labored to exalt
the glory of Constantine. Nine years after the Roman victory, Nazarius
46 describes an army of divine warriors, who seemed to fall from the
sky: he marks their beauty, their spirit, their gigantic forms, the
stream of light which beamed from their celestial armor, their patience
in suffering themselves to be heard, as well as seen, by mortals; and
their declaration that they were sent, that they flew, to the
assistance of the great Constantine. For the truth of this prodigy, the
Pagan orator appeals to the whole Gallic nation, in whose presence he
was then speaking; and seems to hope that the ancient apparitions 47
would now obtain credit from this recent and public event. The
Christian fable of Eusebius, which, in the space of twenty-six years,
might arise from the original dream, is cast in a much more correct and
elegant mould. In one of the marches of Constantine, he is reported to
have seen with his own eyes the luminous trophy of the cross, placed
above the meridian sun and inscribed with the following words: BY THIS
CONQUER. This amazing object in the sky astonished the whole army, as
well as the emperor himself, who was yet undetermined in the choice of
a religion: but his astonishment was converted into faith by the vision
of the ensuing night. Christ appeared before his eyes; and displaying
the same celestial sign of the cross, he directed Constantine to frame
a similar standard, and to march, with an assurance of victory, against
Maxentius and all his enemies. 48 The learned bishop of Cæsarea appears
to be sensible, that the recent discovery of this marvellous anecdote
would excite some surprise and distrust among the most pious of his
readers. Yet, instead of ascertaining the precise circumstances of time
and place, which always serve to detect falsehood or establish truth;
49 instead of collecting and recording the evidence of so many living
witnesses who must have been spectators of this stupendous miracle; 50
Eusebius contents himself with alleging a very singular testimony; that
of the deceased Constantine, who, many years after the event, in the
freedom of conversation, had related to him this extraordinary incident
of his own life, and had attested the truth of it by a solemn oath. The
prudence and gratitude of the learned prelate forbade him to suspect
the veracity of his victorious master; but he plainly intimates, that
in a fact of such a nature, he should have refused his assent to any
meaner authority. This motive of credibility could not survive the
power of the Flavian family; and the celestial sign, which the Infidels
might afterwards deride, 51 was disregarded by the Christians of the
age which immediately followed the conversion of Constantine. 52 But
the Catholic church, both of the East and of the West, has adopted a
prodigy which favors, or seems to favor, the popular worship of the
cross. The vision of Constantine maintained an honorable place in the
legend of superstition, till the bold and sagacious spirit of criticism
presumed to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign the truth, of the
first Christian emperor. 53

45 (return) [ M. Freret (Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom.
iv. p. 411-437) explains, by physical causes, many of the prodigies of
antiquity; and Fabricius, who is abused by both parties, vainly tries
to introduce the celestial cross of Constantine among the solar halos.
Bibliothec. Græc. tom. iv. p. 8-29. * Note: The great difficulty in
resolving it into a natural phenomenon, arises from the inscription;
even the most heated or awe-struck imagination would hardly discover
distinct and legible letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may
have been a later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning
which the sign was construed to convey. Compare Heirichen, Excur in
locum Eusebii, and the authors quoted.]

46 (return) [ Nazarius inter Panegyr. Vet. x. 14, 15. It is unnecessary
to name the moderns, whose undistinguishing and ravenous appetite has
swallowed even the Pagan bait of Nazarius.]

47 (return) [ The apparitions of Castor and Pollux, particularly to
announce the Macedonian victory, are attested by historians and public
monuments. See Cicero de Natura Deorum, ii. 2, iii. 5, 6. Florus, ii.
12. Valerius Maximus, l. i. c. 8, No. 1. Yet the most recent of these
miracles is omitted, and indirectly denied, by Livy, (xlv. i.)]

48 (return) [ Eusebius, l. i. c. 28, 29, 30. The silence of the same
Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History, is deeply felt by those
advocates for the miracle who are not absolutely callous.]

49 (return) [ The narrative of Constantine seems to indicate, that he
saw the cross in the sky before he passed the Alps against Maxentius.
The scene has been fixed by provincial vanity at Trèves, Besançon, &c.
See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 573.]

50 (return) [ The pious Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1317)
rejects with a sigh the useful Acts of Artemius, a veteran and a
martyr, who attests as an eye-witness to the vision of Constantine.]

51 (return) [ Gelasius Cyzic. in Act. Concil. Nicen. l. i. c. 4.]

52 (return) [ The advocates for the vision are unable to produce a
single testimony from the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries,
who, in their voluminous writings, repeatedly celebrate the triumph of
the church and of Constantine. As these venerable men had not any
dislike to a miracle, we may suspect, (and the suspicion is confirmed
by the ignorance of Jerom,) that they were all unacquainted with the
life of Constantine by Eusebius. This tract was recovered by the
diligence of those who translated or continued his Ecclesiastical
History, and who have represented in various colors the vision of the
cross.]

53 (return) [ Godefroy was the first, who, in the year 1643, (Not ad
Philostorgium, l. i. c. 6, p. 16,) expressed any doubt of a miracle
which had been supported with equal zeal by Cardinal Baronius, and the
Centuriators of Magdeburgh. Since that time, many of the Protestant
critics have inclined towards doubt and disbelief. The objections are
urged, with great force, by M. Chauffepié, (Dictionnaire Critique, tom.
iv. p. 6–11;) and, in the year 1774, a doctor of Sorbonne, the Abbé du
Voisin published an apology, which deserves the praise of learning and
moderation. * Note: The first Excursus of Heinichen (in Vitam
Constantini, p. 507) contains a full summary of the opinions and
arguments of the later writers who have discussed this interminable
subject. As to his conversion, where interest and inclination, state
policy, and, if not a sincere conviction of its truth, at least a
respect, an esteem, an awe of Christianity, thus coincided, Constantine
himself would probably have been unable to trace the actual history of
the workings of his own mind, or to assign its real influence to each
concurrent motive.—M]

The Protestant and philosophic readers of the present age will incline
to believe, that in the account of his own conversion, Constantine
attested a wilful falsehood by a solemn and deliberate perjury. They
may not hesitate to pronounce, that in the choice of a religion, his
mind was determined only by a sense of interest; and that (according to
the expression of a profane poet) 54 he used the altars of the church
as a convenient footstool to the throne of the empire. A conclusion so
harsh and so absolute is not, however, warranted by our knowledge of
human nature, of Constantine, or of Christianity. In an age of
religious fervor, the most artful statesmen are observed to feel some
part of the enthusiasm which they inspire, and the most orthodox saints
assume the dangerous privilege of defending the cause of truth by the
arms of deceit and falsehood.

Personal interest is often the standard of our belief, as well as of
our practice; and the same motives of temporal advantage which might
influence the public conduct and professions of Constantine, would
insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a religion so propitious to his
fame and fortunes. His vanity was gratified by the flattering
assurance, that _he_ had been chosen by Heaven to reign over the earth;
success had justified his divine title to the throne, and that title
was founded on the truth of the Christian revelation. As real virtue is
sometimes excited by undeserved applause, the specious piety of
Constantine, if at first it was only specious, might gradually, by the
influence of praise, of habit, and of example, be matured into serious
faith and fervent devotion. The bishops and teachers of the new sect,
whose dress and manners had not qualified them for the residence of a
court, were admitted to the Imperial table; they accompanied the
monarch in his expeditions; and the ascendant which one of them, an
Egyptian or a Spaniard, 55 acquired over his mind, was imputed by the
Pagans to the effect of magic. 56 Lactantius, who has adorned the
precepts of the gospel with the eloquence of Cicero, 57 and Eusebius,
who has consecrated the learning and philosophy of the Greeks to the
service of religion, 58 were both received into the friendship and
familiarity of their sovereign; and those able masters of controversy
could patiently watch the soft and yielding moments of persuasion, and
dexterously apply the arguments which were the best adapted to his
character and understanding. Whatever advantages might be derived from
the acquisition of an Imperial proselyte, he was distinguished by the
splendor of his purple, rather than by the superiority of wisdom, or
virtue, from the many thousands of his subjects who had embraced the
doctrines of Christianity. Nor can it be deemed incredible, that the
mind of an unlettered soldier should have yielded to the weight of
evidence, which, in a more enlightened age, has satisfied or subdued
the reason of a Grotius, a Pascal, or a Locke. In the midst of the
incessant labors of his great office, this soldier employed, or
affected to employ, the hours of the night in the diligent study of the
Scriptures, and the composition of theological discourses; which he
afterwards pronounced in the presence of a numerous and applauding
audience. In a very long discourse, which is still extant, the royal
preacher expatiates on the various proofs still extant, the royal
preacher expatiates on the various proofs of religion; but he dwells
with peculiar complacency on the Sibylline verses, 59 and the fourth
eclogue of Virgil. 60 Forty years before the birth of Christ, the
Mantuan bard, as if inspired by the celestial muse of Isaiah, had
celebrated, with all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the return of the
Virgin, the fall of the serpent, the approaching birth of a godlike
child, the offspring of the great Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt
of human kind, and govern the peaceful universe with the virtues of his
father; the rise and appearance of a heavenly race, primitive nation
throughout the world; and the gradual restoration of the innocence and
felicity of the golden age. The poet was perhaps unconscious of the
secret sense and object of these sublime predictions, which have been
so unworthily applied to the infant son of a consul, or a triumvir; 61
but if a more splendid, and indeed specious interpretation of the
fourth eclogue contributed to the conversion of the first Christian
emperor, Virgil may deserve to be ranked among the most successful
missionaries of the gospel. 62

54 (return) [
     Lors Constantin dit ces propres paroles:
     J’ai renversé le culte des idoles:
     Sur les debris de leurs temples fumans
     Au Dieu du Ciel j’ai prodigue l’encens.
     Mais tous mes soins pour sa grandeur supreme
          N’eurent jamais d’autre objêt que moi-même;

     Les saints autels n’etoient à mes regards
     Qu’un marchepié du trone des Césars.
     L’ambition, la fureur, les delices
     Etoient mes Dieux, avoient mes sacrifices.
     L’or des Chrêtiens, leur intrigues, leur sang
         Ont cimenté ma fortune et mon rang.

The poem which contains these lines may be read with pleasure, but
cannot be named with decency.]

55 (return) [ This favorite was probably the great Osius, bishop of
Cordova, who preferred the pastoral care of the whole church to the
government of a particular diocese. His character is magnificently,
though concisely, expressed by Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 703.) See
Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 524-561. Osius was accused,
perhaps unjustly, of retiring from court with a very ample fortune.]

56 (return) [ See Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. passim) and Zosimus, l.
ii. p. 104.]

57 (return) [ The Christianity of Lactantius was of a moral rather than
of a mysterious cast. “Erat pæne rudis (says the orthodox Bull)
disciplinæ Christianæ, et in rhetorica melius quam in theologia
versatus.” Defensio Fidei Nicenæ, sect. ii. c. 14.]

58 (return) [ Fabricius, with his usual diligence, has collected a list
of between three and four hundred authors quoted in the Evangelical
Preparation of Eusebius. See Bibl. Græc. l. v. c. 4, tom. vi. p.
37-56.]

59 (return) [ See Constantin. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 19 20. He chiefly
depends on a mysterious acrostic, composed in the sixth age after the
Deluge, by the Erythræan Sibyl, and translated by Cicero into Latin.
The initial letters of the thirty-four Greek verses form this prophetic
sentence: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior of the World.]

60 (return) [ In his paraphrase of Virgil, the emperor has frequently
assisted and improved the literal sense of the Latin ext. See Blondel
des Sibylles, l. i. c. 14, 15, 16.]

61 (return) [ The different claims of an elder and younger son of
Pollio, of Julia, of Drusus, of Marcellus, are found to be incompatible
with chronology, history, and the good sense of Virgil.]

62 (return) [ See Lowth de Sacra Poesi Hebræorum Prælect. xxi. p. 289-
293. In the examination of the fourth eclogue, the respectable bishop
of London has displayed learning, taste, ingenuity, and a temperate
enthusiasm, which exalts his fancy without degrading his judgment.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part III.

The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were concealed
from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechu mens, with an affected
secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity. 63 But the
severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had
instituted, were relaxed by the same prudence in favor of an Imperial
proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle
condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was
permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy _most_ of the
privileges, before he had contracted _any_ of the obligations, of a
Christian. Instead of retiring from the congregation, when the voice of
the deacon dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with the
faithful, disputed with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and
intricate subjects of theology, celebrated with sacred rites the vigil
of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only a partaker, but, in
some measure, a priest and hierophant of the Christian mysteries. 64
The pride of Constantine might assume, and his services had deserved,
some extraordinary distinction: and ill-timed rigor might have blasted
the unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the church
had been strictly closed against a prince who had deserted the altars
of the gods, the master of the empire would have been left destitute of
any form of religious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously
disclaimed and insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by refusing
to lead the military procession of the equestrian order, and to offer
the public vows to the Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill. 65 Many years
before his baptism and death, Constantine had proclaimed to the world,
that neither his person nor his image should ever more be seen within
the walls of an idolatrous temple; while he distributed through the
provinces a variety of medals and pictures, which represented the
emperor in an humble and suppliant posture of Christian devotion. 66

63 (return) [ The distinction between the public and the secret parts
of divine service, the _missa catechumenorum_ and the _missa fidelium_,
and the mysterious veil which piety or policy had cast over the latter,
are very judiciously explained by Thiers, Exposition du Saint
Sacrament, l. i. c. 8- 12, p. 59-91: but as, on this subject, the
Papists may reasonably be suspected, a Protestant reader will depend
with more confidence on the learned Bingham, Antiquities, l. x. c. 5.]

64 (return) [ See Eusebius in Vit. Const. l. iv. c. 15-32, and the
whole tenor of Constantine’s Sermon. The faith and devotion of the
emperor has furnished Batonics with a specious argument in favor of his
early baptism. Note: Compare Heinichen, Excursus iv. et v., where these
questions are examined with candor and acuteness, and with constant
reference to the opinions of more modern writers.—M.]

65 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 105.]

66 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 15, 16.]

The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a catechumen,
cannot easily be explained or excused; but the delay of his baptism may
be justified by the maxims and the practice of ecclesiastical
antiquity. The sacrament of baptism 67 was regularly administered by
the bishop himself, with his assistant clergy, in the cathedral church
of the diocese, during the fifty days between the solemn festivals of
Easter and Pentecost; and this holy term admitted a numerous band of
infants and adult persons into the bosom of the church. The discretion
of parents often suspended the baptism of their children till they
could understand the obligations which they contracted: the severity of
ancient bishops exacted from the new converts a novitiate of two or
three years; and the catechumens themselves, from different motives of
a temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom impatient to assume the
character of perfect and initiated Christians. The sacrament of baptism
was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the
soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the
promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity,
there are many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite,
which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege,
which could never be recovered. By the delay of their baptism, they
could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyments of
this world, while they still retained in their own hands the means of a
sure and easy absolution. 68 The sublime theory of the gospel had made
a much fainter impression on the heart than on the understanding of
Constantine himself. He pursued the great object of his ambition
through the dark and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the
victory, he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his
fortune. Instead of asserting his just superiority above the imperfect
heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature
age of Constantine forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in
his youth. As he gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he
proportionally declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of
his reign in which he convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the
execution, or rather murder, of his eldest son. This date is alone
sufficient to refute the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus,
69 who affirms, that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his
father accepted from the ministers of christianity the expiation which
he had vainly solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. At the time of the
death of Crispus, the emperor could no longer hesitate in the choice of
a religion; he could no longer be ignorant that the church was
possessed of an infallible remedy, though he chose to defer the
application of it till the approach of death had removed the temptation
and danger of a relapse. The bishops whom he summoned, in his last
illness, to the palace of Nicomedia, were edified by the fervor with
which he requested and received the sacrament of baptism, by the solemn
protestation that the remainder of his life should be worthy of a
disciple of Christ, and by his humble refusal to wear the Imperial
purple after he had been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte.
The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the
delay of baptism. 70 Future tyrants were encouraged to believe, that
the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would
instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse
of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue.

67 (return) [ The theory and practice of antiquity, with regard to the
sacrament of baptism, have been copiously explained by Dom Chardon,
Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 3-405; Dom Martenne de Ritibus Ecclesiæ
Antiquis, tom. i.; and by Bingham, in the tenth and eleventh books of
his Christian Antiquities. One circumstance may be observed, in which
the modern churches have materially departed from the ancient custom.
The sacrament of baptism (even when it was administered to infants) was
immediately followed by confirmation and the holy communion.]

68 (return) [ The Fathers, who censured this criminal delay, could not
deny the certain and victorious efficacy even of a death-bed baptism.
The ingenious rhetoric of Chrysostom could find only three arguments
against these prudent Christians. 1. That we should love and pursue
virtue for her own sake, and not merely for the reward. 2. That we may
be surprised by death without an opportunity of baptism. 3. That
although we shall be placed in heaven, we shall only twinkle like
little stars, when compared to the suns of righteousness who have run
their appointed course with labor, with success, and with glory.
Chrysos tom in Epist. ad Hebræos, Homil. xiii. apud Chardon, Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. i. p. 49. I believe that this delay of baptism, though
attended with the most pernicious consequences, was never condemned by
any general or provincial council, or by any public act or declaration
of the church. The zeal of the bishops was easily kindled on much
slighter occasion. * Note: This passage of Chrysostom, though not in
his more forcible manner, is not quite fairly represented. He is
stronger in other places, in Act. Hom. xxiii.—and Hom. i. Compare,
likewise, the sermon of Gregory of Nysea on this subject, and Gregory
Nazianzen. After all, to those who believed in the efficacy of baptism,
what argument could be more conclusive, than the danger of dying
without it? Orat. xl.—M.]

69 (return) [ Zosimus, l. ii. p. 104. For this disingenuous falsehood
he has deserved and experienced the harshest treatment from all the
ecclesiastical writers, except Cardinal Baronius, (A. D. 324, No.
15-28,) who had occasion to employ the infidel on a particular service
against the Arian Eusebius. Note: Heyne, in a valuable note on this
passage of Zosimus, has shown decisively that this malicious way of
accounting for the conversion of Constantine was not an invention of
Zosimus. It appears to have been the current calumny eagerly adopted
and propagated by the exasperated Pagan party. Reitemeter, a later
editor of Zosimus, whose notes are retained in the recent edition, in
the collection of the Byzantine historians, has a disquisition on the
passage, as candid, but not more conclusive than some which have
preceded him—M.]

70 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The bishop of Cæsarea
supposes the salvation of Constantine with the most perfect
confidence.]

The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and excused the
failings of a generous patron, who seated Christianity on the throne of
the Roman world; and the Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the
Imperial saint, seldom mention the name of Constantine without adding
the title of _equal to the Apostles_. 71 Such a comparison, if it
allude to the character of those divine missionaries, must be imputed
to the extravagance of impious flattery. But if the parallel be
confined to the extent and number of their evangelic victories the
success of Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles
themselves. By the edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal
disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of Christianity;
and its active and numerous ministers received a free permission, a
liberal encouragement, to recommend the salutary truths of revelation
by every argument which could affect the reason or piety of mankind.
The exact balance of the two religions continued but a moment; and the
piercing eye of ambition and avarice soon discovered, that the
profession of Christianity might contribute to the interest of the
present, as well as of a future life. 72 The hopes of wealth and
honors, the example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible
smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which
usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities which signalized a
forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were
distinguished by municipal privileges, and rewarded with popular
donatives; and the new capital of the East gloried in the singular
advantage that Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of
idols. 73 As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the
conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or
of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes. 74 The salvation
of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true that,
in one year, twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a
proportionable number of women and children, and that a white garment,
with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every
convert. 75 The powerful influence of Constantine was not circumscribed
by the narrow limits of his life, or of his dominions. The education
which he bestowed on his sons and nephews secured to the empire a race
of princes, whose faith was still more lively and sincere, as they
imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the spirit, or at least the
doctrine, of Christianity. War and commerce had spread the knowledge of
the gospel beyond the confines of the Roman provinces; and the
Barbarians, who had disdained as humble and proscribed sect, soon
learned to esteem a religion which had been so lately embraced by the
greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation, of the globe. 76 The
Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of Rome, revered the
cross which glittered at the head of the legions, and their fierce
countrymen received at the same time the lessons of faith and of
humanity. The kings of Iberia and Armenia76a worshipped the god of
their protector; and their subjects, who have invariably preserved the
name of Christians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with
their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time
of war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long as
peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the
Magi was effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine. 77
The rays of the gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of
Jews, who had penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, 78 opposed the
progress of Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries was in some
measure facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation;
and Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, 78a who, in the
time of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those
sequestered regions. Under the reign of his son Constantius,
Theophilus, 79 who was himself of Indian extraction, was invested with
the double character of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red
Sea with two hundred horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which
were sent by the emperor to the prince of the Sabæans, or Homerites.
Theophilus was intrusted with many other useful or curious presents,
which might raise the admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of the
Barbarians; and he successfully employed several years in a pastoral
visit to the churches of the torrid zone. 80

71 (return) [ See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 429. The
Greeks, the Russians, and, in the darker ages, the Latins themselves,
have been desirous of placing Constantine in the catalogue of saints.]

72 (return) [ See the third and fourth books of his life. He was
accustomed to say, that whether Christ was preached in pretence, or in
truth, he should still rejoice, (l. iii. c. 58.)]

73 (return) [ M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 374,
616) has defended, with strength and spirit, the virgin purity of
Constantinople against some malevolent insinuations of the Pagan
Zosimus.]

74 (return) [ The author of the Histoire Politique et Philosophique des
deux Indes (tom. i. p. 9) condemns a law of Constantine, which gave
freedom to all the slaves who should embrace Christianity. The emperor
did indeed publish a law, which restrained the Jews from circumcising,
perhaps from keeping, any Christian slave. (See Euseb. in Vit.
Constant. l. iv. c. 27, and Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ix., with
Godefroy’s Commentary, tom. vi. p. 247.) But this imperfect exception
related only to the Jews, and the great body of slaves, who were the
property of Christian or Pagan masters, could not improve their
temporal condition by changing their religion. I am ignorant by what
guides the Abbé Raynal was deceived; as the total absence of quotations
is the unpardonable blemish of his entertaining history.]

75 (return) [ See Acta Sti Silvestri, and Hist. Eccles. Nicephor.
Callist. l. vii. c. 34, ap. Baronium Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 67,
74. Such evidence is contemptible enough; but these circumstances are
in themselves so probable, that the learned Dr. Howell (History of the
World, vol. iii. p. 14) has not scrupled to adopt them.]

76 (return) [ The conversion of the Barbarians under the reign of
Constantine is celebrated by the ecclesiastical historians. (See
Sozomen, l. ii. c. 6, and Theodoret, l. i. c. 23, 24.) But Rufinus, the
Latin translator of Eusebius, deserves to be considered as an original
authority. His information was curiously collected from one of the
companions of the Apostle of Æthiopia, and from Bacurius, an Iberian
prince, who was count of the domestics. Father Mamachi has given an
ample compilation on the progress of Christianity, in the first and
second volumes of his great but imperfect work.]

76a (return) [ According to the Georgian chronicles, Iberia (Georgia)
was converted by the virgin Nino, who effected an extraordinary cure on
the wife of the king Mihran. The temple of the god Aramazt, or Armaz,
not far from the capital Mtskitha, was destroyed, and the cross erected
in its place. Le Beau, i. 202, with St. Martin’s Notes.—St. Martin has
likewise clearly shown (St. Martin, Add. to Le Beau, i. 291) Armenia
was the first _nation_ which embraced Christianity, (Addition to Le
Beau, i. 76. and Mémoire sur l’Armenie, i. 305.) Gibbon himself
suspected this truth.—“Instead of maintaining that the conversion of
Armenia was not attempted with any degree of success, till the sceptre
was in the hands of an orthodox emperor,” I ought to have said, that
the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season of the last
and greatest persecution, that many Roman exiles might assist the
labors of Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the
East, may dispute with Constantine the honor of being the first
sovereign who embraced the Christian religion Vindication]

77 (return) [ See, in Eusebius, (in Vit. l. iv. c. 9,) the pressing and
pathetic epistle of Constantine in favor of his Christian brethren of
Persia.]

78 (return) [ See Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. p. 182, tom.
viii. p. 333, tom. ix. p. 810. The curious diligence of this writer
pursues the Jewish exiles to the extremities of the globe.]

78a (return) [ Abba Salama, or Fremonatus, is mentioned in the Tareek
Negushti, chronicle of the kings of Abyssinia. Salt’s Travels, vol. ii.
p. 464.—M.]

79 (return) [ Theophilus had been given in his infancy as a hostage by
his countrymen of the Isle of Diva, and was educated by the Romans in
learning and piety. The Maldives, of which Male, or Diva, may be the
capital, are a cluster of 1900 or 2000 minute islands in the Indian
Ocean. The ancients were imperfectly acquainted with the Maldives; but
they are described in the two Mahometan travellers of the ninth
century, published by Renaudot, Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 30, 31
D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale p. 704. Hist. Generale des Voy ages,
tom. viii.—See the dissertation of M. Letronne on this question. He
conceives that Theophilus was born in the island of Dahlak, in the
Arabian Gulf. His embassy was to Abyssinia rather than to India.
Letronne, Materiaux pour l’Hist. du Christianisme en Egypte Indie, et
Abyssinie. Paris, 1832 3d Dissert.—M.]

80 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 4, 5, 6, with Godefroy’s
learned observations. The historical narrative is soon lost in an
inquiry concerning the seat of Paradise, strange monsters, &c.]

The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayed in the
important and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors of
a military force silenced the faint and unsupported murmurs of the
Pagans, and there was reason to expect, that the cheerful submission of
the Christian clergy, as well as people, would be the result of
conscience and gratitude. It was long since established, as a
fundamental maxim of the Roman constitution, that every rank of
citizens was alike subject to the laws, and that the care of religion
was the right as well as duty of the civil magistrate. Constantine and
his successors could not easily persuade themselves that they had
forfeited, by their conversion, any branch of the Imperial
prerogatives, or that they were incapable of giving laws to a religion
which they had protected and embraced. The emperors still continued to
exercise a supreme jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical order, and the
sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under a variety of
titles, the authority which they assumed in the government of the
Catholic church. But the distinction of the spiritual and temporal
powers, 81 which had never been imposed on the free spirit of Greece
and Rome, was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment of
Christianity. The office of supreme pontiff, which, from the time of
Numa to that of Augustus, had always been exercised by one of the most
eminent of the senators, was at length united to the Imperial dignity.
The first magistrate of the state, as often as he was prompted by
superstition or policy, performed with his own hands the sacerdotal
functions; 82 nor was there any order of priests, either at Rome or in
the provinces, who claimed a more sacred character among men, or a more
intimate communication with the gods. But in the Christian church,
which instrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual succession of
consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is less
honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails
of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful
multitude. 83 The emperor might be saluted as the father of his people,
but he owed a filial duty and reverence to the fathers of the church;
and the same marks of respect, which Constantine had paid to the
persons of saints and confessors, were soon exacted by the pride of the
episcopal order. 84 A secret conflict between the civil and
ecclesiastical jurisdictions embarrassed the operation of the Roman
government; and a pious emperor was alarmed by the guilt and danger of
touching with a profane hand the ark of the covenant. The separation of
men into the two orders of the clergy and of the laity was, indeed,
familiar to many nations of antiquity; and the priests of India, of
Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of Æthiopia, of Egypt, and of Gaul,
derived from a celestial origin the temporal power and possessions
which they had acquired. These venerable institutions had gradually
assimilated themselves to the manners and government of their
respective countries; 85 but the opposition or contempt of the civil
power served to cement the discipline of the primitive church. The
Christians had been obliged to elect their own magistrates, to raise
and distribute a peculiar revenue, and to regulate the internal policy
of their republic by a code of laws, which were ratified by the consent
of the people and the practice of three hundred years. When Constantine
embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed to contract a perpetual
alliance with a distinct and independent society; and the privileges
granted or confirmed by that emperor, or by his successors, were
accepted, not as the precarious favors of the court, but as the just
and inalienable rights of the ecclesiastical order.

81 (return) [ See the epistle of Osius, ap. Athanasium, vol. i. p. 840.
The public remonstrance which Osius was forced to address to the son,
contained the same principles of ecclesiastical and civil government
which he had secretly instilled into the mind of the father.]

82 (return) [ M. de la Bastiel has evidently proved, that Augustus and
his successors exercised in person all the sacred functions of pontifex
maximus, of high priest, of the Roman empire.]

83 (return) [ Something of a contrary practice had insensibly prevailed
in the church of Constantinople; but the rigid Ambrose commanded
Theodosius to retire below the rails, and taught him to know the
difference between a king and a priest. See Theodoret, l. v. c. 18.]

84 (return) [ At the table of the emperor Maximus, Martin, bishop of
Tours, received the cup from an attendant, and gave it to the
presbyter, his companion, before he allowed the emperor to drink; the
empress waited on Martin at table. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Sti
Martin, c. 23, and Dialogue ii. 7. Yet it may be doubted, whether these
extraordinary compliments were paid to the bishop or the saint. The
honors usually granted to the former character may be seen in Bingham’s
Antiquities, l. ii. c. 9, and Vales ad Theodoret, l. iv. c. 6. See the
haughty ceremonial which Leontius, bishop of Tripoli, imposed on the
empress. Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 754. (Patres
Apostol. tom. ii. p. 179.)]

85 (return) [ Plutarch, in his treatise of Isis and Osiris, informs us
that the kings of Egypt, who were not already priests, were initiated,
after their election, into the sacerdotal order.]

The Catholic church was administered by the spiritual and legal
jurisdiction of eighteen hundred bishops; 86 of whom one thousand were
seated in the Greek, and eight hundred in the Latin, provinces of the
empire. The extent and boundaries of their respective dioceses had been
variously and accidentally decided by the zeal and success of the first
missionaries, by the wishes of the people, and by the propagation of
the gospel. Episcopal churches were closely planted along the banks of
the Nile, on the sea-coast of Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and
through the southern provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain,
of Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and delegated
their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate duties of the
pastoral office. 87 A Christian diocese might be spread over a
province, or reduced to a village; but all the bishops possessed an
equal and indelible character: they all derived the same powers and
privileges from the apostles, from the people, and from the laws. While
the _civil_ and _military_ professions were separated by the policy of
Constantine, a new and perpetual order of _ecclesiastical_ ministers,
always respectable, sometimes dangerous, was established in the church
and state. The important review of their station and attributes may be
distributed under the following heads: I. Popular Election. II.
Ordination of the Clergy. III. Property. IV. Civil Jurisdiction. V.
Spiritual censures. VI. Exercise of public oratory. VII. Privilege of
legislative assemblies.

86 (return) [ The numbers are not ascertained by any ancient writer or
original catalogue; for the partial lists of the eastern churches are
comparatively modern. The patient diligence of Charles a Sto Paolo, of
Luke Holstentius, and of Bingham, has laboriously investigated all the
episcopal sees of the Catholic church, which was almost commensurate
with the Roman empire. The ninth book of the Christian antiquities is a
very accurate map of ecclesiastical geography.]

87 (return) [ On the subject of rural bishops, or _Chorepiscopi_, who
voted in tynods, and conferred the minor orders, See Thomassin,
Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. p. 447, &c., and Chardon, Hist. des
Sacremens, tom. v. p. 395, &c. They do not appear till the fourth
century; and this equivocal character, which had excited the jealousy
of the prelates, was abolished before the end of the tenth, both in the
East and the West.]

I. The freedom of election subsisted long after the legal establishment
of Christianity; 88 and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the church the
privilege which they had lost in the republic, of choosing the
magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As soon as a bishop had
closed his eyes, the metropolitan issued a commission to one of his
suffragans to administer the vacant see, and prepare, within a limited
time, the future election. The right of voting was vested in the
inferior clergy, who were best qualified to judge of the merit of the
candidates; in the senators or nobles of the city, all those who were
distinguished by their rank or property; and finally in the whole body
of the people, who, on the appointed day, flocked in multitudes from
the most remote parts of the diocese, 89 and sometimes silenced by
their tumultuous acclamations, the voice of reason and the laws of
discipline. These acclamations might accidentally fix on the head of
the most deserving competitor; of some ancient presbyter, some holy
monk, or some layman, conspicuous for his zeal and piety. But the
episcopal chair was solicited, especially in the great and opulent
cities of the empire, as a temporal rather than as a spiritual dignity.
The interested views, the selfish and angry passions, the arts of
perfidy and dissimulation, the secret corruption, the open and even
bloody violence which had formerly disgraced the freedom of election in
the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often influenced the choice
of the successors of the apostles. While one of the candidates boasted
the honors of his family, a second allured his judges by the delicacies
of a plentiful table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered
to share the plunder of the church among the accomplices of his
sacrilegious hopes 90 The civil as well as ecclesiastical laws
attempted to exclude the populace from this solemn and important
transaction. The canons of ancient discipline, by requiring several
episcopal qualifications, of age, station, &c., restrained, in some
measure, the indiscriminate caprice of the electors. The authority of
the provincial bishops, who were assembled in the vacant church to
consecrate the choice of the people, was interposed to moderate their
passions and to correct their mistakes. The bishops could refuse to
ordain an unworthy candidate, and the rage of contending factions
sometimes accepted their impartial mediation. The submission, or the
resistance, of the clergy and people, on various occasions, afforded
different precedents, which were insensibly converted into positive
laws and provincial customs; 91 but it was every where admitted, as a
fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no bishop could be imposed
on an orthodox church, without the consent of its members. The
emperors, as the guardians of the public peace, and as the first
citizens of Rome and Constantinople, might effectually declare their
wishes in the choice of a primate; but those absolute monarchs
respected the freedom of ecclesiastical elections; and while they
distributed and resumed the honors of the state and army, they allowed
eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates to receive their important
offices from the free suffrages of the people. 92 It was agreeable to
the dictates of justice, that these magistrates should not desert an
honorable station from which they could not be removed; but the wisdom
of councils endeavored, without much success, to enforce the residence,
and to prevent the translation, of bishops. The discipline of the West
was indeed less relaxed than that of the East; but the same passions
which made those regulations necessary, rendered them ineffectual. The
reproaches which angry prelates have so vehemently urged against each
other, serve only to expose their common guilt, and their mutual
indiscretion.

88 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom, ii. l. ii. c.
1-8, p. 673-721) has copiously treated of the election of bishops
during the five first centuries, both in the East and in the West; but
he shows a very partial bias in favor of the episcopal aristocracy.
Bingham, (l. iv. c. 2) is moderate; and Chardon (Hist. des Sacremens
tom. v. p. 108-128) is very clear and concise. * Note: This freedom was
extremely limited, and soon annihilated; already, from the third
century, the deacons were no longer nominated by the members of the
community, but by the bishops. Although it appears by the letters of
Cyprian, that even in his time, no priest could be elected without the
consent of the community. (Ep. 68,) that election was far from being
altogether free. The bishop proposed to his parishioners the candidate
whom he had chosen, and they were permitted to make such objections as
might be suggested by his conduct and morals. (St. Cyprian, Ep. 33.)
They lost this last right towards the middle of the fourth century.—G]

89 (return) [ Incredibilis multitudo, non solum ex eo oppido,
(_Tours_,) sed etiam ex vicinis urbibus ad suffragia ferenda
convenerat, &c. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Martin. c. 7. The council of
Laodicea, (canon xiii.) prohibits mobs and tumults; and Justinian
confines confined the right of election to the nobility. Novel. cxxiii.
l.]

90 (return) [ The epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris (iv. 25, vii. 5, 9)
exhibit some of the scandals of the Gallican church; and Gaul was less
polished and less corrupt than the East.]

91 (return) [ A compromise was sometimes introduced by law or by
consent; either the bishops or the people chose one of the three
candidates who had been named by the other party.]

92 (return) [ All the examples quoted by Thomassin (Discipline de
l’Eglise, tom. ii. l. iii. c. vi. p. 704-714) appear to be
extraordinary acts of power, and even of oppression. The confirmation
of the bishop of Alexandria is mentioned by Philostorgius as a more
regular proceeding. (Hist Eccles. l. ii. ll.) * Note: The statement of
Planck is more consistent with history: “From the middle of the fourth
century, the bishops of some of the larger churches, particularly those
of the Imperial residence, were almost always chosen under the
influence of the court, and often directly and immediately nominated by
the emperor.” Planck, Geschichte der Christlich-kirchlichen
Gesellschafteverfassung, verfassung, vol. i p 263.—M.]

II. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of _spiritual_ generation:
and this extraordinary privilege might compensate, in some degree, for
the painful celibacy 93 which was imposed as a virtue, as a duty, and
at length as a positive obligation. The religions of antiquity, which
established a separate order of priests, dedicated a holy race, a tribe
or family, to the perpetual service of the gods. 94 Such institutions
were founded for possession, rather than conquest. The children of the
priests enjoyed, with proud and indolent security, their sacred
inheritance; and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by the
cares, the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. But the
Christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious candidate, who aspired
to its heavenly promises or temporal possessions. This office of
priests, like that of soldiers or magistrates, was strenuously
exercised by those men, whose temper and abilities had prompted them to
embrace the ecclesiastical profession, or who had been selected by a
discerning bishop, as the best qualified to promote the glory and
interest of the church. The bishops 95 (till the abuse was restrained
by the prudence of the laws) might constrain the reluctant, and protect
the distressed; and the imposition of hands forever bestowed some of
the most valuable privileges of civil society. The whole body of the
Catholic clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was exempted
[95a] by the emperors from all service, private or public, all
municipal offices, and all personal taxes and contributions, which
pressed on their fellow- citizens with intolerable weight; and the
duties of their holy profession were accepted as a full discharge of
their obligations to the republic. 96 Each bishop acquired an absolute
and indefeasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom he
ordained: the clergy of each episcopal church, with its dependent
parishes, formed a regular and permanent society; and the cathedrals of
Constantinople 97 and Carthage 98 maintained their peculiar
establishment of five hundred ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks 99
and numbers were insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the
times, which introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of a
Jewish or Pagan temple; and a long train of priests, deacons,
sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and doorkeepers,
contributed, in their respective stations, to swell the pomp and
harmony of religious worship. The clerical name and privileges were
extended to many pious fraternities, who devoutly supported the
ecclesiastical throne. 100 Six hundred _parabolani_, or adventurers,
visited the sick at Alexandria; eleven hundred _copiatæ_, or
grave-diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople; and the swarms of
monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened the face of the
Christian world.

93 (return) [ The celibacy of the clergy during the first five or six
centuries, is a subject of discipline, and indeed of controversy, which
has been very diligently examined. See in particular, Thomassin,
Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. ii. c. lx. lxi. p. 886-902, and
Bingham’s Antiquities, l. iv. c. 5. By each of these learned but
partial critics, one half of the truth is produced, and the other is
concealed.—Note: Compare Planck, (vol. i. p. 348.) This century, the
third, first brought forth the monks, or the spirit of monkery, the
celibacy of the clergy. Planck likewise observes, that from the history
of Eusebius alone, names of married bishops and presbyters may be
adduced by dozens.—M.]

94 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus attests and approves the hereditary
succession of the priesthood among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and
the Indians, (l. i. p. 84, l. ii. p. 142, 153, edit. Wesseling.) The
magi are described by Ammianus as a very numerous family: “Per sæcula
multa ad præsens unâ eâdemque prosapiâ multitudo creata, Deorum
cultibus dedicata.” (xxiii. 6.) Ausonius celebrates the _Stirps
Druidarum_, (De Professorib. Burdigal. iv.;) but we may infer from the
remark of Cæsar, (vi. 13,) that in the Celtic hierarchy, some room was
left for choice and emulation.]

95 (return) [ The subject of the vocation, ordination, obedience, &c.,
of the clergy, is laboriously discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de
l’Eglise, tom. ii. p. 1-83) and Bingham, (in the 4th book of his
Antiquities, more especially the 4th, 6th, and 7th chapters.) When the
brother of St. Jerom was ordained in Cyprus, the deacons forcibly
stopped his mouth, lest he should make a solemn protestation, which
might invalidate the holy rites.]

 [ This exemption was very much limited. The municipal offices were of
 two kinds; the one attached to the individual in his character of
 inhabitant, the other in that of _proprietor_. Constantine had
 exempted ecclesiastics from offices of the first description. (Cod.
 Theod. xvi. t. ii. leg. 1, 2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. vii.)
 They sought, also, to be exempted from those of the second, (munera
 patrimoniorum.) The rich, to obtain this privilege, obtained
 subordinate situations among the clergy. Constantine published in 320
 an edict, by which he prohibited the more opulent citizens (decuriones
 and curiales) from embracing the ecclesiastical profession, and the
 bishops from admitting new ecclesiastics, before a place should be
 vacant by the death of the occupant, (Godefroy ad Cod. Theod.t. xii.
 t. i. de Decur.) Valentinian the First, by a rescript still more
 general enacted that no rich citizen should obtain a situation in the
 church, (De Episc 1. lxvii.) He also enacted that ecclesiastics, who
 wished to be exempt from offices which they were bound to discharge as
 proprietors, should be obliged to give up their property to their
 relations. Cod Theodos l. xii t. i. leb. 49—G.]

96 (return) [ The charter of immunities, which the clergy obtained from
the Christian emperors, is contained in the 16th book of the Theodosian
code; and is illustrated with tolerable candor by the learned Godefroy,
whose mind was balanced by the opposite prejudices of a civilian and a
Protestant.]

97 (return) [ Justinian. Novell. ciii. Sixty presbyters, or priests,
one hundred deacons, forty deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, one hundred
and ten readers, twenty-five chanters, and one hundred door-keepers; in
all, five hundred and twenty-five. This moderate number was fixed by
the emperor to relieve the distress of the church, which had been
involved in debt and usury by the expense of a much higher
establishment.]

98 (return) [ Universus clerus ecclesiæ Carthaginiensis.... fere
_quingenti_ vel amplius; inter quos quamplurima erant lectores
infantuli. Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. Vandal. v. 9, p. 78, edit.
Ruinart. This remnant of a more prosperous state still subsisted under
the oppression of the Vandals.]

99 (return) [ The number of _seven_ orders has been fixed in the Latin
church, exclusive of the episcopal character. But the four inferior
ranks, the minor orders, are now reduced to empty and useless titles.]

100 (return) [ See Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 42, 43.
Godefroy’s Commentary, and the Ecclesiastical History of Alexandria,
show the danger of these pious institutions, which often disturbed the
peace of that turbulent capital.]

 Chapter XX: Conversion Of Constantine.—Part IV.

III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as well as the peace of the
church. 101 The Christians not only recovered the lands and houses of
which they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocletian, but
they acquired a perfect title to all the possessions which they had
hitherto enjoyed by the connivance of the magistrate. As soon as
Christianity became the religion of the emperor and the empire, the
national clergy might claim a decent and honorable maintenance; and the
payment of an annual tax might have delivered the people from the more
oppressive tribute, which superstition imposes on her votaries. But as
the wants and expenses of the church increased with her prosperity, the
ecclesiastical order was still supported and enriched by the voluntary
oblations of the faithful. Eight years after the edict of Milan,
Constantine granted to all his subjects the free and universal
permission of bequeathing their fortunes to the holy Catholic church;
102 and their devout liberality, which during their lives was checked
by luxury or avarice, flowed with a profuse stream at the hour of their
death. The wealthy Christians were encouraged by the example of their
sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich without patrimony, may be
charitable without merit; and Constantine too easily believed that he
should purchase the favor of Heaven, if he maintained the idle at the
expense of the industrious; and distributed among the saints the wealth
of the republic. The same messenger who carried over to Africa the head
of Maxentius, might be intrusted with an epistle to Cæcilian, bishop of
Carthage. The emperor acquaints him, that the treasurers of the
province are directed to pay into his hands the sum of three thousand
_folles_, or eighteen thousand pounds sterling, and to obey his further
requisitions for the relief of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and
Mauritania. 103 The liberality of Constantine increased in a just
proportion to his faith, and to his vices. He assigned in each city a
regular allowance of corn, to supply the fund of ecclesiastical
charity; and the persons of both sexes who embraced the monastic life
became the peculiar favorites of their sovereign. The Christian temples
of Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople &c., displayed the
ostentatious piety of a prince, ambitious in a declining age to equal
the perfect labors of antiquity. 104 The form of these religious
edifices was simple and oblong; though they might sometimes swell into
the shape of a dome, and sometimes branch into the figure of a cross.
The timbers were framed for the most part of cedars of Libanus; the
roof was covered with tiles, perhaps of gilt brass; and the walls, the
columns, the pavement, were encrusted with variegated marbles. The most
precious ornaments of gold and silver, of silk and gems, were profusely
dedicated to the service of the altar; and this specious magnificence
was supported on the solid and perpetual basis of landed property. In
the space of two centuries, from the reign of Constantine to that of
Justinian, the eighteen hundred churches of the empire were enriched by
the frequent and unalienable gifts of the prince and people. An annual
income of six hundred pounds sterling may be reasonably assigned to the
bishops, who were placed at an equal distance between riches and
poverty, 105 but the standard of their wealth insensibly rose with the
dignity and opulence of the cities which they governed. An authentic
but imperfect 106 rent-roll specifies some houses, shops, gardens, and
farms, which belonged to the three _Basilicæ_ of Rome, St. Peter, St.
Paul, and St. John Lateran, in the provinces of Italy, Africa, and the
East. They produce, besides a reserved rent of oil, linen, paper,
aromatics, &c., a clear annual revenue of twenty-two thousand pieces of
gold, or twelve thousand pounds sterling. In the age of Constantine and
Justinian, the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps they no longer
deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and people. The
ecclesiastical revenues of each diocese were divided into four parts
for the respective uses of the bishop himself, of his inferior clergy,
of the poor, and of the public worship; and the abuse of this sacred
trust was strictly and repeatedly checked. 107 The patrimony of the
church was still subject to all the public compositions of the state.
108 The clergy of Rome, Alexandria, Chessaionica, &c., might solicit
and obtain some partial exemptions; but the premature attempt of the
great council of Rimini, which aspired to universal freedom, was
successfully resisted by the son of Constantine. 109

101 (return) [ The edict of Milan (de M. P. c. 48) acknowledges, by
reciting, that there existed a species of landed property, ad jus
corporis eorum, id est, ecclesiarum non hominum singulorum pertinentia.
Such a solemn declaration of the supreme magistrate must have been
received in all the tribunals as a maxim of civil law.]

102 (return) [ Habeat unusquisque licentiam sanctissimo Catholicæ
(_ecclesiæ_) venerabilique concilio, decedens bonorum quod optavit
relinquere. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 4. This law was
published at Rome, A. D. 321, at a time when Constantine might foresee
the probability of a rupture with the emperor of the East.]

103 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. 6; in Vit. Constantin. l.
iv. c. 28. He repeatedly expatiates on the liberality of the Christian
hero, which the bishop himself had an opportunity of knowing, and even
of lasting.]

104 (return) [ Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. l. x. c. 2, 3, 4. The bishop of
Cæsarea who studied and gratified the taste of his master, pronounced
in public an elaborate description of the church of Jerusalem, (in Vit
Cons. l. vi. c. 46.) It no longer exists, but he has inserted in the
life of Constantine (l. iii. c. 36) a short account of the architecture
and ornaments. He likewise mentions the church of the Holy Apostles at
Constantinople, (l. iv. c. 59.)]

105 (return) [ See Justinian. Novell. cxxiii. 3. The revenue of the
patriarchs, and the most wealthy bishops, is not expressed: the highest
annual valuation of a bishopric is stated at _thirty_, and the lowest
at _two_, pounds of gold; the medium might be taken at _sixteen_, but
these valuations are much below the real value.]

106 (return) [ See Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 58, 65, 70,
71.) Every record which comes from the Vatican is justly suspected; yet
these rent-rolls have an ancient and authentic color; and it is at
least evident, that, if forged, they were forged in a period when
_farms_ not _kingdoms_, were the objects of papal avarice.]

107 (return) [ See Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. l. ii.
c. 13, 14, 15, p. 689-706. The legal division of the ecclesiastical
revenue does not appear to have been established in the time of Ambrose
and Chrysostom. Simplicius and Gelasius, who were bishops of Rome in
the latter part of the fifth century, mention it in their pastoral
letters as a general law, which was already confirmed by the custom of
Italy.]

108 (return) [ Ambrose, the most strenuous assertor of ecclesiastical
privileges, submits without a murmur to the payment of the land tax.
“Si tri butum petit Imperator, non negamus; agri ecclesiæ solvunt
tributum solvimus quæ sunt Cæsaris Cæsari, et quæ sunt Dei Deo;
tributum Cæsaris est; non negatur.” Baronius labors to interpret this
tribute as an act of charity rather than of duty, (Annal. Eccles. A. D.
387;) but the words, if not the intentions of Ambrose are more candidly
explained by Thomassin, Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. l. i. c. 34.
p. 668.]

109 (return) [ In Ariminense synodo super ecclesiarum et clericorum
privilegiis tractatu habito, usque eo dispositio progressa est, ut juqa
quæ viderentur ad ecclesiam pertinere, a publica functione cessarent
inquietudine desistente; quod nostra videtur dudum sanctio repulsisse.
Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 15. Had the synod of Rimini carried
this point, such practical merit might have atoned for some speculative
heresies.]

IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their tribunal on the ruins of the
civil and common law, have modestly accepted, as the gift of
Constantine, 110 the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit of
time, of accident, and of their own industry. But the liberality of the
Christian emperors had actually endowed them with some legal
prerogatives, which secured and dignified the sacerdotal character. 111
1. Under a despotic government, the bishops alone enjoyed and asserted
the inestimable privilege of being tried only by their _peers_, and
even in a capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were the sole
judges of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, unless it was
inflamed by personal resentment or religious discord, might be
favorable, or even partial, to the sacerdotal order: but Constantine
was satisfied, 112 that secret impunity would be less pernicious than
public scandal: and the Nicene council was edited by his public
declaration, that if he surprised a bishop in the act of adultery, he
should cast his Imperial mantle over the episcopal sinner. 2. The
domestic jurisdiction of the bishops was at once a privilege and a
restraint of the ecclesiastical order, whose civil causes were decently
withdrawn from the cognizance of a secular judge. Their venial offences
were not exposed to the shame of a public trial or punishment; and the
gentle correction which the tenderness of youth may endure from its
parents or instructors, was inflicted by the temperate severity of the
bishops. But if the clergy were guilty of any crime which could not be
sufficiently expiated by their degradation from an honorable and
beneficial profession, the Roman magistrate drew the sword of justice,
without any regard to ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration of
the bishops was ratified by a positive law; and the judges were
instructed to execute, without appeal or delay, the episcopal decrees,
whose validity had hitherto depended on the consent of the parties. The
conversion of the magistrates themselves, and of the whole empire,
might gradually remove the fears and scruples of the Christians. But
they still resorted to the tribunal of the bishops, whose abilities and
integrity they esteemed; and the venerable Austin enjoyed the
satisfaction of complaining that his spiritual functions were
perpetually interrupted by the invidious labor of deciding the claim or
the possession of silver and gold, of lands and cattle. 4. The ancient
privilege of sanctuary was transferred to the Christian temples, and
extended, by the liberal piety of the younger Theodosius, to the
precincts of consecrated ground. 113 The fugitive, and even guilty
suppliants,were permitted to implore either the justice, or the mercy,
of the Deity and his ministers. The rash violence of despotism was
suspended by the mild interposition of the church; and the lives or
fortunes of the most eminent subjects might be protected by the
mediation of the bishop.

110 (return) [ From Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 27) and
Sozomen (l. i. c. 9) we are assured that the episcopal jurisdiction was
extended and confirmed by Constantine; but the forgery of a famous
edict, which was never fairly inserted in the Theodosian Code (see at
the end, tom. vi. p. 303,) is demonstrated by Godefroy in the most
satisfactory manner. It is strange that M. de Montesquieu, who was a
lawyer as well as a philosopher, should allege this edict of
Constantine (Esprit des Loix, l. xxix. c. 16) without intimating any
suspicion.]

111 (return) [ The subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction has been
involved in a mist of passion, of prejudice, and of interest. Two of
the fairest books which have fallen into my hands, are the Institutes
of Canon Law, by the Abbé de Fleury, and the Civil History of Naples,
by Giannone. Their moderation was the effect of situation as well as of
temper. Fleury was a French ecclesiastic, who respected the authority
of the parliaments; Giannone was an Italian lawyer, who dreaded the
power of the church. And here let me observe, that as the general
propositions which I advance are the result of _many_ particular and
imperfect facts, I must either refer the reader to those modern authors
who have expressly treated the subject, or swell these notes
disproportioned size.]

112 (return) [ Tillemont has collected from Rufinus, Theodoret, &c.,
the sentiments and language of Constantine. Mém Eccles tom. iii p. 749,
759.]

113 (return) [ See Cod. Theod. l. ix. tit. xlv. leg. 4. In the works of
Fra Paolo. (tom. iv. p. 192, &c.,) there is an excellent discourse on
the origin, claims, abuses, and limits of sanctuaries. He justly
observes, that ancient Greece might perhaps contain fifteen or twenty
_azyla_ or sanctuaries; a number which at present may be found in Italy
within the walls of a single city.]

V. The bishop was the perpetual censor of the morals of his people The
discipline of penance was digested into a system of canonical
jurisprudence, 114 which accurately defined the duty of private or
public confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees of guilt, and the
measure of punishment. It was impossible to execute this spiritual
censure, if the Christian pontiff, who punished the obscure sins of the
multitude, respected the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of
the magistrate: but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the
magistrate, without, controlling the administration of civil
government. Some considerations of religion, or loyalty, or fear,
protected the sacred persons of the emperors from the zeal or
resentment of the bishops; but they boldly censured and excommunicated
the subordinate tyrants, who were not invested with the majesty of the
purple. St. Athanasius excommunicated one of the ministers of Egypt;
and the interdict which he pronounced, of fire and water, was solemnly
transmitted to the churches of Cappadocia. 115 Under the reign of the
younger Theodosius, the polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the
descendants of Hercules, 116 filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais,
near the ruins of ancient Cyrene, 117 and the philosophic bishop
supported with dignity the character which he had assumed with
reluctance. 118 He vanquished the monster of Libya, the president
Andronicus, who abused the authority of a venal office, invented new
modes of rapine and torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression by
that of sacrilege. 119 After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty
magistrate by mild and religious admonition, Synesius proceeds to
inflict the last sentence of ecclesiastical justice, 120 which devotes
Andronicus, with his associates and their _families_, to the abhorrence
of earth and heaven. The impenitent sinners, more cruel than Phalaris
or Sennacherib, more destructive than war, pestilence, or a cloud of
locusts, are deprived of the name and privileges of Christians, of the
participation of the sacraments, and of the hope of Paradise. The
bishop exhorts the clergy, the magistrates, and the people, to renounce
all society with the enemies of Christ; to exclude them from their
houses and tables; and to refuse them the common offices of life, and
the decent rites of burial. The church of Ptolemais, obscure and
contemptible as she may appear, addresses this declaration to all her
sister churches of the world; and the profane who reject her decrees,
will be involved in the guilt and punishment of Andronicus and his
impious followers. These spiritual terrors were enforced by a dexterous
application to the Byzantine court; the trembling president implored
the mercy of the church; and the descendants of Hercules enjoyed the
satisfaction of raising a prostrate tyrant from the ground. 121 Such
principles and such examples insensibly prepared the triumph of the
Roman pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings.

114 (return) [ The penitential jurisprudence was continually improved
by the canons of the councils. But as many cases were still left to the
discretion of the bishops, they occasionally published, after the
example of the Roman Prætor, the rules of discipline which they
proposed to observe. Among the canonical epistles of the fourth
century, those of Basil the Great were the most celebrated. They are
inserted in the Pandects of Beveridge, (tom. ii. p. 47-151,) and are
translated by Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. iv. p. 219-277.]

115 (return) [ Basil, Epistol. xlvii. in Baronius, (Annal. Eccles. A.
D. 370. N. 91,) who declares that he purposely relates it, to convince
govern that they were not exempt from a sentence of excommunication his
opinion, even a royal head is not safe from the thunders of the
Vatican; and the cardinal shows himself much more consistent than the
lawyers and theologians of the Gallican church.]

116 (return) [ The long series of his ancestors, as high as
Eurysthenes, the first Doric king of Sparta, and the fifth in lineal
descent from Hercules, was inscribed in the public registers of Cyrene,
a Lacedæmonian colony. (Synes. Epist. lvii. p. 197, edit. Petav.) Such
a pure and illustrious pedigree of seventeen hundred years, without
adding the royal ancestors of Hercules, cannot be equalled in the
history of mankind.]

117 (return) [ Synesius (de Regno, p. 2) pathetically deplores the
fallen and ruined state of Cyrene, [**Greek]. Ptolemais, a new city, 82
miles to the westward of Cyrene, assumed the metropolitan honors of the
Pentapolis, or Upper Libya, which were afterwards transferred to
Sozusa.]

118 (return) [ Synesius had previously represented his own
disqualifications. He loved profane studies and profane sports; he was
incapable of supporting a life of celibacy; he disbelieved the
resurrection; and he refused to preach _fables_ to the people unless he
might be permitted to _philosophize_ at home. Theophilus primate of
Egypt, who knew his merit, accepted this extraordinary compromise.]

119 (return) [ The promotion of Andronicus was illegal; since he was a
native of Berenice, in the same province. The instruments of torture
are curiously specified; the press that variously pressed on distended
the fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears, and the lips of the
victims.]

120 (return) [ The sentence of excommunication is expressed in a
rhetorical style. (Synesius, Epist. lviii. p. 201-203.) The method of
involving whole families, though somewhat unjust, was improved into
national interdicts.]

121 (return) [ See Synesius, Epist. xlvii. p. 186, 187. Epist. lxxii.
p. 218, 219 Epist. lxxxix. p. 230, 231.]

VI. Every popular government has experienced the effects of rude or
artificial eloquence. The coldest nature is animated, the firmest
reason is moved, by the rapid communication of the prevailing impulse;
and each hearer is affected by his own passions, and by those of the
surrounding multitude. The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the
demagogues of Athens, and the tribunes of Rome; the custom of preaching
which seems to constitute a considerable part of Christian devotion,
had not been introduced into the temples of antiquity; and the ears of
monarchs were never invaded by the harsh sound of popular eloquence,
till the pulpits of the empire were filled with sacred orators, who
possessed some advantages unknown to their profane predecessors. 122
The arguments and rhetoric of the tribune were instantly opposed with
equal arms, by skilful and resolute antagonists; and the cause of truth
and reason might derive an accidental support from the conflict of
hostile passions. The bishop, or some distinguished presbyter, to whom
he cautiously delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the
danger of interruption or reply, a submissive multitude, whose minds
had been prepared and subdued by the awful ceremonies of religion. Such
was the strict subordination of the Catholic church, that the same
concerted sounds might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy or
Egypt, if they were _tuned_ 123 by the master hand of the Roman or
Alexandrian primate. The design of this institution was laudable, but
the fruits were not always salutary. The preachers recommended the
practice of the social duties; but they exalted the perfection of
monastic virtue, which is painful to the individual, and useless to
mankind. Their charitable exhortations betrayed a secret wish that the
clergy might be permitted to manage the wealth of the faithful, for the
benefit of the poor. The most sublime representations of the attributes
and laws of the Deity were sullied by an idle mixture of metaphysical
subleties, puerile rites, and fictitious miracles: and they expatiated,
with the most fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating the
adversaries, and obeying the ministers of the church. When the public
peace was distracted by heresy and schism, the sacred orators sounded
the trumpet of discord, and, perhaps, of sedition. The understandings
of their congregations were perplexed by mystery, their passions were
inflamed by invectives; and they rushed from the Christian temples of
Antioch or Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to inflict
martyrdom. The corruption of taste and language is strongly marked in
the vehement declamations of the Latin bishops; but the compositions of
Gregory and Chrysostom have been compared with the most splendid models
of Attic, or at least of Asiatic, eloquence. 124

122 (return) [ See Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. ii. l. iii.
c. 83, p. 1761-1770,) and Bingham, (Antiquities, vol. i. l. xiv. c. 4,
p. 688- 717.) Preaching was considered as the most important office of
the bishop but this function was sometimes intrusted to such presbyters
as Chrysostom and Augustin.]

123 (return) [ Queen Elizabeth used this expression, and practised this
art whenever she wished to prepossess the minds of her people in favor
of any extraordinary measure of government. The hostile effects of this
_music_ were apprehended by her successor, and severely felt by his
son. “When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,” &c. See Heylin’s Life of
Archbishop Laud, p. 153.]

124 (return) [ Those modest orators acknowledged, that, as they were
destitute of the gift of miracles, they endeavored to acquire the arts
of eloquence.]

VII. The representatives of the Christian republic were regularly
assembled in the spring and autumn of each year; and these synods
diffused the spirit of ecclesiastical discipline and legislation
through the hundred and twenty provinces of the Roman world. 125 The
archbishop or metropolitan was empowered, by the laws, to summon the
suffragan bishops of his province; to revise their conduct, to
vindicate their rights, to declare their faith, and to examine the
merits of the candidates who were elected by the clergy and people to
supply the vacancies of the episcopal college. The primates of Rome,
Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and afterwards Constantinople, who
exercised a more ample jurisdiction, convened the numerous assembly of
their dependent bishops. But the convocation of great and extraordinary
synods was the prerogative of the emperor alone. Whenever the
emergencies of the church required this decisive measure, he despatched
a peremptory summons to the bishops, or the deputies of each province,
with an order for the use of post-horses, and a competent allowance for
the expenses of their journey. At an early period, when Constantine was
the protector, rather than the proselyte, of Christianity, he referred
the African controversy to the council of Arles; in which the bishops
of York of Trèves, of Milan, and of Carthage, met as friends and
brethren, to debate in their native tongue on the common interest of
the Latin or Western church. 126 Eleven years afterwards, a more
numerous and celebrated assembly was convened at Nice in Bithynia, to
extinguish, by their final sentence, the subtle disputes which had
arisen in Egypt on the subject of the Trinity. Three hundred and
eighteen bishops obeyed the summons of their indulgent master; the
ecclesiastics of every rank, and sect, and denomination, have been
computed at two thousand and forty-eight persons; 127 the Greeks
appeared in person; and the consent of the Latins was expressed by the
legates of the Roman pontiff. The session, which lasted about two
months, was frequently honored by the presence of the emperor. Leaving
his guards at the door, he seated himself (with the permission of the
council) on a low stool in the midst of the hall. Constantine listened
with patience, and spoke with modesty: and while he influenced the
debates, he humbly professed that he was the minister, not the judge,
of the successors of the apostles, who had been established as priests
and as gods upon earth. 128 Such profound reverence of an absolute
monarch towards a feeble and unarmed assembly of his own subjects, can
only be compared to the respect with which the senate had been treated
by the Roman princes who adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the
space of fifty years, a philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of
human affairs might have contemplated Tacitus in the senate of Rome,
and Constantine in the council of Nice. The fathers of the Capitol and
those of the church had alike degenerated from the virtues of their
founders; but as the bishops were more deeply rooted in the public
opinion, they sustained their dignity with more decent pride, and
sometimes opposed with a manly spirit the wishes of their sovereign.
The progress of time and superstition erased the memory of the
weakness, the passion, the ignorance, which disgraced these
ecclesiastical synods; and the Catholic world has unanimously submitted
129 to the _infallible_ decrees of the general councils. 130

125 (return) [ The council of Nice, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and
seventh canons, has made some fundamental regulations concerning
synods, metropolitan, and primates. The Nicene canons have been
variously tortured, abused, interpolated, or forged, according to the
interest of the clergy. The _Suburbicarian_ churches, assigned (by
Rufinus) to the bishop of Rome, have been made the subject of vehement
controversy (See Sirmond, Opera, tom. iv. p. 1-238.)]

126 (return) [ We have only thirty-three or forty-seven episcopal
subscriptions: but Addo, a writer indeed of small account, reckons six
hundred bishops in the council of Arles. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom.
vi. p. 422.]

127 (return) [ See Tillemont, tom. vi. p. 915, and Beausobre, Hist. du
Mani cheisme, tom i p. 529. The name of _bishop_, which is given by
Eusychius to the 2048 ecclesiastics, (Annal. tom. i. p. 440, vers.
Pocock,) must be extended far beyond the limits of an orthodox or even
episcopal ordination.]

128 (return) [ See Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 6-21.
Tillemont, Mém. Ecclésiastiques, tom. vi. p. 669-759.]

129 (return) [ Sancimus igitur vicem legum obtinere, quæ a quatuor
Sanctis Conciliis.... expositæ sunt act firmatæ. Prædictarum enim quat
uor synodorum dogmata sicut sanctas Scripturas et regulas sicut leges
observamus. Justinian. Novell. cxxxi. Beveridge (ad Pandect. proleg. p.
2) remarks, that the emperors never made new laws in ecclesiastical
matters; and Giannone observes, in a very different spirit, that they
gave a legal sanction to the canons of councils. Istoria Civile di
Napoli, tom. i. p. 136.]

130 (return) [ See the article Concile in the Eucyclopedie, tom. iii.
p. 668-879, edition de Lucques. The author, M. de docteur Bouchaud, has
discussed, according to the principles of the Gallican church, the
principal questions which relate to the form and constitution of
general, national, and provincial councils. The editors (see Preface,
p. xvi.) have reason to be proud of _this_ article. Those who consult
their immense compilation, seldom depart so well satisfied.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part I.


     Persecution Of Heresy.—The Schism Of The Donatists.—The Arian
     Controversy.—Athanasius.—Distracted State Of The Church And Empire
     Under Constantine And His Sons.— Toleration Of Paganism.

      The grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated the memory of
      a prince who indulged their passions and promoted their interest.
      Constantine gave them security, wealth, honors, and revenge; and
      the support of the orthodox faith was considered as the most
      sacred and important duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of
      Milan, the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each
      individual of the Roman world the privilege of choosing and
      professing his own religion. But this inestimable privilege was
      soon violated; with the knowledge of truth, the emperor imbibed
      the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the
      Catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of
      Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the Heretics, who
      presumed to dispute _his_ opinions, or to oppose _his_ commands,
      were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a
      seasonable application of moderate severities might save those
      unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation. Not a
      moment was lost in excluding the ministers and teachers of the
      separated congregations from any share of the rewards and
      immunities which the emperor had so liberally bestowed on the
      orthodox clergy. But as the sectaries might still exist under the
      cloud of royal disgrace, the conquest of the East was immediately
      followed by an edict which announced their total destruction. 1
      After a preamble filled with passion and reproach, Constantine
      absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the Heretics, and
      confiscates their public property to the use either of the
      revenue or of the Catholic church. The sects against whom the
      Imperial severity was directed, appear to have been the adherents
      of Paul of Samosata; the Montanists of Phrygia, who maintained an
      enthusiastic succession of prophecy; the Novatians, who sternly
      rejected the temporal efficacy of repentance; the Marcionites and
      Valentinians, under whose leading banners the various Gnostics of
      Asia and Egypt had insensibly rallied; and perhaps the
      Manichæans, who had recently imported from Persia a more artful
      composition of Oriental and Christian theology. 2 The design of
      extirpating the name, or at least of restraining the progress, of
      these odious Heretics, was prosecuted with vigor and effect. Some
      of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts of
      Diocletian; and this method of conversion was applauded by the
      same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, and pleaded for
      the rights of humanity. Two immaterial circumstances may serve,
      however, to prove that the mind of Constantine was not entirely
      corrupted by the spirit of zeal and bigotry. Before he condemned
      the Manichæans and their kindred sects, he resolved to make an
      accurate inquiry into the nature of their religious principles.
      As if he distrusted the impartiality of his ecclesiastical
      counsellors, this delicate commission was intrusted to a civil
      magistrate, whose learning and moderation he justly esteemed, and
      of whose venal character he was probably ignorant. 3 The emperor
      was soon convinced, that he had too hastily proscribed the
      orthodox faith and the exemplary morals of the Novatians, who had
      dissented from the church in some articles of discipline which
      were not perhaps essential to salvation. By a particular edict,
      he exempted them from the general penalties of the law; 4 allowed
      them to build a church at Constantinople, respected the miracles
      of their saints, invited their bishop Acesius to the council of
      Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect by a
      familiar jest; which, from the mouth of a sovereign, must have
      been received with applause and gratitude. 5

      1 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 63, 64, 65,
      66.]

      2 (return) [ After some examination of the various opinions of
      Tillemont, Beausobre, Lardner, &c., I am convinced that Manes did
      not propagate his sect, even in Persia, before the year 270. It
      is strange, that a philosophic and foreign heresy should have
      penetrated so rapidly into the African provinces; yet I cannot
      easily reject the edict of Diocletian against the Manichæans,
      which may be found in Baronius. (Annal Eccl. A. D. 287.)]

      3 (return) [ Constantinus enim, cum limatius superstitionum
      quæroret sectas, Manichæorum et similium, &c. Ammian. xv. 15.
      Strategius, who from this commission obtained the surname of
      _Musonianus_, was a Christian of the Arian sect. He acted as one
      of the counts at the council of Sardica. Libanius praises his
      mildness and prudence. Vales. ad locum Ammian.]

      4 (return) [ Cod. Theod. l. xvi. tit. 5, leg. 2. As the general
      law is not inserted in the Theodosian Code, it probable that, in
      the year 438, the sects which it had condemned were already
      extinct.]

      5 (return) [ Sozomen, l. i. c. 22. Socrates, l. i. c. 10. These
      historians have been suspected, but I think without reason, of an
      attachment to the Novatian doctrine. The emperor said to the
      bishop, “Acesius, take a ladder, and get up to heaven by
      yourself.” Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed
      the ladder of Acesius.]

      The complaints and mutual accusations which assailed the throne
      of Constantine, as soon as the death of Maxentius had submitted
      Africa to his victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an
      imperfect proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that the
      provinces of that great country, from the confines of Cyrene to
      the columns of Hercules, were distracted with religious discord.
      6 The source of the division was derived from a double election
      in the church of Carthage; the second, in rank and opulence, of
      the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. Cæcilian and Majorinus
      were the two rival prelates of Africa; and the death of the
      latter soon made room for Donatus, who, by his superior abilities
      and apparent virtues, was the firmest support of his party. The
      advantage which Cæcilian might claim from the priority of his
      ordination, was destroyed by the illegal, or at least indecent,
      haste, with which it had been performed, without expecting the
      arrival of the bishops of Numidia. The authority of these
      bishops, who, to the number of seventy, condemned Cæcilian, and
      consecrated Majorinus, is again weakened by the infamy of some of
      their personal characters; and by the female intrigues,
      sacrilegious bargains, and tumultuous proceedings, which are
      imputed to this Numidian council. 7 The bishops of the contending
      factions maintained, with equal ardor and obstinacy, that their
      adversaries were degraded, or at least dishonored, by the odious
      crime of delivering the Holy Scriptures to the officers of
      Diocletian. From their mutual reproaches, as well as from the
      story of this dark transaction, it may justly be inferred, that
      the late persecution had imbittered the zeal, without reforming
      the manners, of the African Christians. That divided church was
      incapable of affording an impartial judicature; the controversy
      was solemnly tried in five successive tribunals, which were
      appointed by the emperor; and the whole proceeding, from the
      first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above three years. A
      severe inquisition, which was taken by the Prætorian vicar, and
      the proconsul of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors who
      had been sent to Carthage, the decrees of the councils of Rome
      and of Arles, and the supreme judgment of Constantine himself in
      his sacred consistory, were all favorable to the cause of
      Cæcilian; and he was unanimously acknowledged by the civil and
      ecclesiastical powers, as the true and lawful primate of Africa.
      The honors and estates of the church were attributed to _his_
      suffragan bishops, and it was not without difficulty, that
      Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the punishment of exile
      on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As their cause
      was examined with attention, perhaps it was determined with
      justice. Perhaps their complaint was not without foundation, that
      the credulity of the emperor had been abused by the insidious
      arts of his favorite Osius. The influence of falsehood and
      corruption might procure the condemnation of the innocent, or
      aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an act, however, of
      injustice, if it concluded an importunate dispute, might be
      numbered among the transient evils of a despotic administration,
      which are neither felt nor remembered by posterity.

      6 (return) [ The best materials for this part of ecclesiastical
      history may be found in the edition of Optatus Milevitanus,
      published (Paris, 1700) by M. Dupin, who has enriched it with
      critical notes, geographical discussions, original records, and
      an accurate abridgment of the whole controversy. M. de Tillemont
      has bestowed on the Donatists the greatest part of a volume,
      (tom. vi. part i.;) and I am indebted to him for an ample
      collection of all the passages of his favorite St. Augustin,
      which relate to those heretics.]

      7 (return) [ Schisma igitur illo tempore confusæ mulieris
      iracundia peperit; ambitus nutrivit; avaritia roboravit. Optatus,
      l. i. c. 19. The language of Purpurius is that of a furious
      madman. Dicitur te necasse lilios sororis tuæ duos. Purpurius
      respondit: Putas me terreri a te.. occidi; et occido eos qui
      contra me faciunt. Acta Concil. Cirtenais, ad calc. Optat. p.
      274. When Cæcilian was invited to an assembly of bishops,
      Purpurius said to his brethren, or rather to his accomplices,
      “Let him come hither to receive our imposition of hands, and we
      will break his head by way of penance.” Optat. l. i. c. 19.]

      But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a
      place in history, was productive of a memorable schism which
      afflicted the provinces of Africa above three hundred years, and
      was extinguished only with Christianity itself. The inflexible
      zeal of freedom and fanaticism animated the Donatists to refuse
      obedience to the usurpers, whose election they disputed, and
      whose spiritual powers they denied. Excluded from the civil and
      religious communion of mankind, they boldly excommunicated the
      rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious party of Cæcilian,
      and of the Traditors, from which he derived his pretended
      ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with
      exultation, that the Apostolical succession was interrupted; that
      _all_ the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the
      contagion of guilt and schism; and that the prerogatives of the
      Catholic church were confined to the chosen portion of the
      African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the
      integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was
      supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they
      acquired a proselyte, even from the distant provinces of the
      East, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of baptism 8 and
      ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had
      already received from the hands of heretics or schismatics.
      Bishops, virgins, and even spotless infants, were subjected to
      the disgrace of a public penance, before they could be admitted
      to the communion of the Donatists. If they obtained possession of
      a church which had been used by their Catholic adversaries, they
      purified the unhallowed building with the same zealous care which
      a temple of idols might have required. They washed the pavement,
      scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which was commonly of wood,
      melted the consecrated plate, and cast the Holy Eucharist to the
      dogs, with every circumstance of ignominy which could provoke and
      perpetuate the animosity of religious factions. 9 Notwithstanding
      this irreconcilable aversion, the two parties, who were mixed and
      separated in all the cities of Africa, had the same language and
      manners, the same zeal and learning, the same faith and worship.
      Proscribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire,
      the Donatists still maintained in some provinces, particularly in
      Numidia, their superior numbers; and four hundred bishops
      acknowledged the jurisdiction of their primate. But the
      invincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed on its own vitals:
      and the bosom of their schismatical church was torn by intestine
      divisions. A fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the
      independent standard of the Maximianists. The narrow and solitary
      path which their first leaders had marked out, continued to
      deviate from the great society of mankind. Even the imperceptible
      sect of the Rogatians could affirm, without a blush, that when
      Christ should descend to judge the earth, he would find his true
      religion preserved only in a few nameless villages of the
      Cæsarean Mauritania. 10

      8 (return) [ The councils of Arles, of Nice, and of Trent,
      confirmed the wise and moderate practice of the church of Rome.
      The Donatists, however, had the advantage of maintaining the
      sentiment of Cyprian, and of a considerable part of the primitive
      church. Vincentius Lirinesis (p. 532, ap. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles.
      tom. vi. p. 138) has explained why the Donatists are eternally
      burning with the Devil, while St. Cyprian reigns in heaven with
      Jesus Christ.]

      9 (return) [ See the sixth book of Optatus Milevitanus, p.
      91-100.]

      10 (return) [ Tillemont, Mém. Ecclésiastiques, tom. vi. part i.
      p. 253. He laughs at their partial credulity. He revered
      Augustin, the great doctor of the system of predestination.]

      The schism of the Donatists was confined to Africa: the more
      diffusive mischief of the Trinitarian controversy successively
      penetrated into every part of the Christian world. The former was
      an accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom; the
      latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from the abuse
      of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to that of Clovis and
      Theodoric, the temporal interests both of the Romans and
      Barbarians were deeply involved in the theological disputes of
      Arianism. The historian may therefore be permitted respectfully
      to withdraw the veil of the sanctuary; and to deduce the progress
      of reason and faith, of error and passion from the school of
      Plato, to the decline and fall of the empire.

      The genius of Plato, informed by his own meditation, or by the
      traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt, 11 had ventured to
      explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated
      his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first self-existent,
      necessary cause of the universe, the Athenian sage was incapable
      of conceiving _how_ the simple unity of his essence could admit
      the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which
      compose the model of the intellectual world; _how_ a Being purely
      incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a
      plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of
      extricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever
      oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato
      to consider the divine nature under the threefold modification—of
      the first cause, the reason, or _Logos_, and the soul or spirit
      of the universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and
      animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three _archical_ on
      original principles were represented in the Platonic system as
      three Gods, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable
      generation; and the Logos was particularly considered under the
      more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal Father, and
      the Creator and Governor of the world. Such appear to have been
      the secret doctrines which were cautiously whispered in the
      gardens of the academy; and which, according to the more recent
      disciples of Plato, 1111 could not be perfectly understood, till
      after an assiduous study of thirty years. 12

      11 (return) [ Plato Ægyptum peragravit ut a sacerdotibus Barbaris
      numeros et _cælestia_ acciperet. Cicero de Finibus, v. 25. The
      Egyptians might still preserve the traditional creed of the
      Patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many of the Christian fathers,
      that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the Jews; but
      this vain opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure state and
      unsocial manners of the Jewish people, whose scriptures were not
      accessible to Greek curiosity till more than one hundred years
      after the death of Plato. See Marsham Canon. Chron. p. 144 Le
      Clerc, Epistol. Critic. vii. p. 177-194.]

      1111 (return) [ This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears
      to me contrary to the true sense of that philosopher’s writings.
      The brilliant imagination which he carried into metaphysical
      inquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have misled
      those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenor of his
      works and beyond the images which the writer employs, the system
      of this philosopher. In my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato;
      he has established no mysterious generation between the three
      pretended principles which he is made to distinguish. Finally, he
      conceives only as _attributes_ of the Deity, or of matter, those
      ideas, of which it is supposed that he made _substances_, real
      beings.
          According to Plato, God and matter existed from all eternity.
          Before the creation of the world, matter had in itself a
          principle of motion, but without end or laws: it is this
          principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the world,
          because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and
          original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to
          impress _form_ upon matter, that is to say, 1. To mould
          matter, and make it into a body; 2. To regulate its motion,
          and subject it to some end and to certain laws. The Deity, in
          this operation, could not act but according to the ideas
          existing in his intelligence: their union filled this, and
          formed the ideal type of the world. It is this ideal world,
          this divine intelligence, existing with God from all
          eternity, and called by Plato which he is supposed to
          personify, to substantialize; while an attentive examination
          is sufficient to convince us that he has never assigned it an
          existence external to the Deity, (hors de la Divinité,) and
          that he considered the as the aggregate of the ideas of God,
          the divine understanding in its relation to the world. The
          contrary opinion is irreconcilable with all his philosophy:
          thus he says (Timæus, p. 348, edit. Bip.) that to the idea of
          the Deity is essentially united that of intelligence, of a
          _logos_. He would thus have admitted a double _logos;_ one
          inherent in the Deity as an attribute, the other
          independently existing as a substance. He affirms that the
          intelligence, the principle of order cannot exist but as an
          attribute of a soul, the principle of motion and of life, of
          which the nature is unknown to us. How, then, according to
          this, could he consider the _logos_ as a substance endowed
          with an independent existence? In other places, he explains
          it by these two words, knowledge, science, and intelligence
          which signify the attributes of the Deity. When Plato
          separates God, the ideal archetype of the world and matter,
          it is to explain how, according to his system, God has
          proceeded, at the creation, to unite the principle of order
          which he had within himself, his proper intelligence, the
          principle of motion, to the principle of motion, the
          irrational soul which was in matter. When he speaks of the
          place occupied by the ideal world, it is to designate the
          divine intelligence, which is its cause. Finally, in no part
          of his writings do we find a true personification of the
          pretended beings of which he is said to have formed a
          trinity: and if this personification existed, it would
          equally apply to many other notions, of which might be formed
          many different trinities.
          This error, into which many ancient as well as modern
          interpreters of Plato have fallen, was very natural. Besides
          the snares which were concealed in his figurative style;
          besides the necessity of comprehending as a whole the system
          of his ideas, and not to explain isolated passages, the
          nature of his doctrine itself would conduce to this error.
          When Plato appeared, the uncertainty of human knowledge, and
          the continual illusions of the senses, were acknowledged, and
          had given rise to a general scepticism. Socrates had aimed at
          raising morality above the influence of this scepticism:
          Plato endeavored to save metaphysics, by seeking in the human
          intellect a source of certainty which the senses could not
          furnish. He invented the system of innate ideas, of which the
          aggregate formed, according to him, the ideal world, and
          affirmed that these ideas were real attributes, not only
          attached to our conceptions of objects, but to the nature of
          the objects themselves; a nature of which from them we might
          obtain a knowledge. He gave, then, to these ideas a positive
          existence as attributes; his commentators could easily give
          them a real existence as substances; especially as the terms
          which he used to designate them, essential beauty, essential
          goodness, lent themselves to this substantialization,
          (hypostasis.)—G.
          We have retained this view of the original philosophy of
          Plato, in which there is probably much truth. The genius of
          Plato was rather metaphysical than impersonative: his poetry
          was in his language, rather than, like that of the Orientals,
          in his conceptions.—M.]

      12 (return) [ The modern guides who lead me to the knowledge of
      the Platonic system are Cudworth, Basnage, Le Clerc, and Brucker.
      As the learning of these writers was equal, and their intention
      different, an inquisitive observer may derive instruction from
      their disputes, and certainty from their agreement.]

      The arms of the Macedonians diffused over Asia and Egypt the
      language and learning of Greece; and the theological system of
      Plato was taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some
      improvements, in the celebrated school of Alexandria. 13 A
      numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by the favor of the
      Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. 14 While the bulk of
      the nation practised the legal ceremonies, and pursued the
      lucrative occupations of commerce, a few Hebrews, of a more
      liberal spirit, devoted their lives to religious and
      philosophical contemplation. 15 They cultivated with diligence,
      and embraced with ardor, the theological system of the Athenian
      sage. But their national pride would have been mortified by a
      fair confession of their former poverty: and they boldly marked,
      as the sacred inheritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels
      which they had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One
      hundred years before the birth of Christ, a philosophical
      treatise, which manifestly betrays the style and sentiments of
      the school of Plato, was produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and
      unanimously received as a genuine and valuable relic of the
      inspired Wisdom of Solomon. 16 A similar union of the Mosaic
      faith and the Grecian philosophy, distinguishes the works of
      Philo, which were composed, for the most part, under the reign of
      Augustus. 17 The material soul of the universe 18 might offend
      the piety of the Hebrews: but they applied the character of the
      Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs; and the Son of
      God was introduced upon earth under a visible, and even human
      appearance, to perform those familiar offices which seem
      incompatible with the nature and attributes of the Universal
      Cause. 19

      13 (return) [ Brucker, Hist. Philosoph. tom. i. p. 1349-1357. The
      Alexandrian school is celebrated by Strabo (l. xvii.) and
      Ammianus, (xxii. 6.) Note: The philosophy of Plato was not the
      only source of that professed in the school of Alexandria. That
      city, in which Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of letters were
      assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion of the system of
      these three people. The Greeks brought a Platonism, already much
      changed; the Jews, who had acquired at Babylon a great number of
      Oriental notions, and whose theological opinions had undergone
      great changes by this intercourse, endeavored to reconcile
      Platonism with their new doctrine, and disfigured it entirely:
      lastly, the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon notions
      for which the Greeks themselves entertained respect, endeavored
      on their side to reconcile their own with those of their
      neighbors. It is in Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon that
      we trace the influence of Oriental philosophy rather than that of
      Platonism. We find in these books, and in those of the later
      prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions unknown to the Jews before the
      Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover the germ in
      Plato, but which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus
      God represented under the image of light, and the principle of
      evil under that of darkness; the history of the good and bad
      angels; paradise and hell, &c., are doctrines of which the
      origin, or at least the positive determination, can only be
      referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter
      eternal; the Orientals and the Jews considered it as a creation
      of God, who alone was eternal. It is impossible to explain the
      philosophy of the Alexandrian school solely by the blending of
      the Jewish theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental
      philosophy, however little it may be known, is recognized at
      every instant. Thus, according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the
      Word (honover) more ancient than the world, that Ormuzd created
      the universe. This word is the logos of Philo, consequently very
      different from that of Plato. I have shown that Plato never
      personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world: Philo
      ventured this personification. The Deity, according to him, has a
      double logos; the first is the ideal archetype of the world, the
      ideal world, the _first-born_ of the Deity; the second is the
      word itself of God, personified under the image of a being acting
      to create the sensible world, and to make it like to the ideal
      world: it is the second-born of God. Following out his
      imaginations, Philo went so far as to personify anew the ideal
      world, under the image of a celestial man, the primitive type of
      man, and the sensible world under the image of another man less
      perfect than the celestial man. Certain notions of the Oriental
      philosophy may have given rise to this strange abuse of allegory,
      which it is sufficient to relate, to show what alterations
      Platonism had already undergone, and what was their source.
      Philo, moreover, of all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose
      Platonism is the most pure. It is from this mixture of
      Orientalism, Platonism, and Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which
      had produced so many theological and philosophical
      extravagancies, and in which Oriental notions evidently
      predominate.—G.]

      14 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat, l. xii. c. 1, 3. Basnage, Hist.
      des Juifs, l. vii. c. 7.]

      15 (return) [ For the origin of the Jewish philosophy, see
      Eusebius, Præparat. Evangel. viii. 9, 10. According to Philo, the
      Therapeutæ studied philosophy; and Brucker has proved (Hist.
      Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 787) that they gave the preference to that
      of Plato.]

      16 (return) [ See Calmet, Dissertations sur la Bible, tom. ii. p.
      277. The book of the Wisdom of Solomon was received by many of
      the fathers as the work of that monarch: and although rejected by
      the Protestants for want of a Hebrew original, it has obtained,
      with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council of
      Trent.]

      17 (return) [ The Platonism of Philo, which was famous to a
      proverb, is proved beyond a doubt by Le Clerc, (Epist. Crit.
      viii. p. 211-228.) Basnage (Hist. des Juifs, l. iv. c. 5) has
      clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were
      composed before the death, and most probably before the birth, of
      Christ. In such a time of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is
      more astonishing than his errors. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i.
      c. i. p. 12.]

      18 (return) [ Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore _miscet_.
      Besides this material soul, Cudworth has discovered (p. 562) in
      Amelius, Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as he thinks, in Plato himself,
      a superior, spiritual _upercosmian_ soul of the universe. But
      this double soul is exploded by Brucker, Basnage, and Le Clerc,
      as an idle fancy of the latter Platonists.]

      19 (return) [ Petav. Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. viii. c. 2,
      p. 791. Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. l. p. 8, 13. This
      notion, till it was abused by the Arians, was freely adopted in
      the Christian theology. Tertullian (adv. Praxeam, c. 16) has a
      remarkable and dangerous passage. After contrasting, with
      indiscreet wit, the nature of God, and the actions of Jehovah, he
      concludes: Scilicet ut hæc de filio Dei non credenda fuisse, si
      non scripta essent; fortasse non credenda de l’atre licet
      scripta. * Note: Tertullian is here arguing against the
      Patripassians; those who asserted that the Father was born of the
      Virgin, died and was buried.—M.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part II.


      The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, the authority of the
      school of Alexandria, and the consent of the Jews and Greeks,
      were insufficient to establish the truth of a mysterious
      doctrine, which might please, but could not satisfy, a rational
      mind. A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the Deity, can alone
      exercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind: and the
      theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with the
      philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and the Lycæum,
      if the name and divine attributes of the _Logos_ had not been
      confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and most sublime of
      the Evangelists. 20 The Christian Revelation, which was
      consummated under the reign of Nerva, disclosed to the world the
      amazing secret, that the Logos, who was with God from the
      beginning, and was God, who had made all things, and for whom all
      things had been made, was incarnate in the person of Jesus of
      Nazareth; who had been born of a virgin, and suffered death on
      the cross. Besides the general design of fixing on a perpetual
      basis the divine honors of Christ, the most ancient and
      respectable of the ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the
      evangelic theologian a particular intention to confute two
      opposite heresies, which disturbed the peace of the primitive
      church. 21 I. The faith of the Ebionites, 22 perhaps of the
      Nazarenes, 23 was gross and imperfect. They revered Jesus as the
      greatest of the prophets, endowed with supernatural virtue and
      power. They ascribed to his person and to his future reign all
      the predictions of the Hebrew oracles which relate to the
      spiritual and everlasting kingdom of the promised Messiah. 24
      Some of them might confess that he was born of a virgin; but they
      obstinately rejected the preceding existence and divine
      perfections of the _Logos_, or Son of God, which are so clearly
      defined in the Gospel of St. John. About fifty years afterwards,
      the Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by Justin Martyr with
      less severity than they seem to deserve, 25 formed a very
      inconsiderable portion of the Christian name. II. The Gnostics,
      who were distinguished by the epithet of _Docetes_, deviated into
      the contrary extreme; and betrayed the human, while they asserted
      the divine, nature of Christ. Educated in the school of Plato,
      accustomed to the sublime idea of the Logos, they readily
      conceived that the brightest _Æon_, or _Emanation_ of the Deity,
      might assume the outward shape and visible appearances of a
      mortal; 26 but they vainly pretended, that the imperfections of
      matter are incompatible with the purity of a celestial substance.

      While the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary, the
      Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis, that,
      instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, 27 he had
      descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of perfect
      manhood; that he had imposed on the senses of his enemies, and of
      his disciples; and that the ministers of Pilate had wasted their
      impotent rage on an ury phantom, who _seemed_ to expire on the
      cross, and, after three days, to rise from the dead. 28

      20 (return) [ The Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel
      of St. John as containing an exact transcript of their own
      principles. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, x. 29. Amelius apud Cyril.
      advers. Julian. l. viii. p. 283. But in the third and fourth
      centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their
      Trinity by the secret study of the Christian theology. Note: A
      short discussion on the sense in which St. John has used the word
      Logos, will prove that he has not borrowed it from the philosophy
      of Plato. The evangelist adopts this word without previous
      explanation, as a term with which his contemporaries were already
      familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. To know the
      sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it
      generally bore in his time. We find two: the one attached to the
      word _logos_ by the Jews of Palestine, the other by the school of
      Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The Jews had feared at all
      times to pronounce the name of Jehovah; they had formed a habit
      of designating God by one of his attributes; they called him
      sometimes Wisdom, sometimes the Word. _By the word of the Lord
      were the heavens made_. (Psalm xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to
      allegories, they often addressed themselves to this attribute of
      the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say “The Lord
      possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of
      old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever
      the earth was.” (Prov. viii. 22, 23.) Their residence in Persia
      only increased this inclination to sustained allegories. In the
      Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom, we
      find allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following: “I
      came out of the mouth of the Most High; I covered the earth as a
      cloud;... I alone compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in
      the bottom of the deep... The Creator created me from the
      beginning, before the world, and I shall never fail.” (Eccles.
      xxiv. 35- 39.) See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c. vii. v. 9. [The
      latter book is clearly Alexandrian.—M.] We see from this that the
      Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which signify
      Wisdom, the Word, and which were translated into Greek, a simple
      attribute of the Deity, allegorically personified, but of which
      they did not make a real particular being separate from the
      Deity.
          The school of Alexandria, on the contrary, and Philo among
          the rest, mingling Greek with Jewish and Oriental notions,
          and abandoning himself to his inclination to mysticism,
          personified the logos, and represented it a distinct being,
          created by God, and intermediate between God and man. This is
          the second _logos_ of Philo, that which acts from the
          beginning of the world, alone in its kind, creator of the
          sensible world, formed by God according to the ideal world
          which he had in himself, and which was the first logos, the
          first- born of the Deity. The logos taken in this sense,
          then, was a created being, but, anterior to the creation of
          the world, near to God, and charged with his revelations to
          mankind.
          Which of these two senses is that which St. John intended to
          assign to the word logos in the first chapter of his Gospel,
          and in all his writings? St. John was a Jew, born and
          educated in Palestine; he had no knowledge, at least very
          little, of the philosophy of the Greeks, and that of the
          Grecizing Jews: he would naturally, then, attach to the word
          _logos_ the sense attached to it by the Jews of Palestine.
          If, in fact, we compare the attributes which he assigns to
          the _logos_ with those which are assigned to it in Proverbs,
          in the Wisdom of Solomon, in Ecclesiasticus, we shall see
          that they are the same. The Word was in the world, and the
          world was made by him; in him was life, and the life was the
          light of men, (c. i. v. 10-14.) It is impossible not to trace
          in this chapter the ideas which the Jews had formed of the
          allegorized logos. The evangelist afterwards really
          personifies that which his predecessors have personified only
          poetically; for he affirms “_that the Word became flesh_,”
          (v. 14.) It was to prove this that he wrote. Closely
          examined, the ideas which he gives of the logos cannot agree
          with those of Philo and the school of Alexandria; they
          correspond, on the contrary, with those of the Jews of
          Palestine. Perhaps St. John, employing a well-known term to
          explain a doctrine which was yet unknown, has slightly
          altered the sense; it is this alteration which we appear to
          discover on comparing different passages of his writings.
          It is worthy of remark, that the Jews of Palestine, who did
          not perceive this alteration, could find nothing
          extraordinary in what St. John said of the Logos; at least
          they comprehended it without difficulty, while the Greeks and
          Grecizing Jews, on their part, brought to it prejudices and
          preconceptions easily reconciled with those of the
          evangelist, who did not expressly contradict them. This
          circumstance must have much favored the progress of
          Christianity. Thus the fathers of the church in the two first
          centuries and later, formed almost all in the school of
          Alexandria, gave to the Logos of St. John a sense nearly
          similar to that which it received from Philo. Their doctrine
          approached very near to that which in the fourth century the
          council of Nice condemned in the person of Arius.—G.
          M. Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at
          Ephesus, the centre of the mingling opinions of the East and
          West, which were gradually growing up into Gnosticism. (See
          Matter. Hist. du Gnosticisme, vol. i. p. 154.) St. John’s
          sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple
          allegory ascribed to the Palestinian Jews as from the
          Oriental impersonation of the Alexandrian. The simple truth
          may be that St. John took the familiar term, and, as it were
          infused into it the peculiar and Christian sense in which it
          is used in his writings.—M.]

      21 (return) [ See Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom.
      i. p. 377. The Gospel according to St. John is supposed to have
      been published about seventy years after the death of Christ.]

      22 (return) [ The sentiments of the Ebionites are fairly stated
      by Mosheim (p. 331) and Le Clerc, (Hist. Eccles. p. 535.) The
      Clementines, published among the apostolical fathers, are
      attributed by the critics to one of these sectaries.]

      23 (return) [ Stanch polemics, like a Bull, (Judicium Eccles.
      Cathol. c. 2,) insist on the orthodoxy of the Nazarenes; which
      appears less pure and certain in the eyes of Mosheim, (p. 330.)]

      24 (return) [ The humble condition and sufferings of Jesus have
      always been a stumbling-block to the Jews. “Deus... contrariis
      coloribus Messiam depinxerat: futurus erat Rex, Judex, Pastor,”
      &c. See Limborch et Orobio Amica Collat. p. 8, 19, 53-76,
      192-234. But this objection has obliged the believing Christians
      to lift up their eyes to a spiritual and everlasting kingdom.]

      25 (return) [ Justin Martyr, Dialog. cum Tryphonte, p. 143, 144.
      See Le Clerc, Hist. Eccles. p. 615. Bull and his editor Grabe
      (Judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 7, and Appendix) attempt to distort
      either the sentiments or the words of Justin; but their violent
      correction of the text is rejected even by the Benedictine
      editors.]

      26 (return) [ The Arians reproached the orthodox party with
      borrowing their Trinity from the Valentinians and Marcionites.
      See Beausobre, Hist. de Manicheisme, l. iii. c. 5, 7.]

      27 (return) [ Non dignum est ex utero credere Deum, et Deum
      Christum.... non dignum est ut tanta majestas per sordes et
      squalores muli eris transire credatur. The Gnostics asserted the
      impurity of matter, and of marriage; and they were scandalized by
      the gross interpretations of the fathers, and even of Augustin
      himself. See Beausobre, tom. ii. p. 523, * Note: The greater part
      of the Docetæ rejected the true divinity of Jesus Christ, as well
      as his human nature. They belonged to the Gnostics, whom some
      philosophers, in whose party Gibbon has enlisted, make to derive
      their opinions from those of Plato. These philosophers did not
      consider that Platonism had undergone continual alterations, and
      that those who gave it some analogy with the notions of the
      Gnostics were later in their origin than most of the sects
      comprehended under this name Mosheim has proved (in his Instit.
      Histor. Eccles. Major. s. i. p. 136, sqq and p. 339, sqq.) that
      the Oriental philosophy, combined with the cabalistical
      philosophy of the Jews, had given birth to Gnosticism. The
      relations which exist between this doctrine and the records which
      remain to us of that of the Orientals, the Chaldean and Persian,
      have been the source of the errors of the Gnostic Christians, who
      wished to reconcile their ancient notions with their new belief.
      It is on this account that, denying the human nature of Christ,
      they also denied his intimate union with God, and took him for
      one of the substances (æons) created by God. As they believed in
      the eternity of matter, and considered it to be the principle of
      evil, in opposition to the Deity, the first cause and principle
      of good, they were unwilling to admit that one of the pure
      substances, one of the æons which came forth from God, had, by
      partaking in the material nature, allied himself to the principle
      of evil; and this was their motive for rejecting the real
      humanity of Jesus Christ. See Ch. G. F. Walch, Hist. of Heresies
      in Germ. t. i. p. 217, sqq. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. p
      639.—G.]

      28 (return) [ Apostolis adhuc in sæculo superstitibus apud Judæam
      Christi sanguine recente, et _phantasma_ corpus Domini
      asserebatur. Cotelerius thinks (Patres Apostol. tom. ii. p. 24)
      that those who will not allow the _Docetes_ to have arisen in the
      time of the Apostles, may with equal reason deny that the sun
      shines at noonday. These _Docetes_, who formed the most
      considerable party among the Gnostics, were so called, because
      they granted only a _seeming_ body to Christ. * Note: The name of
      Docetæ was given to these sectaries only in the course of the
      second century: this name did not designate a sect, properly so
      called; it applied to all the sects who taught the non- reality
      of the material body of Christ; of this number were the
      Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Ophites, the Marcionites,
      (against whom Tertullian wrote his book, De Carne Christi,) and
      other Gnostics. In truth, Clement of Alexandria (l. iii. Strom.
      c. 13, p. 552) makes express mention of a sect of Docetæ, and
      even names as one of its heads a certain Cassianus; but every
      thing leads us to believe that it was not a distinct sect.
      Philastrius (de Hæres, c. 31) reproaches Saturninus with being a
      Docete. Irenæus (adv. Hær. c. 23) makes the same reproach against
      Basilides. Epiphanius and Philastrius, who have treated in detail
      on each particular heresy, do not specially name that of the
      Docetæ. Serapion, bishop of Antioch, (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. vi.
      c. 12,) and Clement of Alexandria, (l. vii. Strom. p. 900,)
      appear to be the first who have used the generic name. It is not
      found in any earlier record, though the error which it points out
      existed even in the time of the Apostles. See Ch. G. F. Walch,
      Hist. of Her. v. i. p. 283. Tillemont, Mempour servir a la Hist
      Eccles. ii. p. 50. Buddæus de Eccles. Apost. c. 5 & 7—G.]

      The divine sanction, which the Apostle had bestowed on the
      fundamental principle of the theology of Plato, encouraged the
      learned proselytes of the second and third centuries to admire
      and study the writings of the Athenian sage, who had thus
      marvellously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries
      of the Christian revelation. The respectable name of Plato was
      used by the orthodox, 29 and abused by the heretics, 30 as the
      common support of truth and error: the authority of his skilful
      commentators, and the science of dialectics, were employed to
      justify the remote consequences of his opinions and to supply the
      discreet silence of the inspired writers. The same subtle and
      profound questions concerning the nature, the generation, the
      distinction, and the equality of the three divine persons of the
      mysterious _Triad_, or _Trinity_, 31 were agitated in the
      philosophical and in the Christian schools of Alexandria. An
      eager spirit of curiosity urged them to explore the secrets of
      the abyss; and the pride of the professors, and of their
      disciples, was satisfied with the sciences of words. But the most
      sagacious of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius
      himself, has candidly confessed, 32 that whenever he forced his
      understanding to meditate on the divinity of the _Logos_, his
      toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the
      more he thought, the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote,
      the less capable was he of expressing his thoughts. In every step
      of the inquiry, we are compelled to feel and acknowledge the
      immeasurable disproportion between the size of the object and the
      capacity of the human mind. We may strive to abstract the notions
      of time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere to all
      the perceptions of our experimental knowledge. But as soon as we
      presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual generation;
      as often as we deduce any positive conclusions from a negative
      idea, we are involved in darkness, perplexity, and inevitable
      contradiction. As these difficulties arise from the nature of the
      subject, they oppress, with the same insuperable weight, the
      philosophic and the theological disputant; but we may observe two
      essential and peculiar circumstances, which discriminated the
      doctrines of the Catholic church from the opinions of the
      Platonic school.

      29 (return) [ Some proofs of the respect which the Christians
      entertained for the person and doctrine of Plato may be found in
      De la Mothe le Vayer, tom. v. p. 135, &c., edit. 1757; and
      Basnage, Hist. des Juifs tom. iv. p. 29, 79, &c.]

      30 (return) [ Doleo bona fide, Platonem omnium heræticorum
      condimentarium factum. Tertullian. de Anima, c. 23. Petavius
      (Dogm. Theolog. tom. iii. proleg. 2) shows that this was a
      general complaint. Beausobre (tom. i. l. iii. c. 9, 10) has
      deduced the Gnostic errors from Platonic principles; and as, in
      the school of Alexandria, those principles were blended with the
      Oriental philosophy, (Brucker, tom. i. p. 1356,) the sentiment of
      Beausobre may be reconciled with the opinion of Mosheim, (General
      History of the Church, vol. i. p. 37.)]

      31 (return) [ If Theophilus, bishop of Antioch, (see Dupin,
      Bibliothèque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 66,) was the first who
      employed the word _Triad_, _Trinity_, that abstract term, which
      was already familiar to the schools of philosophy, must have been
      introduced into the theology of the Christians after the middle
      of the second century.]

      32 (return) [ Athanasius, tom. i. p. 808. His expressions have an
      uncommon energy; and as he was writing to monks, there could not
      be any occasion for him to _affect_ a rational language.]

      I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a liberal education
      and curious disposition, might silently meditate, and temperately
      discuss in the gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria,
      the abstruse questions of metaphysical science. The lofty
      speculations, which neither convinced the understanding, nor
      agitated the passions, of the Platonists themselves, were
      carelessly overlooked by the idle, the busy, and even the
      studious part of mankind. 33 But after the _Logos_ had been
      revealed as the sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the
      religious worship of the Christians, the mysterious system was
      embraced by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province
      of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age, or sex, or
      occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who were the
      least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, aspired to
      contemplate the economy of the Divine Nature: and it is the boast
      of Tertullian, 34 that a Christian mechanic could readily answer
      such questions as had perplexed the wisest of the Grecian sages.
      Where the subject lies so far beyond our reach, the difference
      between the highest and the lowest of human understandings may
      indeed be calculated as infinitely small; yet the degree of
      weakness may perhaps be measured by the degree of obstinacy and
      dogmatic confidence. These speculations, instead of being treated
      as the amusement of a vacant hour, became the most serious
      business of the present, and the most useful preparation for a
      future, life. A theology, which it was incumbent to believe,
      which it was impious to doubt, and which it might be dangerous,
      and even fatal, to mistake, became the familiar topic of private
      meditation and popular discourse. The cold indifference of
      philosophy was inflamed by the fervent spirit of devotion; and
      even the metaphors of common language suggested the fallacious
      prejudices of sense and experience. The Christians, who abhorred
      the gross and impure generation of the Greek mythology, 35 were
      tempted to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial and
      paternal relations. The character of _Son_ seemed to imply a
      perpetual subordination to the voluntary author of his existence;
      36 but as the act of generation, in the most spiritual and
      abstracted sense, must be supposed to transmit the properties of
      a common nature, 37 they durst not presume to circumscribe the
      powers or the duration of the Son of an eternal and omnipotent
      Father. Fourscore years after the death of Christ, the Christians
      of Bithynia, declared before the tribunal of Pliny, that they
      invoked him as a god: and his divine honors have been perpetuated
      in every age and country, by the various sects who assume the
      name of his disciples. 38 Their tender reverence for the memory
      of Christ, and their horror for the profane worship of any
      created being, would have engaged them to assert the equal and
      absolute divinity of the _Logos_, if their rapid ascent towards
      the throne of heaven had not been imperceptibly checked by the
      apprehension of violating the unity and sole supremacy of the
      great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The suspense and
      fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these
      opposite tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the
      theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic age,
      and before the origin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is
      claimed, with equal confidence, by the orthodox and by the
      heretical parties; and the most inquisitive critics have fairly
      allowed, that if they had the good fortune of possessing the
      Catholic verity, they have delivered their conceptions in loose,
      inaccurate, and sometimes contradictory language. 39

      33 (return) [ In a treatise, which professed to explain the
      opinions of the ancient philosophers concerning the nature of the
      gods we might expect to discover the theological Trinity of
      Plato. But Cicero very honestly confessed, that although he had
      translated the Timæus, he could never understand that mysterious
      dialogue. See Hieronym. præf. ad l. xii. in Isaiam, tom. v. p.
      154.]

      34 (return) [ Tertullian. in Apolog. c. 46. See Bayle,
      Dictionnaire, au mot _Simonide_. His remarks on the presumption
      of Tertullian are profound and interesting.]

      35 (return) [ Lactantius, iv. 8. Yet the _Probole_, or
      _Prolatio_, which the most orthodox divines borrowed without
      scruple from the Valentinians, and illustrated by the comparisons
      of a fountain and stream, the sun and its rays, &c., either meant
      nothing, or favored a material idea of the divine generation. See
      Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 7, p. 548.]

      36 (return) [ Many of the primitive writers have frankly
      confessed, that the Son owed his being to the _will_ of the
      Father.——See Clarke’s Scripture Trinity, p. 280-287. On the other
      hand, Athanasius and his followers seem unwilling to grant what
      they are afraid to deny. The schoolmen extricate themselves from
      this difficulty by the distinction of a _preceding_ and a
      _concomitant_ will. Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. vi. c. 8,
      p. 587-603.]

      37 (return) [ See Petav. Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. ii. c. 10, p.
      159.]

      38 (return) [ Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem.
      Plin. Epist. x. 97. The sense of _Deus, Elohim_, in the ancient
      languages, is critically examined by Le Clerc, (Ars Critica, p.
      150-156,) and the propriety of worshipping a very excellent
      creature is ably defended by the Socinian Emlyn, (Tracts, p.
      29-36, 51-145.)]

      39 (return) [ See Daille de Usu Patrum, and Le Clerc,
      Bibliothèque Universelle, tom. x. p. 409. To arraign the faith of
      the Ante-Nicene fathers, was the object, or at least has been the
      effect, of the stupendous work of Petavius on the Trinity, (Dogm.
      Theolog. tom. ii.;) nor has the deep impression been erased by
      the learned defence of Bishop Bull. Note: Dr. Burton’s work on
      the doctrine of the Ante-Nicene fathers must be consulted by
      those who wish to obtain clear notions on this subject.—M.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
      III.


      II. The devotion of individuals was the first circumstance which
      distinguished the Christians from the Platonists: the second was
      the authority of the church. The disciples of philosophy asserted
      the rights of intellectual freedom, and their respect for the
      sentiments of their teachers was a liberal and voluntary tribute,
      which they offered to superior reason. But the Christians formed
      a numerous and disciplined society; and the jurisdiction of their
      laws and magistrates was strictly exercised over the minds of the
      faithful. The loose wanderings of the imagination were gradually
      confined by creeds and confessions; 40 the freedom of private
      judgment submitted to the public wisdom of synods; the authority
      of a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank; and
      the episcopal successors of the apostles inflicted the censures
      of the church on those who deviated from the orthodox belief. But
      in an age of religious controversy, every act of oppression adds
      new force to the elastic vigor of the mind; and the zeal or
      obstinacy of a spiritual rebel was sometimes stimulated by secret
      motives of ambition or avarice. A metaphysical argument became
      the cause or pretence of political contests; the subtleties of
      the Platonic school were used as the badges of popular factions,
      and the distance which separated their respective tenets were
      enlarged or magnified by the acrimony of dispute. As long as the
      dark heresies of Praxeas and Sabellius labored to confound the
      _Father_ with the _Son_, 41 the orthodox party might be excused
      if they adhered more strictly and more earnestly to the
      _distinction_, than to the _equality_, of the divine persons. But
      as soon as the heat of controversy had subsided, and the progress
      of the Sabellians was no longer an object of terror to the
      churches of Rome, of Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological
      opinion began to flow with a gentle but steady motion towards the
      contrary extreme; and the most orthodox doctors allowed
      themselves the use of the terms and definitions which had been
      censured in the mouth of the sectaries. 42 After the edict of
      toleration had restored peace and leisure to the Christians, the
      Trinitarian controversy was revived in the ancient seat of
      Platonism, the learned, the opulent, the tumultuous city of
      Alexandria; and the flame of religious discord was rapidly
      communicated from the schools to the clergy, the people, the
      province, and the East. The abstruse question of the eternity of
      the _Logos_ was agitated in ecclesiastic conferences and popular
      sermons; and the heterodox opinions of Arius 43 were soon made
      public by his own zeal, and by that of his adversaries. His most
      implacable adversaries have acknowledged the learning and
      blameless life of that eminent presbyter, who, in a former
      election, had declared, and perhaps generously declined, his
      pretensions to the episcopal throne. 44 His competitor Alexander
      assumed the office of his judge. The important cause was argued
      before him; and if at first he seemed to hesitate, he at length
      pronounced his final sentence, as an absolute rule of faith. 45
      The undaunted presbyter, who presumed to resist the authority of
      his angry bishop, was separated from the community of the church.
      But the pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a
      numerous party. He reckoned among his immediate followers two
      bishops of Egypt, seven presbyters, twelve deacons, and (what may
      appear almost incredible) seven hundred virgins. A large majority
      of the bishops of Asia appeared to support or favor his cause;
      and their measures were conducted by Eusebius of Cæsarea, the
      most learned of the Christian prelates; and by Eusebius of
      Nicomedia, who had acquired the reputation of a statesman without
      forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia were
      opposed to the synods of Egypt. The attention of the prince and
      people was attracted by this theological dispute; and the
      decision, at the end of six years, 46 was referred to the supreme
      authority of the general council of Nice.

      40 (return) [ The most ancient creeds were drawn up with the
      greatest latitude. See Bull, (Judicium Eccles. Cathol.,) who
      tries to prevent Episcopius from deriving any advantage from this
      observation.]

      41 (return) [ The heresies of Praxeas, Sabellius, &c., are
      accurately explained by Mosheim (p. 425, 680-714.) Praxeas, who
      came to Rome about the end of the second century, deceived, for
      some time, the simplicity of the bishop, and was confuted by the
      pen of the angry Tertullian.]

      42 (return) [ Socrates acknowledges, that the heresy of Arius
      proceeded from his strong desire to embrace an opinion the most
      diametrically opposite to that of Sabellius.]

      43 (return) [ The figure and manners of Arius, the character and
      numbers of his first proselytes, are painted in very lively
      colors by Epiphanius, (tom. i. Hæres. lxix. 3, p. 729,) and we
      cannot but regret that he should soon forget the historian, to
      assume the task of controversy.]

      44 (return) [ See Philostorgius (l. i. c. 3,) and Godefroy’s
      ample Commentary. Yet the credibility of Philostorgius is
      lessened, in the eyes of the orthodox, by his Arianism; and in
      those of rational critics, by his passion, his prejudice, and his
      ignorance.]

      45 (return) [ Sozomen (l. i. c. 15) represents Alexander as
      indifferent, and even ignorant, in the beginning of the
      controversy; while Socrates (l. i. c. 5) ascribes the origin of
      the dispute to the vain curiosity of his theological
      speculations. Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
      ii. p. 178) has censured, with his usual freedom, the conduct of
      Alexander.]

      46 (return) [ The flames of Arianism might burn for some time in
      secret; but there is reason to believe that they burst out with
      violence as early as the year 319. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom.
      vi. p. 774-780.]

      When the mysteries of the Christian faith were dangerously
      exposed to public debate, it might be observed, that the human
      understanding was capable of forming three district, though
      imperfect systems, concerning the nature of the Divine Trinity;
      and it was pronounced, that none of these systems, in a pure and
      absolute sense, were exempt from heresy and error. 47 I.
      According to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius
      and his disciples, the _Logos_ was a dependent and spontaneous
      production, created from nothing by the will of the father. The
      Son, by whom all things were made, 48 had been begotten before
      all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be
      compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration;
      yet this duration was not infinite, 49 and there _had_ been a
      time which preceded the ineffable generation of the _Logos_. On
      this only-begotten Son, the Almighty Father had transfused his
      ample spirit, and impressed the effulgence of his glory. Visible
      image of invisible perfection, he saw, at an immeasurable
      distance beneath his feet, the thrones of the brightest
      archangels; yet he shone only with a reflected light, and, like
      the sons of the Romans emperors, who were invested with the
      titles of Cæsar or Augustus, 50 he governed the universe in
      obedience to the will of his Father and Monarch. II. In the
      second hypothesis, the _Logos_ possessed all the inherent,
      incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy
      appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds
      or substances, three coëqual and coëternal beings, composed the
      Divine Essence; 51 and it would have implied contradiction, that
      any of them should not have existed, or that they should ever
      cease to exist. 52 The advocates of a system which seemed to
      establish three independent Deities, attempted to preserve the
      unity of the First Cause, so conspicuous in the design and order
      of the world, by the perpetual concord of their administration,
      and the essential agreement of their will. A faint resemblance of
      this unity of action may be discovered in the societies of men,
      and even of animals. The causes which disturb their harmony,
      proceed only from the imperfection and inequality of their
      faculties; but the omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom
      and goodness, cannot fail of choosing the same means for the
      accomplishment of the same ends. III. Three beings, who, by the
      self-derived necessity of their existence, possess all the divine
      attributes in the most perfect degree; who are eternal in
      duration, infinite in space, and intimately present to each
      other, and to the whole universe; irresistibly force themselves
      on the astonished mind, as one and the same being, 53 who, in the
      economy of grace, as well as in that of nature, may manifest
      himself under different forms, and be considered under different
      aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trinity is
      refined into a trinity of names, and abstract modifications, that
      subsist only in the mind which conceives them. The _Logos_ is no
      longer a person, but an attribute; and it is only in a figurative
      sense that the epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal
      reason, which was with God from the beginning, and by _which_,
      not by _whom_, all things were made. The incarnation of the
      _Logos_ is reduced to a mere inspiration of the Divine Wisdom,
      which filled the soul, and directed all the actions, of the man
      Jesus. Thus, after revolving around the theological circle, we
      are surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite
      had begun; and that the incomprehensible mystery which excites
      our adoration, eludes our inquiry. 54

      47 (return) [ Quid credidit? Certe, _aut_ tria nomina audiens
      tres Deos esse credidit, et idololatra effectus est; _aut_ in
      tribus vocabulis trinominem credens Deum, in Sabellii hæresim
      incurrit; _aut_ edoctus ab Arianis unum esse verum Deum Patrem,
      filium et spiritum sanctum credidit creaturas. Aut extra hæc quid
      credere potuerit nescio. Hieronym adv. Luciferianos. Jerom
      reserves for the last the orthodox system, which is more
      complicated and difficult.]

      48 (return) [ As the doctrine of absolute creation from nothing
      was gradually introduced among the Christians, (Beausobre, tom.
      ii. p. 165- 215,) the dignity of the _workman_ very naturally
      rose with that of the _work_.]

      49 (return) [ The metaphysics of Dr. Clarke (Scripture Trinity,
      p. 276-280) could digest an eternal generation from an infinite
      cause.]

      50 (return) [ This profane and absurd simile is employed by
      several of the primitive fathers, particularly by Athenagoras, in
      his Apology to the emperor Marcus and his son; and it is alleged,
      without censure, by Bull himself. See Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect.
      iii. c. 5, No. 4.]

      51 (return) [ See Cudworth’s Intellectual System, p. 559, 579.
      This dangerous hypothesis was countenanced by the two Gregories,
      of Nyssa and Nazianzen, by Cyril of Alexandria, John of Damascus,
      &c. See Cudworth, p. 603. Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Universelle, tom
      xviii. p. 97-105.]

      52 (return) [ Augustin seems to envy the freedom of the
      Philosophers. Liberis verbis loquuntur philosophi.... Nos autem
      non dicimus duo vel tria principia, duos vel tres Deos. De
      Civitat. Dei, x. 23.]

      53 (return) [ Boetius, who was deeply versed in the philosophy of
      Plato and Aristotle, explains the unity of the Trinity by the
      _indifference_ of the three persons. See the judicious remarks of
      Le Clerc, Bibliothèque Choisie, tom. xvi. p. 225, &c.]

      54 (return) [ If the Sabellians were startled at this conclusion,
      they were driven another precipice into the confession, that the
      Father was born of a virgin, that _he_ had suffered on the cross;
      and thus deserved the epithet of _Patripassians_, with which they
      were branded by their adversaries. See the invectives of
      Tertullian against Praxeas, and the temperate reflections of
      Mosheim, (p. 423, 681;) and Beausobre, tom. i. l. iii. c. 6, p.
      533.]

      If the bishops of the council of Nice 55 had been permitted to
      follow the unbiased dictates of their conscience, Arius and his
      associates could scarcely have flattered themselves with the
      hopes of obtaining a majority of votes, in favor of an hypothesis
      so directly averse to the two most popular opinions of the
      Catholic world. The Arians soon perceived the danger of their
      situation, and prudently assumed those modest virtues, which, in
      the fury of civil and religious dissensions, are seldom
      practised, or even praised, except by the weaker party. They
      recommended the exercise of Christian charity and moderation;
      urged the incomprehensible nature of the controversy, disclaimed
      the use of any terms or definitions which could not be found in
      the Scriptures; and offered, by very liberal concessions, to
      satisfy their adversaries without renouncing the integrity of
      their own principles. The victorious faction received all their
      proposals with haughty suspicion; and anxiously sought for some
      irreconcilable mark of distinction, the rejection of which might
      involve the Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A
      letter was publicly read, and ignominiously torn, in which their
      patron, Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed, that the
      admission of the Homoousion, or Consubstantial, a word already
      familiar to the Platonists, was incompatible with the principles
      of their theological system. The fortunate opportunity was
      eagerly embraced by the bishops, who governed the resolutions of
      the synod; and, according to the lively expression of Ambrose, 56
      they used the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the
      scabbard, to cut off the head of the hated monster. The
      consubstantiality of the Father and the Son was established by
      the council of Nice, and has been unanimously received as a
      fundamental article of the Christian faith, by the consent of the
      Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant churches. But
      if the same word had not served to stigmatize the heretics, and
      to unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to the
      purpose of the majority, by whom it was introduced into the
      orthodox creed. This majority was divided into two parties,
      distinguished by a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the
      Tritheists and of the Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes
      seemed to overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed
      religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigor of their
      principles; and to disavow the just, but invidious, consequences,
      which might be urged by their antagonists. The interest of the
      common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to conceal
      their differences; their animosity was softened by the healing
      counsels of toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the
      use of the mysterious _Homoousion_, which either party was free
      to interpret according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian
      sense, which, about fifty years before, had obliged the council
      of Antioch 57 to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it
      to those theologians who entertained a secret but partial
      affection for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable saints
      of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory
      Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church, who supported
      with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to
      consider the expression of _substance_ as if it had been
      synonymous with that of _nature;_ and they ventured to illustrate
      their meaning, by affirming that three men, as they belong to the
      same common species, are consubstantial, or homoousian to each
      other. 58 This pure and distinct equality was tempered, on the
      one hand, by the internal connection, and spiritual penetration
      which indissolubly unites the divine persons; 59 and, on the
      other, by the preëminence of the Father, which was acknowledged
      as far as it is compatible with the independence of the Son. 60
      Within these limits, the almost invisible and tremulous ball of
      orthodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side, beyond
      this consecrated ground, the heretics and the dæmons lurked in
      ambush to surprise and devour the unhappy wanderer. But as the
      degrees of theological hatred depend on the spirit of the war,
      rather than on the importance of the controversy, the heretics
      who degraded, were treated with more severity than those who
      annihilated, the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius was
      consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious _madness_ of
      the Arians; 61 but he defended above twenty years the
      Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he was
      compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to
      mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his
      respectable friend. 62

      55 (return) [ The transactions of the council of Nice are related
      by the ancients, not only in a partial, but in a very imperfect
      manner. Such a picture as Fra Paolo would have drawn, can never
      be recovered; but such rude sketches as have been traced by the
      pencil of bigotry, and that of reason, may be seen in Tillemont,
      (Mém. Eccles. tom. v. p. 669-759,) and in Le Clerc, (Bibliothèque
      Universelle, tom. x p. 435-454.)]

      56 (return) [ We are indebted to Ambrose (De Fide, l. iii.)
      knowledge of this curious anecdote. Hoc verbum quod viderunt
      adversariis esse formidini; ut ipsis gladio, ipsum nefandæ caput
      hæreseos.]

      57 (return) [ See Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect. ii. c. i. p.
      25-36. He thinks it his duty to reconcile two orthodox synods.]

      58 (return) [ According to Aristotle, the stars were homoousian
      to each other. “That _Homoousios_ means of one substance in
      _kind_, hath been shown by Petavius, Curcellæus, Cudworth, Le
      Clerc, &c., and to prove it would be _actum agere_.” This is the
      just remark of Dr. Jortin, (vol. ii p. 212,) who examines the
      Arian controversy with learning, candor, and ingenuity.]

      59 (return) [ See Petavius, (Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. iv. c.
      16, p. 453, &c.,) Cudworth, (p. 559,) Bull, (sect. iv. p.
      285-290, edit. Grab.) The _circumincessio_, is perhaps the
      deepest and darkest he whole theological abyss.]

      60 (return) [ The third section of Bull’s Defence of the Nicene
      Faith, which some of his antagonists have called nonsense, and
      others heresy, is consecrated to the supremacy of the Father.]

      61 (return) [ The ordinary appellation with which Athanasius and
      his followers chose to compliment the Arians, was that of
      _Ariomanites_.]

      62 (return) [ Epiphanius, tom i. Hæres. lxxii. 4, p. 837. See the
      adventures of Marcellus, in Tillemont, (Mém. Eccles. tom. v. i.
      p. 880- 899.) His work, in _one_ book, of the unity of God, was
      answered in the _three_ books, which are still extant, of
      Eusebius.——After a long and careful examination, Petavius (tom.
      ii. l. i. c. 14, p. 78) has reluctantly pronounced the
      condemnation of Marcellus.]

      The authority of a general council, to which the Arians
      themselves had been compelled to submit, inscribed on the banners
      of the orthodox party the mysterious characters of the word
      _Homoousion_, which essentially contributed, notwithstanding some
      obscure disputes, some nocturnal combats, to maintain and
      perpetuate the uniformity of faith, or at least of language. The
      consubstantialists, who by their success have deserved and
      obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and
      steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated
      variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any
      certain rule of faith. The sincerity or the cunning of the Arian
      chiefs, the fear of the laws or of the people, their reverence
      for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all the causes, human and
      divine, that influence and disturb the counsels of a theological
      faction, introduced among the sectaries a spirit of discord and
      inconstancy, which, in the course of a few years, erected
      eighteen different models of religion, 63 and avenged the
      violated dignity of the church. The zealous Hilary, 64 who, from
      the peculiar hardships of his situation, was inclined to
      extenuate rather than to aggravate the errors of the Oriental
      clergy, declares, that in the wide extent of the ten provinces of
      Asia, to which he had been banished, there could be found very
      few prelates who had preserved the knowledge of the true God. 65
      The oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was
      the spectator and the victim, appeased, during a short interval,
      the angry passions of his soul; and in the following passage, of
      which I shall transcribe a few lines, the bishop of Poitiers
      unwarily deviates into the style of a Christian philosopher. “It
      is a thing,” says Hilary, “equally deplorable and dangerous, that
      there are as many creeds as opinions among men, as many doctrines
      as inclinations, and as many sources of blasphemy as there are
      faults among us; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and explain
      them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, and received,
      and explained away by successive synods. The partial or total
      resemblance of the Father and of the Son is a subject of dispute
      for these unhappy times. Every year, nay, every moon, we make new
      creeds to describe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have
      done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those whom we
      defended. We condemn either the doctrine of others in ourselves,
      or our own in that of others; and reciprocally tearing one
      another to pieces, we have been the cause of each other’s ruin.”
      66

      63 (return) [ Athanasius, in his epistle concerning the Synods of
      Seleucia and Rimini, (tom. i. p. 886-905,) has given an ample
      list of Arian creeds, which has been enlarged and improved by the
      labors of the indefatigable Tillemont, (Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
      477.)]

      64 (return) [ Erasmus, with admirable sense and freedom, has
      delineated the just character of Hilary. To revise his text, to
      compose the annals of his life, and to justify his sentiments and
      conduct, is the province of the Benedictine editors.]

      65 (return) [ Absque episcopo Eleusio et paucis cum eo, ex majore
      parte Asianæ decem provinciæ, inter quas consisto, vere Deum
      nesciunt. Atque utinam penitus nescirent! cum procliviore enim
      venia ignorarent quam obtrectarent. Hilar. de Synodis, sive de
      Fide Orientalium, c. 63, p. 1186, edit. Benedict. In the
      celebrated parallel between atheism and superstition, the bishop
      of Poitiers would have been surprised in the philosophic society
      of Bayle and Plutarch.]

      66 (return) [ Hilarius ad Constantium, l. i. c. 4, 5, p. 1227,
      1228. This remarkable passage deserved the attention of Mr.
      Locke, who has transcribed it (vol. iii. p. 470) into the model
      of his new common-place book.]

      It will not be expected, it would not perhaps be endured, that I
      should swell this theological digression, by a minute examination
      of the eighteen creeds, the authors of which, for the most part,
      disclaimed the odious name of their parent Arius. It is amusing
      enough to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation, of a
      singular plant; but the tedious detail of leaves without flowers,
      and of branches without fruit, would soon exhaust the patience,
      and disappoint the curiosity, of the laborious student. One
      question, which gradually arose from the Arian controversy, may,
      however, be noticed, as it served to produce and discriminate the
      three sects, who were united only by their common aversion to the
      Homoousion of the Nicene synod. 1. If they were asked whether the
      Son was _like_ unto the Father, the question was resolutely
      answered in the negative, by the heretics who adhered to the
      principles of Arius, or indeed to those of philosophy; which seem
      to establish an infinite difference between the Creator and the
      most excellent of his creatures. This obvious consequence was
      maintained by Ætius, 67 on whom the zeal of his adversaries
      bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His restless and aspiring
      spirit urged him to try almost every profession of human life. He
      was successively a slave, or at least a husbandman, a travelling
      tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, a schoolmaster, a theologian,
      and at last the apostle of a new church, which was propagated by
      the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. 68 Armed with texts of
      Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of
      Aristotle, the subtle Ætius had acquired the fame of an
      invincible disputant, whom it was impossible either to silence or
      to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian
      bishops, till they were forced to renounce, and even to
      persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his
      reasoning, had prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion, and
      offended the piety of their most devoted followers. 2. The
      omnipotence of the Creator suggested a specious and respectful
      solution of the _likeness_ of the Father and the Son; and faith
      might humbly receive what reason could not presume to deny, that
      the Supreme God might communicate his infinite perfections, and
      create a being similar only to himself. 69 These Arians were
      powerfully supported by the weight and abilities of their
      leaders, who had succeeded to the management of the Eusebian
      interest, and who occupied the principal thrones of the East.
      They detested, perhaps with some affectation, the impiety of
      Ætius; they professed to believe, either without reserve, or
      according to the Scriptures, that the Son was different from all
      _other_ creatures, and similar only to the Father. But they
      denied, the he was either of the same, or of a similar substance;
      sometimes boldly justifying their dissent, and sometimes
      objecting to the use of the word substance, which seems to imply
      an adequate, or at least, a distinct, notion of the nature of the
      Deity. 3. The sect which deserted the doctrine of a similar
      substance, was the most numerous, at least in the provinces of
      Asia; and when the leaders of both parties were assembled in the
      council of Seleucia, 70 _their_ opinion would have prevailed by a
      majority of one hundred and five to forty-three bishops. The
      Greek word, which was chosen to express this mysterious
      resemblance, bears so close an affinity to the orthodox symbol,
      that the profane of every age have derided the furious contests
      which the difference of a single diphthong excited between the
      Homoousians and the Homoiousians. As it frequently happens, that
      the sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each
      other accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the
      observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to
      mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of
      the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the
      Catholics themselves. The bishop of Poitiers, who in his Phrygian
      exile very wisely aimed at a coalition of parties, endeavors to
      prove that by a pious and faithful interpretation, 71 the
      _Homoiousion_ may be reduced to a consubstantial sense. Yet he
      confesses that the word has a dark and suspicious aspect; and, as
      if darkness were congenial to theological disputes, the
      Semi-Arians, who advanced to the doors of the church, assailed
      them with the most unrelenting fury.

      67 (return) [ In Philostorgius (l. iii. c. 15) the character and
      adventures of Ætius appear singular enough, though they are
      carefully softened by the hand of a friend. The editor, Godefroy,
      (p. 153,) who was more attached to his principles than to his
      author, has collected the odious circumstances which his various
      adversaries have preserved or invented.]

      68 (return) [ According to the judgment of a man who respected
      both these sectaries, Ætius had been endowed with a stronger
      understanding and Eunomius had acquired more art and learning.
      (Philostorgius l. viii. c. 18.) The confession and apology of
      Eunomius (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. viii. p. 258-305) is one
      of the few heretical pieces which have escaped.]

      69 (return) [ Yet, according to the opinion of Estius and Bull,
      (p. 297,) there is one power—that of creation—which God _cannot_
      communicate to a creature. Estius, who so accurately defined the
      limits of Omnipotence was a Dutchman by birth, and by trade a
      scholastic divine. Dupin Bibliot. Eccles. tom. xvii. p. 45.]

      70 (return) [ Sabinus ap. Socrat. (l. ii. c. 39) had copied the
      acts: Athanasius and Hilary have explained the divisions of this
      Arian synod; the other circumstances which are relative to it are
      carefully collected by Baro and Tillemont]

      71 (return) [ Fideli et piâ intelligentiâ... De Synod. c. 77, p.
      1193. In his his short apologetical notes (first published by the
      Benedictines from a MS. of Chartres) he observes, that he used
      this cautious expression, qui intelligerum et impiam, p. 1206.
      See p. 1146. Philostorgius, who saw those objects through a
      different medium, is inclined to forget the difference of the
      important diphthong. See in particular viii. 17, and Godefroy, p.
      352.]

      The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language
      and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the
      Arian controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, a
      vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible idiom,
      supplied the clergy and people of the East with an inexhaustible
      flow of words and distinctions; and, in the midst of their fierce
      contentions, they easily forgot the doubt which is recommended by
      philosophy, and the submission which is enjoined by religion. The
      inhabitants of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit; their
      passions were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects, their
      minds were less frequently exercised by the habits of dispute;
      and such was the happy ignorance of the Gallican church, that
      Hilary himself, above thirty years after the first general
      council, was still a stranger to the Nicene creed. 72 The Latins
      had received the rays of divine knowledge through the dark and
      doubtful medium of a translation. The poverty and stubbornness of
      their native tongue was not always capable of affording just
      equivalents for the Greek terms, for the technical words of the
      Platonic philosophy, 73 which had been consecrated, by the gospel
      or by the church, to express the mysteries of the Christian
      faith; and a verbal defect might introduce into the Latin
      theology a long train of error or perplexity. 74 But as the
      western provincials had the good fortune of deriving their
      religion from an orthodox source, they preserved with steadiness
      the doctrine which they had accepted with docility; and when the
      Arian pestilence approached their frontiers, they were supplied
      with the seasonable preservative of the Homoousion, by the
      paternal care of the Roman pontiff. Their sentiments and their
      temper were displayed in the memorable synod of Rimini, which
      surpassed in numbers the council of Nice, since it was composed
      of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul,
      Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates it appeared, that
      only fourscore prelates adhered to the party, though _they_
      affected to anathematize the name and memory, of Arius. But this
      inferiority was compensated by the advantages of skill, of
      experience, and of discipline; and the minority was conducted by
      Valens and Ursacius, two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent
      their lives in the intrigues of courts and councils, and who had
      been trained under the Eusebian banner in the religious wars of
      the East. By their arguments and negotiations, they embarrassed,
      they confounded, they at last deceived, the honest simplicity of
      the Latin bishops; who suffered the palladium of the faith to be
      extorted from their hand by fraud and importunity, rather than by
      open violence. The council of Rimini was not allowed to separate,
      till the members had imprudently subscribed a captious creed, in
      which some expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, were
      inserted in the room of the Homoousion. It was on this occasion,
      that, according to Jerom, the world was surprised to find itself
      Arian. 75 But the bishops of the Latin provinces had no sooner
      reached their respective dioceses, than they discovered their
      mistake, and repented of their weakness. The ignominious
      capitulation was rejected with disdain and abhorrence; and the
      Homoousian standard, which had been shaken but not overthrown,
      was more firmly replanted in all the churches of the West. 76

      72 (return) [ Testor Deum cœli atque terræ me cum neutrum
      audissem, semper tamen utrumque sensisse.... Regeneratus pridem
      et in episcopatu aliquantisper manens fidem Nicenam nunquam nisi
      exsulaturus audivi. Hilar. de Synodis, c. xci. p. 1205. The
      Benedictines are persuaded that he governed the diocese of
      Poitiers several years before his exile.]

      73 (return) [ Seneca (Epist. lviii.) complains that even the of
      the Platonists (the _ens_ of the bolder schoolmen) could not be
      expressed by a Latin noun.]

      74 (return) [ The preference which the fourth council of the
      Lateran at length gave to a _numerical_ rather than a _generical_
      unity (See Petav. tom. ii. l. v. c. 13, p. 424) was favored by
      the Latin language: seems to excite the idea of substance,
      _trinitas_ of qualities.]

      75 (return) [ Ingemuit totus orbis, et Arianum se esse miratus
      est. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer. tom. i. p. 145.]

      76 (return) [ The story of the council of Rimini is very
      elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus, (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
      419-430, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1647,) and by Jerom, in his dialogue
      against the Luciferians. The design of the latter is to apologize
      for the conduct of the Latin bishops, who were deceived, and who
      repented.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part IV.


      Such was the rise and progress, and such were the natural
      revolutions of those theological disputes, which disturbed the
      peace of Christianity under the reigns of Constantine and of his
      sons. But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism
      over the faith, as well as over the lives and fortunes, of their
      subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the
      ecclesiastical balance: and the prerogatives of the King of
      Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet of
      an earthly monarch. The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded
      the provinces of the East, interrupted the triumph of
      Constantine; but the emperor continued for some time to view,
      with cool and careless indifference, the object of the dispute.
      As he was yet ignorant of the difficulty of appeasing the
      quarrels of theologians, he addressed to the contending parties,
      to Alexander and to Arius, a moderating epistle; 77 which may be
      ascribed, with far greater reason, to the untutored sense of a
      soldier and statesman, than to the dictates of any of his
      episcopal counsellors. He attributes the origin of the whole
      controversy to a trifling and subtle question, concerning an
      incomprehensible point of law, which was foolishly asked by the
      bishop, and imprudently resolved by the presbyter. He laments
      that the Christian people, who had the same God, the same
      religion, and the same worship, should be divided by such
      inconsiderable distinctions; and he seriously recommends to the
      clergy of Alexandria the example of the Greek philosophers; who
      could maintain their arguments without losing their temper, and
      assert their freedom without violating their friendship. The
      indifference and contempt of the sovereign would have been,
      perhaps, the most effectual method of silencing the dispute, if
      the popular current had been less rapid and impetuous, and if
      Constantine himself, in the midst of faction and fanaticism,
      could have preserved the calm possession of his own mind. But his
      ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to seduce the
      impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal of the
      proselyte. He was provoked by the insults which had been offered
      to his statues; he was alarmed by the real, as well as the
      imaginary magnitude of the spreading mischief; and he
      extinguished the hope of peace and toleration, from the moment
      that he assembled three hundred bishops within the walls of the
      same palace. The presence of the monarch swelled the importance
      of the debate; his attention multiplied the arguments; and he
      exposed his person with a patient intrepidity, which animated the
      valor of the combatants. Notwithstanding the applause which has
      been bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of Constantine, 78 a
      Roman general, whose religion might be still a subject of doubt,
      and whose mind had not been enlightened either by study or by
      inspiration, was indifferently qualified to discuss, in the Greek
      language, a metaphysical question, or an article of faith. But
      the credit of his favorite Osius, who appears to have presided in
      the council of Nice, might dispose the emperor in favor of the
      orthodox party; and a well-timed insinuation, that the same
      Eusebius of Nicomedia, who now protected the heretic, had lately
      assisted the tyrant, 79 might exasperate him against their
      adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine; and
      his firm declaration, that those who resisted the divine judgment
      of the synod, must prepare themselves for an immediate exile,
      annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposition; which, from
      seventeen, was almost instantly reduced to two, protesting
      bishops. Eusebius of Cæsarea yielded a reluctant and ambiguous
      consent to the Homoousion; 80 and the wavering conduct of the
      Nicomedian Eusebius served only to delay, about three months, his
      disgrace and exile. 81 The impious Arius was banished into one of
      the remote provinces of Illyricum; his person and disciples were
      branded by law with the odious name of Porphyrians; his writings
      were condemned to the flames, and a capital punishment was
      denounced against those in whose possession they should be found.
      The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of controversy, and the
      angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to inspire his
      subjects with the hatred which he had conceived against the
      enemies of Christ. 82

      77 (return) [ Eusebius, in Vit. Constant. l. ii. c. 64-72. The
      principles of toleration and religious indifference, contained in
      this epistle, have given great offence to Baronius, Tillemont,
      &c., who suppose that the emperor had some evil counsellor,
      either Satan or Eusebius, at his elbow. See Cortin’s Remarks,
      tom. ii. p. 183. * Note: Heinichen (Excursus xi.) quotes with
      approbation the term “golden words,” applied by Ziegler to this
      moderate and tolerant letter of Constantine. May an English
      clergyman venture to express his regret that “the fine gold soon
      became dim” in the Christian church?—M.]

      78 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 13.]

      79 (return) [ Theodoret has preserved (l. i. c. 20) an epistle
      from Constantine to the people of Nicomedia, in which the monarch
      declares himself the public accuser of one of his subjects; he
      styles Eusebius and complains of his hostile behavior during the
      civil war.]

      80 (return) [ See in Socrates, (l. i. c. 8,) or rather in
      Theodoret, (l. i. c. 12,) an original letter of Eusebius of
      Cæsarea, in which he attempts to justify his subscribing the
      Homoousion. The character of Eusebius has always been a problem;
      but those who have read the second critical epistle of Le Clerc,
      (Ars Critica, tom. iii. p. 30-69,) must entertain a very
      unfavorable opinion of the orthodoxy and sincerity of the bishop
      of Cæsarea.]

      81 (return) [ Athanasius, tom. i. p. 727. Philostorgius, l. i. c.
      10, and Godefroy’s Commentary, p. 41.]

      82 (return) [ Socrates, l. i. c. 9. In his circular letters,
      which were addressed to the several cities, Constantine employed
      against the heretics the arms of ridicule and _comic_ raillery.]

      But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been guided by passion
      instead of principle, three years from the council of Nice were
      scarcely elapsed before he discovered some symptoms of mercy, and
      even of indulgence, towards the proscribed sect, which was
      secretly protected by his favorite sister. The exiles were
      recalled, and Eusebius, who gradually resumed his influence over
      the mind of Constantine, was restored to the episcopal throne,
      from which he had been ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was
      treated by the whole court with the respect which would have been
      due to an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved by
      the synod of Jerusalem; and the emperor seemed impatient to
      repair his injustice, by issuing an absolute command, that he
      should be solemnly admitted to the communion in the cathedral of
      Constantinople. On the same day, which had been fixed for the
      triumph of Arius, he expired; and the strange and horrid
      circumstances of his death might excite a suspicion, that the
      orthodox saints had contributed more efficaciously than by their
      prayers, to deliver the church from the most formidable of her
      enemies. 83 The three principal leaders of the Catholics,
      Athanasius of Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of
      Constantinople were deposed on various f accusations, by the
      sentence of numerous councils; and were afterwards banished into
      distant provinces by the first of the Christian emperors, who, in
      the last moments of his life, received the rites of baptism from
      the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical government of
      Constantine cannot be justified from the reproach of levity and
      weakness. But the credulous monarch, unskilled in the stratagems
      of theological warfare, might be deceived by the modest and
      specious professions of the heretics, whose sentiments he never
      perfectly understood; and while he protected Arius, and
      persecuted Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as
      the bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his
      own reign. 84

      83 (return) [ We derive the original story from Athanasius, (tom.
      i. p. 670,) who expresses some reluctance to stigmatize the
      memory of the dead. He might exaggerate; but the perpetual
      commerce of Alexandria and Constantinople would have rendered it
      dangerous to invent. Those who press the literal narrative of the
      death of Arius (his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy) must
      make their option between _poison_ and _miracle_.]

      84 (return) [ The change in the sentiments, or at least in the
      conduct, of Constantine, may be traced in Eusebius, (in Vit.
      Constant. l. iii. c. 23, l. iv. c. 41,) Socrates, (l. i. c.
      23-39,) Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 16-34,) Theodoret, (l. i. c. 14-34,)
      and Philostorgius, (l. ii. c. 1-17.) But the first of these
      writers was too near the scene of action, and the others were too
      remote from it. It is singular enough, that the important task of
      continuing the history of the church should have been left for
      two laymen and a heretic.]

      The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their
      childhood into the rank of catechumens; but they imitated, in the
      delay of their baptism, the example of their father. Like him
      they presumed to pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which
      they had never been regularly initiated; 85 and the fate of the
      Trinitarian controversy depended, in a great measure, on the
      sentiments of Constantius; who inherited the provinces of the
      East, and acquired the possession of the whole empire. The Arian
      presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for his use the testament
      of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate occasion which
      had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince, whose public
      counsels were always swayed by his domestic favorites. The
      eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison through the
      palace, and the dangerous infection was communicated by the
      female attendants to the guards, and by the empress to her
      unsuspicious husband. 86 The partiality which Constantius always
      expressed towards the Eusebian faction, was insensibly fortified
      by the dexterous management of their leaders; and his victory
      over the tyrant Magnentius increased his inclination, as well as
      ability, to employ the arms of power in the cause of Arianism.
      While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mursa, and the
      fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of war, the son of
      Constantine passed the anxious moments in a church of the martyrs
      under the walls of the city. His spiritual comforter, Valens, the
      Arian bishop of the diocese, employed the most artful precautions
      to obtain such early intelligence as might secure either his
      favor or his escape. A secret chain of swift and trusty
      messengers informed him of the vicissitudes of the battle; and
      while the courtiers stood trembling round their affrighted
      master, Valens assured him that the Gallic legions gave way; and
      insinuated with some presence of mind, that the glorious event
      had been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor
      ascribed his success to the merits and intercession of the bishop
      of Mursa, whose faith had deserved the public and miraculous
      approbation of Heaven. 87 The Arians, who considered as their own
      the victory of Constantius, preferred his glory to that of his
      father. 88 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, immediately composed the
      description of a celestial cross, encircled with a splendid
      rainbow; which during the festival of Pentecost, about the third
      hour of the day, had appeared over the Mount of Olives, to the
      edification of the devout pilgrims, and the people of the holy
      city. 89 The size of the meteor was gradually magnified; and the
      Arian historian has ventured to affirm, that it was conspicuous
      to the two armies in the plains of Pannonia; and that the tyrant,
      who is purposely represented as an idolater, fled before the
      auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity. 90

      85 (return) [ Quia etiam tum catechumenus sacramentum fidei
      merito videretiu potuisse nescire. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l.
      ii. p. 410.]

      86 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 2. Sozomen, l. iii. c. 18.
      Athanas. tom. i. p. 813, 834. He observes that the eunuchs are
      the natural enemies of the _Son_. Compare Dr. Jortin’s Remarks on
      Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 3 with a certain genealogy in
      _Candide_, (ch. iv.,) which ends with one of the first companions
      of Christopher Columbus.]

      87 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 405,
      406.]

      88 (return) [ Cyril (apud Baron. A. D. 353, No. 26) expressly
      observes that in the reign of Constantine, the cross had been
      found in the bowels of the earth; but that it had appeared, in
      the reign of Constantius, in the midst of the heavens. This
      opposition evidently proves, that Cyril was ignorant of the
      stupendous miracle to which the conversion of Constantine is
      attributed; and this ignorance is the more surprising, since it
      was no more than twelve years after his death that Cyril was
      consecrated bishop of Jerusalem, by the immediate successor of
      Eusebius of Cæsarea. See Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p.
      715.]

      89 (return) [ It is not easy to determine how far the ingenuity
      of Cyril might be assisted by some natural appearances of a solar
      halo.]

      90 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 26. He is followed by the
      author of the Alexandrian Chronicle, by Cedrenus, and by
      Nicephorus. (See Gothofred. Dissert. p. 188.) They could not
      refuse a miracle, even from the hand of an enemy.]

      The sentiments of a judicious stranger, who has impartially
      considered the progress of civil or ecclesiastical discord, are
      always entitled to our notice; and a short passage of Ammianus,
      who served in the armies, and studied the character of
      Constantius, is perhaps of more value than many pages of
      theological invectives. “The Christian religion, which, in
      itself,” says that moderate historian, “is plain and simple, _he_
      confounded by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling
      the parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and
      promulgated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his vain
      curiosity had excited. The highways were covered with troops of
      bishops galloping from every side to the assemblies, which they
      call synods; and while they labored to reduce the whole sect to
      their own particular opinions, the public establishment of the
      posts was almost ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys.” 91
      Our more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions of
      the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample commentary on
      this remarkable passage, which justifies the rational
      apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless activity of the
      clergy, who wandered round the empire in search of the true
      faith, would excite the contempt and laughter of the unbelieving
      world. 92 As soon as the emperor was relieved from the terrors of
      the civil war, he devoted the leisure of his winter quarters at
      Arles, Milan, Sirmium, and Constantinople, to the amusement or
      toils of controversy: the sword of the magistrate, and even of
      the tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce the reasons of the
      theologian; and as he opposed the orthodox faith of Nice, it is
      readily confessed that his incapacity and ignorance were equal to
      his presumption. 93 The eunuchs, the women, and the bishops, who
      governed the vain and feeble mind of the emperor, had inspired
      him with an insuperable dislike to the Homoousion; but his timid
      conscience was alarmed by the impiety of Ætius. The guilt of that
      atheist was aggravated by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate
      Gallus; and even the death of the Imperial ministers, who had
      been massacred at Antioch, were imputed to the suggestions of
      that dangerous sophist. The mind of Constantius, which could
      neither be moderated by reason, nor fixed by faith, was blindly
      impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss, by his
      horror of the opposite extreme; he alternately embraced and
      condemned the sentiments, he successively banished and recalled
      the leaders, of the Arian and Semi-Arian factions. 94 During the
      season of public business or festivity, he employed whole days,
      and even nights, in selecting the words, and weighing the
      syllables, which composed his fluctuating creeds. The subject of
      his meditations still pursued and occupied his slumbers: the
      incoherent dreams of the emperor were received as celestial
      visions, and he accepted with complacency the lofty title of
      bishop of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who forgot the
      interest of their order for the gratification of their passions.
      The design of establishing a uniformity of doctrine, which had
      engaged him to convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, Illyricum,
      and Asia, was repeatedly baffled by his own levity, by the
      divisions of the Arians, and by the resistance of the Catholics;
      and he resolved, as the last and decisive effort, imperiously to
      dictate the decrees of a general council. The destructive
      earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of finding a convenient
      place, and perhaps some secret motives of policy, produced an
      alteration in the summons. The bishops of the East were directed
      to meet at Seleucia, in Isauria; while those of the West held
      their deliberations at Rimini, on the coast of the Hadriatic; and
      instead of two or three deputies from each province, the whole
      episcopal body was ordered to march. The Eastern council, after
      consuming four days in fierce and unavailing debate, separated
      without any definitive conclusion. The council of the West was
      protracted till the seventh month. Taurus, the Prætorian præfect
      was instructed not to dismiss the prelates till they should all
      be united in the same opinion; and his efforts were supported by
      the power of banishing fifteen of the most refractory, and a
      promise of the consulship if he achieved so difficult an
      adventure. His prayers and threats, the authority of the
      sovereign, the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius, the distress of
      cold and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless exile,
      at length extorted the reluctant consent of the bishops of
      Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the West attended the
      emperor in the palace of Constantinople, and he enjoyed the
      satisfaction of imposing on the world a profession of faith which
      established the _likeness_, without expressing the
      _consubstantiality_, of the Son of God. 95 But the triumph of
      Arianism had been preceded by the removal of the orthodox clergy,
      whom it was impossible either to intimidate or to corrupt; and
      the reign of Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and
      ineffectual persecution of the great Athanasius.

      91 (return) [ So curious a passage well deserves to be
      transcribed. Christianam religionem absolutam et simplicem, anili
      superstitione confundens; in qua scrutanda perplexius, quam
      componenda gravius excitaret discidia plurima; quæ progressa
      fusius aluit concertatione verborum, ut catervis antistium
      jumentis publicis ultro citroque discarrentibus, per synodos
      (quas appellant) dum ritum omnem ad suum sahere conantur
      (Valesius reads _conatur_) rei vehiculariæ concideret servos.
      Ammianus, xxi. 16.]

      92 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 870.]

      93 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 35-47. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
      12-30. Theodore li. c. 18-32. Philostorg. l. iv. c. 4—12, l. v.
      c. 1-4, l. vi. c. 1-5]

      94 (return) [ Sozomen, l. iv. c. 23. Athanas. tom. i. p. 831.
      Tillemont (Mem Eccles. tom. vii. p. 947) has collected several
      instances of the haughty fanaticism of Constantius from the
      detached treatises of Lucifer of Cagliari. The very titles of
      these treaties inspire zeal and terror; “Moriendum pro Dei
      Filio.” “De Regibus Apostaticis.” “De non conveniendo cum
      Hæretico.” “De non parcendo in Deum delinquentibus.”]

      95 (return) [ Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 418-430. The
      Greek historians were very ignorant of the affairs of the West.]

      We have seldom an opportunity of observing, either in active or
      speculative life, what effect may be produced, or what obstacles
      may be surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when it is
      inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object. The
      immortal name of Athanasius 96 will never be separated from the
      Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose defence he consecrated
      every moment and every faculty of his being. Educated in the
      family of Alexander, he had vigorously opposed the early progress
      of the Arian heresy: he exercised the important functions of
      secretary under the aged prelate; and the fathers of the Nicene
      council beheld with surprise and respect the rising virtues of
      the young deacon. In a time of public danger, the dull claims of
      age and of rank are sometimes superseded; and within five months
      after his return from Nice, the deacon Athanasius was seated on
      the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He filled that eminent
      station above forty-six years, and his long administration was
      spent in a perpetual combat against the powers of Arianism. Five
      times was Athanasius expelled from his throne; twenty years he
      passed as an exile or a fugitive: and almost every province of
      the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, and his
      sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which he considered as
      the sole pleasure and business, as the duty, and as the glory of
      his life. Amidst the storms of persecution, the archbishop of
      Alexandria was patient of labor, jealous of fame, careless of
      safety; and although his mind was tainted by the contagion of
      fanaticism, Athanasius displayed a superiority of character and
      abilities, which would have qualified him, far better than the
      degenerate sons of Constantine, for the government of a great
      monarchy. His learning was much less profound and extensive than
      that of Eusebius of Cæsarea, and his rude eloquence could not be
      compared with the polished oratory of Gregory of Basil; but
      whenever the primate of Egypt was called upon to justify his
      sentiments, or his conduct, his unpremeditated style, either of
      speaking or writing, was clear, forcible, and persuasive. He has
      always been revered, in the orthodox school, as one of the most
      accurate masters of the Christian theology; and he was supposed
      to possess two profane sciences, less adapted to the episcopal
      character, the knowledge of jurisprudence, 97 and that of
      divination. 98 Some fortunate conjectures of future events, which
      impartial reasoners might ascribe to the experience and judgment
      of Athanasius, were attributed by his friends to heavenly
      inspiration, and imputed by his enemies to infernal magic.

      96 (return) [ We may regret that Gregory Nazianzen composed a
      panegyric instead of a life of Athanasius; but we should enjoy
      and improve the advantage of drawing our most authentic materials
      from the rich fund of his own epistles and apologies, (tom. i. p.
      670-951.) I shall not imitate the example of Socrates, (l. ii. c.
      l.) who published the first edition of the history, without
      giving himself the trouble to consult the writings of Athanasius.
      Yet even Socrates, the more curious Sozomen, and the learned
      Theodoret, connect the life of Athanasius with the series of
      ecclesiastical history. The diligence of Tillemont, (tom. viii,)
      and of the Benedictine editors, has collected every fact, and
      examined every difficulty]

      97 (return) [ Sulpicius Severus (Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 396)
      calls him a lawyer, a jurisconsult. This character cannot now be
      discovered either in the life or writings of Athanasius.]

      98 (return) [ Dicebatur enim fatidicarum sortium fidem, quæve
      augurales portenderent alites scientissime callens aliquoties
      prædixisse futura. Ammianus, xv. 7. A prophecy, or rather a joke,
      is related by Sozomen, (l. iv c. 10,) which evidently proves (if
      the crows speak Latin) that Athanasius understood the language of
      the crows.]

      But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the prejudices and
      passions of every order of men, from the monk to the emperor, the
      knowledge of human nature was his first and most important
      science. He preserved a distinct and unbroken view of a scene
      which was incessantly shifting; and never failed to improve those
      decisive moments which are irrecoverably past before they are
      perceived by a common eye. The archbishop of Alexandria was
      capable of distinguishing how far he might boldly command, and
      where he must dexterously insinuate; how long he might contend
      with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution; and while
      he directed the thunders of the church against heresy and
      rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of his own party, the
      flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent leader. The election
      of Athanasius has not escaped the reproach of irregularity and
      precipitation; 99 but the propriety of his behavior conciliated
      the affections both of the clergy and of the people. The
      Alexandrians were impatient to rise in arms for the defence of an
      eloquent and liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived
      support, or at least consolation, from the faithful attachment of
      his parochial clergy; and the hundred bishops of Egypt adhered,
      with unshaken zeal, to the cause of Athanasius. In the modest
      equipage which pride and policy would affect, he frequently
      performed the episcopal visitation of his provinces, from the
      mouth of the Nile to the confines of Æthiopia; familiarly
      conversing with the meanest of the populace, and humbly saluting
      the saints and hermits of the desert. 100 Nor was it only in
      ecclesiastical assemblies, among men whose education and manners
      were similar to his own, that Athanasius displayed the ascendancy
      of his genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in
      the courts of princes; and in the various turns of his prosperous
      and adverse fortune he never lost the confidence of his friends,
      or the esteem of his enemies.

      99 (return) [ The irregular ordination of Athanasius was slightly
      mentioned in the councils which were held against him. See
      Philostorg. l. ii. c. 11, and Godefroy, p. 71; but it can
      scarcely be supposed that the assembly of the bishops of Egypt
      would solemnly attest a _public_ falsehood. Athanas. tom. i. p.
      726.]

      100 (return) [ See the history of the Fathers of the Desert,
      published by Rosweide; and Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vii., in
      the lives of Antony, Pachomius, &c. Athanasius himself, who did
      not disdain to compose the life of his friend Antony, has
      carefully observed how often the holy monk deplored and
      prophesied the mischiefs of the Arian heresy Athanas. tom. ii. p.
      492, 498, &c.]

      In his youth, the primate of Egypt resisted the great
      Constantine, who had repeatedly signified his will, that Arius
      should be restored to the Catholic communion. 101 The emperor
      respected, and might forgive, this inflexible resolution; and the
      faction who considered Athanasius as their most formidable enemy,
      was constrained to dissemble their hatred, and silently to
      prepare an indirect and distant assault. They scattered rumors
      and suspicions, represented the archbishop as a proud and
      oppressive tyrant, and boldly accused him of violating the treaty
      which had been ratified in the Nicene council, with the
      schismatic followers of Meletius. 102 Athanasius had openly
      disapproved that ignominious peace, and the emperor was disposed
      to believe that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil power,
      to prosecute those odious sectaries: that he had sacrilegiously
      broken a chalice in one of their churches of Mareotis; that he
      had whipped or imprisoned six of their bishops; and that
      Arsenius, a seventh bishop of the same party, had been murdered,
      or at least mutilated, by the cruel hand of the primate. 103
      These charges, which affected his honor and his life, were
      referred by Constantine to his brother Dalmatius the censor, who
      resided at Antioch; the synods of Cæsarea and Tyre were
      successively convened; and the bishops of the East were
      instructed to judge the cause of Athanasius, before they
      proceeded to consecrate the new church of the Resurrection at
      Jerusalem. The primate might be conscious of his innocence; but
      he was sensible that the same implacable spirit which had
      dictated the accusation, would direct the proceeding, and
      pronounce the sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of his
      enemies; despised the summons of the synod of Cæsarea; and, after
      a long and artful delay, submitted to the peremptory commands of
      the emperor, who threatened to punish his criminal disobedience
      if he refused to appear in the council of Tyre. 104 Before
      Athanasius, at the head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed from
      Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the Meletians;
      and Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, and his secret
      friend, was privately concealed in his train. The synod of Tyre
      was conducted by Eusebius of Cæsarea, with more passion, and with
      less art, than his learning and experience might promise; his
      numerous faction repeated the names of homicide and tyrant; and
      their clamors were encouraged by the seeming patience of
      Athanasius, who expected the decisive moment to produce Arsenius
      alive and unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature of the
      other charges did not admit of such clear and satisfactory
      replies; yet the archbishop was able to prove, that in the
      village, where he was accused of breaking a consecrated chalice,
      neither church nor altar nor chalice could really exist.

      The Arians, who had secretly determined the guilt and
      condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, to disguise
      their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms: the synod
      appointed an episcopal commission of six delegates to collect
      evidence on the spot; and this measure which was vigorously
      opposed by the Egyptian bishops, opened new scenes of violence
      and perjury. 105 After the return of the deputies from
      Alexandria, the majority of the council pronounced the final
      sentence of degradation and exile against the primate of Egypt.
      The decree, expressed in the fiercest language of malice and
      revenge, was communicated to the emperor and the Catholic church;
      and the bishops immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect,
      such as became their holy pilgrimage to the Sepulchre of Christ.
      106

      101 (return) [ At first Constantine threatened in _speaking_, but
      requested in _writing_. His letters gradually assumed a menacing
      tone; by while he required that the entrance of the church should
      be open to _all_, he avoided the odious name of Arius.
      Athanasius, like a skilful politician, has accurately marked
      these distinctions, (tom. i. p. 788.) which allowed him some
      scope for excuse and delay]

      102 (return) [ The Meletians in Egypt, like the Donatists in
      Africa, were produced by an episcopal quarrel which arose from
      the persecution. I have not leisure to pursue the obscure
      controversy, which seems to have been misrepresented by the
      partiality of Athanasius and the ignorance of Epiphanius. See
      Mosheim’s General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 201.]

      103 (return) [ The treatment of the six bishops is specified by
      Sozomen, (l. ii. c. 25;) but Athanasius himself, so copious on
      the subject of Arsenius and the chalice, leaves this grave
      accusation without a reply. Note: This grave charge, if made,
      (and it rests entirely on the authority of Soz omen,) seems to
      have been silently dropped by the parties themselves: it is never
      alluded to in the subsequent investigations. From Sozomen
      himself, who gives the unfavorable report of the commission of
      inquiry sent to Egypt concerning the cup. it does not appear that
      they noticed this accusation of personal violence.—M]

      104 (return) [ Athanas, tom. i. p. 788. Socrates, l. i.c. 28.
      Sozomen, l. ii. c 25. The emperor, in his Epistle of Convocation,
      (Euseb. in Vit. Constant. l. iv. c. 42,) seems to prejudge some
      members of the clergy and it was more than probable that the
      synod would apply those reproaches to Athanasius.]

      105 (return) [ See, in particular, the second Apology of
      Athanasius, (tom. i. p. 763-808,) and his Epistles to the Monks,
      (p. 808-866.) They are justified by original and authentic
      documents; but they would inspire more confidence if he appeared
      less innocent, and his enemies less absurd.]

      106 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iv. c. 41-47.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part V.


      But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges had not been
      countenanced by the submission, or even by the presence, of
      Athanasius. He resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment,
      whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth; and
      before the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the
      intrepid primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to
      hoist sail for the Imperial city. The request of a formal
      audience might have been opposed or eluded; but Athanasius
      concealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine’s return
      from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his angry
      sovereign as he passed on horseback through the principal street
      of Constantinople. So strange an apparition excited his surprise
      and indignation; and the guards were ordered to remove the
      importunate suitor; but his resentment was subdued by involuntary
      respect; and the haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the
      courage and eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and
      awakened his conscience. 107 Constantine listened to the
      complaints of Athanasius with impartial and even gracious
      attention; the members of the synod of Tyre were summoned to
      justify their proceedings; and the arts of the Eusebian faction
      would have been confounded, if they had not aggravated the guilt
      of the primate, by the dexterous supposition of an unpardonable
      offence; a criminal design to intercept and detain the corn-fleet
      of Alexandria, which supplied the subsistence of the new capital.
      108 The emperor was satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be
      secured by the absence of a popular leader; but he refused to
      fill the vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne; and the sentence,
      which, after long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a
      jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In the
      remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of Treves,
      Athanasius passed about twenty eight months. The death of the
      emperor changed the face of public affairs and, amidst the
      general indulgence of a young reign, the primate was restored to
      his country by an honorable edict of the younger Constantine, who
      expressed a deep sense of the innocence and merit of his
      venerable guest. 109

      107 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 804. In a church dedicated to
      St. Athanasius this situation would afford a better subject for a
      picture, than most of the stories of miracles and martyrdoms.]

      108 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 729. Eunapius has related (in
      Vit. Sophist. p. 36, 37, edit. Commelin) a strange example of the
      cruelty and credulity of Constantine on a similar occasion. The
      eloquent Sopater, a Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his friendship,
      and provoked the resentment of Ablavius, his Prætorian præfect.
      The corn-fleet was detained for want of a south wind; the people
      of Constantinople were discontented; and Sopater was beheaded, on
      a charge that he had _bound_ the winds by the power of magic.
      Suidas adds, that Constantine wished to prove, by this execution,
      that he had absolutely renounced the superstition of the
      Gentiles.]

      109 (return) [ In his return he saw Constantius twice, at
      Viminiacum, and at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, (Athanas. tom. i. p.
      676.) Tillemont supposes that Constantine introduced him to the
      meeting of the three royal brothers in Pannonia, (Mémoires
      Eccles. tom. viii. p. 69.)]

      The death of that prince exposed Athanasius to a second
      persecution; and the feeble Constantius, the sovereign of the
      East, soon became the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety
      bishops of that sect or faction assembled at Antioch, under the
      specious pretence of dedicating the cathedral. They composed an
      ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with the colors of
      Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which still regulate the
      discipline of the orthodox Greeks. 110 It was decided, with some
      appearance of equity, that a bishop, deprived by a synod, should
      not resume his episcopal functions till he had been absolved by
      the judgment of an equal synod; the law was immediately applied
      to the case of Athanasius; the council of Antioch pronounced, or
      rather confirmed, his degradation: a stranger, named Gregory, was
      seated on his throne; and Philagrius, 111 the præfect of Egypt,
      was instructed to support the new primate with the civil and
      military powers of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of
      the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria, and
      passed three years 112 as an exile and a suppliant on the holy
      threshold of the Vatican. 113 By the assiduous study of the Latin
      language, he soon qualified himself to negotiate with the western
      clergy; his decent flattery swayed and directed the haughty
      Julius; the Roman pontiff was persuaded to consider his appeal as
      the peculiar interest of the Apostolic see: and his innocence was
      unanimously declared in a council of fifty bishops of Italy. At
      the end of three years, the primate was summoned to the court of
      Milan by the emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of unlawful
      pleasures, still professed a lively regard for the orthodox
      faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the
      influence of gold, 114 and the ministers of Constans advised
      their sovereign to require the convocation of an ecclesiastical
      assembly, which might act as the representatives of the Catholic
      church. Ninety-four bishops of the West, seventy-six bishops of
      the East, encountered each other at Sardica, on the verge of the
      two empires, but in the dominions of the protector of Athanasius.
      Their debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations; the
      Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired to
      Philippopolis in Thrace; and the rival synods reciprocally hurled
      their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom they piously
      condemned as the enemies of the true God. Their decrees were
      published and ratified in their respective provinces: and
      Athanasius, who in the West was revered as a saint, was exposed
      as a criminal to the abhorrence of the East. 115 The council of
      Sardica reveals the first symptoms of discord and schism between
      the Greek and Latin churches which were separated by the
      accidental difference of faith, and the permanent distinction of
      language.

      110 (return) [ See Beveridge, Pandect. tom. i. p. 429-452, and
      tom. ii. Annotation. p. 182. Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
      310-324. St. Hilary of Poitiers has mentioned this synod of
      Antioch with too much favor and respect. He reckons ninety-seven
      bishops.]

      111 (return) [ This magistrate, so odious to Athanasius, is
      praised by Gregory Nazianzen, tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 390, 391.

      Sæpe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem.

      For the credit of human nature, I am always pleased to discover
      some good qualities in those men whom party has represented as
      tyrants and monsters.]

      112 (return) [ The chronological difficulties which perplex the
      residence of Athanasius at Rome, are strenuously agitated by
      Valesius (Observat ad Calcem, tom. ii. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c.
      1-5) and Tillemont, (Men: Eccles. tom. viii. p. 674, &c.) I have
      followed the simple hypothesis of Valesius, who allows only one
      journey, after the intrusion Gregory.]

      113 (return) [ I cannot forbear transcribing a judicious
      observation of Wetstein, (Prolegomen. N.S. p. 19: ) Si tamen
      Historiam Ecclesiasticam velimus consulere, patebit jam inde a
      seculo quarto, cum, ortis controversiis, ecclesiæ Græciæ doctores
      in duas partes scinderentur, ingenio, eloquentia, numero, tantum
      non æquales, eam partem quæ vincere cupiebat Romam confugisse,
      majestatemque pontificis comiter coluisse, eoque pacto oppressis
      per pontificem et episcopos Latinos adversariis prævaluisse,
      atque orthodoxiam in conciliis stabilivisse. Eam ob causam
      Athanasius, non sine comitatu, Roman petiit, pluresque annos ibi
      hæsit.]

      114 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12. If any corruption
      was used to promote the interest of religion, an advocate of
      Athanasius might justify or excuse this questionable conduct, by
      the example of Cato and Sidney; the former of whom is _said_ to
      have given, and the latter to have received, a bribe in the cause
      of liberty.]

      115 (return) [ The canon which allows appeals to the Roman
      pontiffs, has almost raised the council of Sardica to the dignity
      of a general council; and its acts have been ignorantly or
      artfully confounded with those of the Nicene synod. See
      Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 689, and Geddos’s Tracts, vol. ii. p.
      419-460.]

      During his second exile in the West, Athanasius was frequently
      admitted to the Imperial presence; at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona,
      Padua, Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the diocese usually
      assisted at these interviews; the master of the offices stood
      before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment; and the
      uniform moderation of the primate might be attested by these
      respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he solemnly appeals. 116
      Prudence would undoubtedly suggest the mild and respectful tone
      that became a subject and a bishop. In these familiar conferences
      with the sovereign of the West, Athanasius might lament the error
      of Constantius, but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs
      and his Arian prelates; deplored the distress and danger of the
      Catholic church; and excited Constans to emulate the zeal and
      glory of his father. The emperor declared his resolution of
      employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the orthodox
      cause; and signified, by a concise and peremptory epistle to his
      brother Constantius, that unless he consented to the immediate
      restoration of Athanasius, he himself, with a fleet and army,
      would seat the archbishop on the throne of Alexandria. 117 But
      this religious war, so horrible to nature, was prevented by the
      timely compliance of Constantius; and the emperor of the East
      condescended to solicit a reconciliation with a subject whom he
      had injured. Athanasius waited with decent pride, till he had
      received three successive epistles full of the strongest
      assurances of the protection, the favor, and the esteem of his
      sovereign; who invited him to resume his episcopal seat, and who
      added the humiliating precaution of engaging his principal
      ministers to attest the sincerity of his intentions. They were
      manifested in a still more public manner, by the strict orders
      which were despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of
      Athanasius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their
      innocence, and to erase from the public registers the illegal
      proceedings which had been obtained during the prevalence of the
      Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had been
      given, which justice or even delicacy could require, the primate
      proceeded, by slow journeys, through the provinces of Thrace,
      Asia, and Syria; and his progress was marked by the abject homage
      of the Oriental bishops, who excited his contempt without
      deceiving his penetration. 118 At Antioch he saw the emperor
      Constantius; sustained, with modest firmness, the embraces and
      protestations of his master, and eluded the proposal of allowing
      the Arians a single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the
      other cities of the empire, a similar toleration for his own
      party; a reply which might have appeared just and moderate in the
      mouth of an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop
      into his capital was a triumphal procession; absence and
      persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his authority,
      which he exercised with rigor, was more firmly established; and
      his fame was diffused from Æthiopia to Britain, over the whole
      extent of the Christian world. 119

      116 (return) [ As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against
      Constantius, (see the Epistle to the Monks,) at the same time
      that he assured him of his profound respect, we might distrust
      the professions of the archbishop. Tom. i. p. 677.]

      117 (return) [ Notwithstanding the discreet silence of
      Athanasius, and the manifest forgery of a letter inserted by
      Socrates, these menaces are proved by the unquestionable evidence
      of Lucifer of Cagliari, and even of Constantius himself. See
      Tillemont, tom. viii. p. 693]

      118 (return) [ I have always entertained some doubts concerning
      the retraction of Ursacius and Valens, (Athanas. tom. i. p. 776.)
      Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome, and to Athanasius
      himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that they
      cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals
      who confess their guilt and infamy; the other of enemies, who
      solicit on equal terms an honorable reconciliation. * Note: I
      cannot quite comprehend the ground of Gibbon’s doubts. Athanasius
      distinctly asserts the fact of their retractation. (Athan. Op. i.
      p. 124, edit. Benedict.) The epistles are apparently translations
      from the Latin, if, in fact, more than the substance of the
      epistles. That to Athanasius is brief, almost abrupt. Their
      retractation is likewise mentioned in the address of the orthodox
      bishops of Rimini to Constantius. Athan. de Synodis, Op t. i. p
      723-M.]

      119 (return) [ The circumstances of his second return may be
      collected from Athanasius himself, tom. i. p. 769, and 822, 843.
      Socrates, l. ii. c. 18, Sozomen, l. iii. c. 19. Theodoret, l. ii.
      c. 11, 12. Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 12.]

      But the subject who has reduced his prince to the necessity of
      dissembling, can never expect a sincere and lasting forgiveness;
      and the tragic fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a
      powerful and generous protector. The civil war between the
      assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans, which
      afflicted the empire above three years, secured an interval of
      repose to the Catholic church; and the two contending parties
      were desirous to conciliate the friendship of a bishop, who, by
      the weight of his personal authority, might determine the
      fluctuating resolutions of an important province. He gave
      audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant, with whom he was
      afterwards accused of holding a secret correspondence; 120 and
      the emperor Constantius repeatedly assured his dearest father,
      the most reverend Athanasius, that, notwithstanding the malicious
      rumors which were circulated by their common enemies, he had
      inherited the sentiments, as well as the throne, of his deceased
      brother. 121 Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the
      primate of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans, and to
      abhor the guilt of Magnentius; but as he clearly understood that
      the apprehensions of Constantius were his only safeguard, the
      fervor of his prayers for the success of the righteous cause
      might perhaps be somewhat abated. The ruin of Athanasius was no
      longer contrived by the obscure malice of a few bigoted or angry
      bishops, who abused the authority of a credulous monarch. The
      monarch himself avowed the resolution, which he had so long
      suppressed, of avenging his private injuries; 122 and the first
      winter after his victory, which he passed at Arles, was employed
      against an enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of
      Gaul.

      120 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 677, 678) defends his
      innocence by pathetic complaints, solemn assertions, and specious
      arguments. He admits that letters had been forged in his name,
      but he requests that his own secretaries and those of the tyrant
      might be examined, whether those letters had been written by the
      former, or received by the latter.]

      121 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 825-844.]

      122 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 861. Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16.
      The emperor declared that he was more desirous to subdue
      Athanasius, than he had been to vanquish Magnentius or Sylvanus.]

      If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most
      eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order
      would have been executed without hesitation, by the ministers of
      open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay,
      the difficulty with which he proceeded in the condemnation and
      punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the
      privileges of the church had already revived a sense of order and
      freedom in the Roman government. The sentence which was
      pronounced in the synod of Tyre, and subscribed by a large
      majority of the Eastern bishops, had never been expressly
      repealed; and as Athanasius had been once degraded from his
      episcopal dignity by the judgment of his brethren, every
      subsequent act might be considered as irregular, and even
      criminal. But the memory of the firm and effectual support which
      the primate of Egypt had derived from the attachment of the
      Western church, engaged Constantius to suspend the execution of
      the sentence till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin
      bishops. Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations;
      and the important cause between the emperor and one of his
      subjects was solemnly debated, first in the synod of Arles, and
      afterwards in the great council of Milan, 123 which consisted of
      above three hundred bishops. Their integrity was gradually
      undermined by the arguments of the Arians, the dexterity of the
      eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations of a prince who gratified
      his revenge at the expense of his dignity, and exposed his own
      passions, whilst he influenced those of the clergy. Corruption,
      the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty, was
      successfully practised; honors, gifts, and immunities were
      offered and accepted as the price of an episcopal vote; 124 and
      the condemnation of the Alexandrian primate was artfully
      represented as the only measure which could restore the peace and
      union of the Catholic church. The friends of Athanasius were not,
      however, wanting to their leader, or to their cause. With a manly
      spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less
      dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private
      conference with the emperor, the eternal obligation of religion
      and justice. They declared, that neither the hope of his favor,
      nor the fear of his displeasure, should prevail on them to join
      in the condemnation of an absent, an innocent, a respectable
      brother. 125 They affirmed, with apparent reason, that the
      illegal and obsolete decrees of the council of Tyre had long
      since been tacitly abolished by the Imperial edicts, the
      honorable reestablishment of the archbishop of Alexandria, and
      the silence or recantation of his most clamorous adversaries.
      They alleged, that his innocence had been attested by the
      unanimous bishops of Egypt, and had been acknowledged in the
      councils of Rome and Sardica, 126 by the impartial judgment of
      the Latin church. They deplored the hard condition of Athanasius,
      who, after enjoying so many years his seat, his reputation, and
      the seeming confidence of his sovereign, was again called upon to
      confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations. Their
      language was specious; their conduct was honorable: but in this
      long and obstinate contest, which fixed the eyes of the whole
      empire on a single bishop, the ecclesiastical factions were
      prepared to sacrifice truth and justice to the more interesting
      object of defending or removing the intrepid champion of the
      Nicene faith. The Arians still thought it prudent to disguise, in
      ambiguous language, their real sentiments and designs; but the
      orthodox bishops, armed with the favor of the people, and the
      decrees of a general council, insisted on every occasion, and
      particularly at Milan, that their adversaries should purge
      themselves from the suspicion of heresy, before they presumed to
      arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius. 127

      123 (return) [ The affairs of the council of Milan are so
      imperfectly and erroneously related by the Greek writers, that we
      must rejoice in the supply of some letters of Eusebius, extracted
      by Baronius from the archives of the church of Vercellæ, and of
      an old life of Dionysius of Milan, published by Bollandus. See
      Baronius, A.D. 355, and Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 1415.]

      124 (return) [ The honors, presents, feasts, which seduced so
      many bishops, are mentioned with indignation by those who were
      too pure or too proud to accept them. “We combat (says Hilary of
      Poitiers) against Constantius the Antichrist; who strokes the
      belly instead of scourging the back;” qui non dorsa cædit; sed
      ventrem palpat. Hilarius contra Constant c. 5, p. 1240.]

      125 (return) [ Something of this opposition is mentioned by
      Ammianus (x. 7,) who had a very dark and superficial knowledge of
      ecclesiastical history. Liberius... perseveranter renitebatur,
      nec visum hominem, nec auditum damnare, nefas ultimum sæpe
      exclamans; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id
      enim ille Athanasio semper infestus, &c.]

      126 (return) [ More properly by the orthodox part of the council
      of Sardica. If the bishops of both parties had fairly voted, the
      division would have been 94 to 76. M. de Tillemont (see tom.
      viii. p. 1147-1158) is justly surprised that so small a majority
      should have proceeded as vigorously against their adversaries,
      the principal of whom they immediately deposed.]

      127 (return) [ Sulp. Severus in Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p. 412.]

      But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed on the side of
      Athanasius) was silenced by the clamors of a factious or venal
      majority; and the councils of Arles and Milan were not dissolved,
      till the archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly condemned and
      deposed by the judgment of the Western, as well as of the
      Eastern, church. The bishops who had opposed, were required to
      subscribe, the sentence, and to unite in religious communion with
      the suspected leaders of the adverse party. A formulary of
      consent was transmitted by the messengers of state to the absent
      bishops: and all those who refused to submit their private
      opinion to the public and inspired wisdom of the councils of
      Arles and Milan, were immediately banished by the emperor, who
      affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic church. Among
      those prelates who led the honorable band of confessors and
      exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, Paulinus of Treves,
      Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Vercellæ, Lucifer of Cagliari and
      Hilary of Poitiers, may deserve to be particularly distinguished.
      The eminent station of Liberius, who governed the capital of the
      empire; the personal merit and long experience of the venerable
      Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great Constantine,
      and the father of the Nicene faith, placed those prelates at the
      head of the Latin church: and their example, either of submission
      or resistance, would probable be imitated by the episcopal crowd.
      But the repeated attempts of the emperor to seduce or to
      intimidate the bishops of Rome and Cordova, were for some time
      ineffectual. The Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under
      Constantius, as he had suffered threescore years before under his
      grandfather Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his
      sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius and his own
      freedom. When he was banished to Beræa in Thrace, he sent back a
      large sum which had been offered for the accommodation of his
      journey; and insulted the court of Milan by the haughty remark,
      that the emperor and his eunuchs might want that gold to pay
      their soldiers and their bishops. 128 The resolution of Liberius
      and Osius was at length subdued by the hardships of exile and
      confinement. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some
      criminal compliances; and afterwards expiated his guilt by a
      seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were employed to
      extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit bishop of Cordova,
      whose strength was broken, and whose faculties were perhaps
      impaired by the weight of a hundred years; and the insolent
      triumph of the Arians provoked some of the orthodox party to
      treat with inhuman severity the character, or rather the memory,
      of an unfortunate old man, to whose former services Christianity
      itself was so deeply indebted. 129

      128 (return) [ The exile of Liberius is mentioned by Ammianus,
      xv. 7. See Theodoret, l. ii. c. 16. Athanas. tom. i. p. 834-837.
      Hilar. Fragment l.]

      129 (return) [ The life of Osius is collected by Tillemont, (tom.
      vii. p. 524-561,) who in the most extravagant terms first
      admires, and then reprobates, the bishop of Cordova. In the midst
      of their lamentations on his fall, the prudence of Athanasius may
      be distinguished from the blind and intemperate zeal of Hilary.]

      The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a brighter lustre on the
      firmness of those bishops who still adhered, with unshaken
      fidelity, to the cause of Athanasius and religious truth. The
      ingenious malice of their enemies had deprived them of the
      benefit of mutual comfort and advice, separated those illustrious
      exiles into distant provinces, and carefully selected the most
      inhospitable spots of a great empire. 130 Yet they soon
      experienced that the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous
      tracts of Cappadocia, were less inhospitable than the residence
      of those cities in which an Arian bishop could satiate, without
      restraint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. 131 Their
      consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude and
      independence, from the applause, the visits, the letters, and the
      liberal alms of their adherents, 132 and from the satisfaction
      which they soon enjoyed of observing the intestine divisions of
      the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such was the nice and
      capricious taste of the emperor Constantius; and so easily was he
      offended by the slightest deviation from his imaginary standard
      of Christian truth, that he persecuted, with equal zeal, those
      who defended the _consubstantiality_, those who asserted the
      _similar substance_, and those who denied the _likeness_ of the
      Son of God. Three bishops, degraded and banished for those
      adverse opinions, might possibly meet in the same place of exile;
      and, according to the difference of their temper, might either
      pity or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose
      present sufferings would never be compensated by future
      happiness.

      130 (return) [ The confessors of the West were successively
      banished to the deserts of Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places
      of Mount Taurus, the wildest parts of Phrygia, which were in the
      possession of the impious Montanists, &c. When the heretic Ætius
      was too favorably entertained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place
      of his exile was changed, by the advice of Acacius, to Amblada, a
      district inhabited by savages and infested by war and pestilence.
      Philostorg. l. v. c. 2.]

      131 (return) [ See the cruel treatment and strange obstinacy of
      Eusebius, in his own letters, published by Baronius, A.D. 356,
      No. 92-102.]

      132 (return) [ Cæterum exules satis constat, totius orbis studiis
      celebratos pecuniasque eis in sumptum affatim congestas,
      legationibus quoque plebis Catholicæ ex omnibus fere provinciis
      frequentatos. Sulp. Sever Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. tom. i.
      p. 836, 840.]

      The disgrace and exile of the orthodox bishops of the West were
      designed as so many preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius
      himself. 133 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, during which the
      Imperial court secretly labored, by the most insidious arts, to
      remove him from Alexandria, and to withdraw the allowance which
      supplied his popular liberality. But when the primate of Egypt,
      deserted and proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute
      of any foreign support, Constantius despatched two of his
      secretaries with a verbal commission to announce and execute the
      order of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was
      publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which could
      restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the sanction of a
      written mandate, must be imputed to his doubt of the event; and
      to a sense of the danger to which he might expose the second
      city, and the most fertile province, of the empire, if the people
      should persist in the resolution of defending, by force of arms,
      the innocence of their spiritual father. Such extreme caution
      afforded Athanasius a specious pretence respectfully to dispute
      the truth of an order, which he could not reconcile, either with
      the equity, or with the former declarations, of his gracious
      master. The civil powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to
      the task of persuading or compelling the primate to abdicate his
      episcopal throne; and they were obliged to conclude a treaty with
      the popular leaders of Alexandria, by which it was stipulated,
      that all proceedings and all hostilities should be suspended till
      the emperor’s pleasure had been more distinctly ascertained. By
      this seeming moderation, the Catholics were deceived into a false
      and fatal security; while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of
      Libya, advanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege,
      or rather to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and
      inflamed by religious zeal. 134 The position of Alexandria,
      between the sea and the Lake Mareotis, facilitated the approach
      and landing of the troops; who were introduced into the heart of
      the city, before any effectual measures could be taken either to
      shut the gates or to occupy the important posts of defence. At
      the hour of midnight, twenty-three days after the signature of
      the treaty, Syrianus, duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand
      soldiers, armed and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly
      invested the church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a
      part of his clergy and people, performed their nocturnal
      devotions. The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the
      impetuosity of the attack, which was accompanied with every
      horrid circumstance of tumult and bloodshed; but, as the bodies
      of the slain, and the fragments of military weapons, remained the
      next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession of the
      Catholics, the enterprise of Syrianus may be considered as a
      successful irruption rather than as an absolute conquest. The
      other churches of the city were profaned by similar outrages;
      and, during at least four months, Alexandria was exposed to the
      insults of a licentious army, stimulated by the ecclesiastics of
      a hostile faction. Many of the faithful were killed; who may
      deserve the name of martyrs, if their deaths were neither
      provoked nor revenged; bishops and presbyters were treated with
      cruel ignominy; consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged
      and violated; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered; and,
      under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and private
      resentment were gratified with impunity, and even with applause.
      The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and
      discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a bishop whom
      they feared and esteemed. The hopes of some peculiar favors, and
      the apprehension of being involved in the general penalties of
      rebellion, engaged them to promise their support to the destined
      successor of Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The
      usurper, after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was
      placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, who had
      been appointed Count of Egypt for the execution of that important
      design. In the use, as well as in the acquisition, of power, the
      tyrant, George disregarded the laws of religion, of justice, and
      of humanity; and the same scenes of violence and scandal which
      had been exhibited in the capital, were repeated in more than
      ninety episcopal cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success,
      Constantius ventured to approve the conduct of his minister. By a
      public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates the
      deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who deluded his
      blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence; expatiates on the
      virtues and piety of the most reverend George, the elected
      bishop; and aspires, as the patron and benefactor of the city to
      surpass the fame of Alexander himself. But he solemnly declares
      his unalterable resolution to pursue with fire and sword the
      seditious adherents of the wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from
      justice, has confessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious
      death which he had so often deserved. 135

      133 (return) [ Ample materials for the history of this third
      persecution of Athanasius may be found in his own works. See
      particularly his very able Apology to Constantius, (tom. i. p.
      673,) his first Apology for his flight (p. 701,) his prolix
      Epistle to the Solitaries, (p. 808,) and the original protest of
      the people of Alexandria against the violences committed by
      Syrianus, (p. 866.) Sozomen (l. iv. c. 9) has thrown into the
      narrative two or three luminous and important circumstances.]

      134 (return) [ Athanasius had lately sent for Antony, and some of
      his chosen monks. They descended from their mountains, announced
      to the Alexandrians the sanctity of Athanasius, and were
      honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the gates of the
      city. Athanas tom. ii. p. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii.
      164, in Vit. Patr. p. 524.]

      135 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 694. The emperor, or his Arian
      secretaries while they express their resentment, betray their
      fears and esteem of Athanasius.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part VI.


      Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most imminent dangers; and
      the adventures of that extraordinary man deserve and fix our
      attention. On the memorable night when the church of St. Theonas
      was invested by the troops of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on
      his throne, expected, with calm and intrepid dignity, the
      approach of death. While the public devotion was interrupted by
      shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated his trembling
      congregation to express their religious confidence, by chanting
      one of the psalms of David which celebrates the triumph of the
      God of Israel over the haughty and impious tyrant of Egypt. The
      doors were at length burst open: a cloud of arrows was discharged
      among the people; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed
      forwards into the sanctuary; and the dreadful gleam of their arms
      was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the altar.
      136 Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of the monks
      and presbyters, who were attached to his person; and nobly
      refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had dismissed in
      safety the last of the congregation. The darkness and tumult of
      the night favored the retreat of the archbishop; and though he
      was oppressed by the waves of an agitated multitude, though he
      was thrown to the ground, and left without sense or motion, he
      still recovered his undaunted courage, and eluded the eager
      search of the soldiers, who were instructed by their Arian
      guides, that the head of Athanasius would be the most acceptable
      present to the emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt
      disappeared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six
      years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. 137

      136 (return) [ These minute circumstances are curious, as they
      are literally transcribed from the protest, which was publicly
      presented three days afterwards by the Catholics of Alexandria.
      See Athanas. tom. l. n. 867]

      137 (return) [ The Jansenists have often compared Athanasius and
      Arnauld, and have expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal,
      the merit and exile, of those celebrated doctors. This concealed
      parallel is very dexterously managed by the Abbé de la Bleterie,
      Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 130.]

      The despotic power of his implacable enemy filled the whole
      extent of the Roman world; and the exasperated monarch had
      endeavored, by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes
      of Ethiopia, 13711 to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and
      sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, præfects, tribunes,
      whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a bishop and a
      fugitive; the vigilance of the civil and military powers was
      excited by the Imperial edicts; liberal rewards were promised to
      the man who should produce Athanasius, either alive or dead; and
      the most severe penalties were denounced against those who should
      dare to protect the public enemy. 138 But the deserts of Thebais
      were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, who
      preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of their
      sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and Pachonnus
      received the fugitive primate as their father, admired the
      patience and humility with which he conformed to their strictest
      institutions, collected every word which dropped from his lips as
      the genuine effusions of inspired wisdom; and persuaded
      themselves that their prayers, their fasts, and their vigils,
      were less meritorious than the zeal which they expressed, and the
      dangers which they braved, in the defence of truth and innocence.
      139 The monasteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate
      places, on the summit of mountains, or in the islands of the
      Nile; and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the
      well-known signal which assembled several thousand robust and
      determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the peasants
      of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats were invaded by
      a military force, which it was impossible to resist, they
      silently stretched out their necks to the executioner; and
      supported their national character, that tortures could never
      wrest from an Egyptian the confession of a secret which he was
      resolved not to disclose. 140 The archbishop of Alexandria, for
      whose safety they eagerly devoted their lives, was lost among a
      uniform and well-disciplined multitude; and on the nearer
      approach of danger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious
      hands, from one place of concealment to another, till he reached
      the formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous temper of
      superstition had peopled with dæmons and savage monsters. The
      retirement of Athanasius, which ended only with the life of
      Constantius, was spent, for the most part, in the society of the
      monks, who faithfully served him as guards, as secretaries, and
      as messengers; but the importance of maintaining a more intimate
      connection with the Catholic party tempted him, whenever the
      diligence of the pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert,
      to introduce himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to
      the discretion of his friends and adherents. His various
      adventures might have furnished the subject of a very
      entertaining romance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern,
      which he had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the
      treachery of a female slave; 141 and he was once concealed in a
      still more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only
      twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole city for
      her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as she related the
      story many years afterwards, she was surprised by the appearance
      of the archbishop in a loose undress, who, advancing with hasty
      steps, conjured her to afford him the protection which he had
      been directed by a celestial vision to seek under her hospitable
      roof. The pious maid accepted and preserved the sacred pledge
      which was intrusted to her prudence and courage. Without
      imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted
      Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over his
      safety with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity of a
      servant. As long as the danger continued, she regularly supplied
      him with books and provisions, washed his feet, managed his
      correspondence, and dexterously concealed from the eye of
      suspicion this familiar and solitary intercourse between a saint
      whose character required the most unblemished chastity, and a
      female whose charms might excite the most dangerous emotions. 142
      During the six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius
      repeated his visits to his fair and faithful companion; and the
      formal declaration, that he _saw_ the councils of Rimini and
      Seleucia, 143 forces us to believe that he was secretly present
      at the time and place of their convocation. The advantage of
      personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing and
      improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, in a
      prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enterprise: and
      Alexandria was connected by trade and navigation with every
      seaport of the Mediterranean. From the depth of his inaccessible
      retreat the intrepid primate waged an incessant and offensive war
      against the protector of the Arians; and his seasonable writings,
      which were diligently circulated and eagerly perused, contributed
      to unite and animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies,
      which he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected
      the praise of moderation; whilst at the same time, in secret and
      vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak and wicked
      prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of the
      republic, and the Antichrist of the church. In the height of his
      prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised the
      rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of Sylvanus, who
      had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio, and vanquished in
      the field the legions of Magnentius, received from an invisible
      hand a wound, which he could neither heal nor revenge; and the
      son of Constantine was the first of the Christian princes who
      experienced the strength of those principles, which, in the cause
      of religion, could resist the most violent exertions 144 of the
      civil power.

      13711 (return) [ These princes were called Aeizanas and
      Saiazanas. Athanasius calls them the kings of Axum. In the
      superscription of his letter, Constantius gives them no title.
      Mr. Salt, during his first journey in Ethiopia, (in 1806,)
      discovered, in the ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting
      inscription relating to these princes. It was erected to
      commemorate the victory of Aeizanas over the Bougaitæ, (St.
      Martin considers them the Blemmyes, whose true name is Bedjah or
      Bodjah.) Aeizanas is styled king of the Axumites, the Homerites,
      of Raeidan, of the Ethiopians, of the Sabsuites, of Silea, of
      Tiamo, of the Bougaites, and of Kaei. It appears that at this
      time the king of the Ethiopians ruled over the Homerites, the
      inhabitants of Yemen. He was not yet a Christian, as he calls
      himself son of the invincible Mars. Another brother besides
      Saiazanas, named Adephas, is mentioned, though Aeizanas seems to
      have been sole king. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, ii. 151.
      Salt’s Travels. De Sacy, note in Annales des Voyages, xii. p.
      53.—M.]

      138 (return) [ Hinc jam toto orbe profugus Athanasius, nec ullus
      ci tutus ad latendum supererat locus. Tribuni, Præfecti, Comites,
      exercitus quoque ad pervestigandum cum moventur edictis
      Imperialibus; præmia dela toribus proponuntur, si quis eum vivum,
      si id minus, caput certe Atha casii detulisset. Rufin. l. i. c.
      16.]

      139 (return) [ Gregor. Nazianzen. tom. i. Orat. xxi. p. 384, 385.
      See Tillemont Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 176-410, 820-830.]

      140 (return) [ Et nulla tormentorum vis inveneri, adhuc potuit,
      quæ obdurato illius tractus latroni invito elicere potuit, ut
      nomen proprium dicat Ammian. xxii. 16, and Valesius ad locum.]

      141 (return) [ Rufin. l. i. c. 18. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 10. This
      and the following story will be rendered impossible, if we
      suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum which he
      accidentally or occasionally had used.]

      142 (return) [ Paladius, (Hist. Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum,
      p. 776,) the original author of this anecdote, had conversed with
      the damsel, who in her old age still remembered with pleasure so
      pious and honorable a connection. I cannot indulge the delicacy
      of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c., who almost reject a story
      so unworthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of ecclesiastical
      history.]

      143 (return) [ Athanas. tom. i. p. 869. I agree with Tillemont,
      (tom. iii. p. 1197,) that his expressions imply a personal,
      though perhaps secret visit to the synods.]

      144 (return) [ The epistle of Athanasius to the monks is filled
      with reproaches, which the public must feel to be true, (vol. i.
      p. 834, 856;) and, in compliment to his readers, he has
      introduced the comparisons of Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c. The
      boldness of Hilary was attended with less danger, if he published
      his invective in Gaul after the revolt of Julian; but Lucifer
      sent his libels to Constantius, and almost challenged the reward
      of martyrdom. See Tillemont, tom. vii. p. 905.]

      The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many respectable
      bishops, who suffered for the truth of their opinions, or at
      least for the integrity of their conscience, was a just subject
      of indignation and discontent to all Christians, except those who
      were blindly devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted
      the loss of their faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually
      followed by the intrusion of a stranger 145 into the episcopal
      chair; and loudly complained, that the right of election was
      violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary
      usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles were
      suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world, that they were
      not involved in the guilt and heresy of their ecclesiastical
      governor, by publicly testifying their dissent, or by totally
      separating themselves from his communion. The first of these
      methods was invented at Antioch, and practised with such success,
      that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The doxology
      or sacred hymn, which celebrates the _glory_ of the Trinity, is
      susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections; and the
      substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, may be
      expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a copulative,
      particle. Alternate responses, and a more regular psalmody, 146
      were introduced into the public service by Flavianus and
      Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, who were attached to the
      Nicene faith. Under their conduct a swarm of monks issued from
      the adjacent desert, bands of well-disciplined singers were
      stationed in the cathedral of Antioch, the Glory to the Father,
      And the Son, And the Holy Ghost, 147 was triumphantly chanted by
      a full chorus of voices; and the Catholics insulted, by the
      purity of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the
      throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which inspired
      their songs prompted the more scrupulous members of the orthodox
      party to form separate assemblies, which were governed by the
      presbyters, till the death of their exiled bishop allowed the
      election and consecration of a new episcopal pastor. 148 The
      revolutions of the court multiplied the number of pretenders; and
      the same city was often disputed, under the reign of Constantius,
      by two, or three, or even four, bishops, who exercised their
      spiritual jurisdiction over their respective followers, and
      alternately lost and regained the temporal possessions of the
      church. The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman
      government new causes of tyranny and sedition; the bands of civil
      society were torn asunder by the fury of religious factions; and
      the obscure citizen, who might calmly have surveyed the elevation
      and fall of successive emperors, imagined and experienced, that
      his own life and fortune were connected with the interests of a
      popular ecclesiastic. The example of the two capitals, Rome and
      Constantinople, may serve to represent the state of the empire,
      and the temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of
      Constantine.

      145 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 811) complains in general
      of this practice, which he afterwards exemplifies (p. 861) in the
      pretended election of Fælix. Three eunuchs represented the Roman
      people, and three prelates, who followed the court, assumed the
      functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces.]

      146 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. i. l. ii.
      c. 72, 73, p. 966-984) has collected many curious facts
      concerning the origin and progress of church singing, both in the
      East and West. * Note: Arius appears to have been the first who
      availed himself of this means of impressing his doctrines on the
      popular ear: he composed songs for sailors, millers, and
      travellers, and set them to common airs; “beguiling the ignorant,
      by the sweetness of his music, into the impiety of his
      doctrines.” Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian singers used to parade
      the streets of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom arrayed
      against them a band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. 8.—M.]

      147 (return) [ Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 13. Godefroy has
      examined this subject with singular accuracy, (p. 147, &c.) There
      were three heterodox forms: “To the Father _by_ the Son, _and_ in
      the Holy Ghost.” “To the Father, _and_ the Son _in_ the Holy
      Ghost;” and “To the Father _in_ the Son _and_ the Holy Ghost.”]

      148 (return) [ After the exile of Eustathius, under the reign of
      Constantine, the rigid party of the orthodox formed a separation
      which afterwards degenerated into a schism, and lasted about
      fourscore years. See Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 35-54,
      1137-1158, tom. viii. p. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches,
      the Arians and Homoousians, who had renounced each other’s
      _communion_, continued for some time to join in prayer.
      Philostorgius, l. iii. c. 14.]

      I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he maintained his station and
      his principles, was guarded by the warm attachment of a great
      people; and could reject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and
      the oblations of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had
      secretly pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded
      apprehension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost
      precautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was
      invested on every side, and the præfect was commanded to seize
      the person of the bishop, either by stratagem or by open force.
      The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the greatest difficulty,
      at the hour of midnight, was swiftly conveyed beyond the reach of
      the Roman people, before their consternation was turned into
      rage. As soon as they were informed of his banishment into
      Thrace, a general assembly was convened, and the clergy of Rome
      bound themselves, by a public and solemn oath, never to desert
      their bishop, never to acknowledge the usurper Fælix; who, by the
      influence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and
      consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the end of
      two years, their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and unshaken;
      and when Constantius visited Rome, he was assailed by the
      importunate solicitations of a people, who had preserved, as the
      last remnant of their ancient freedom, the right of treating
      their sovereign with familiar insolence. The wives of many of the
      senators and most honorable citizens, after pressing their
      husbands to intercede in favor of Liberius, were advised to
      undertake a commission, which in their hands would be less
      dangerous, and might prove more successful. The emperor received
      with politeness these female deputies, whose wealth and dignity
      were displayed in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments:
      he admired their inflexible resolution of following their beloved
      pastor to the most distant regions of the earth; and consented
      that the two bishops, Liberius and Fælix, should govern in peace
      their respective congregations. But the ideas of toleration were
      so repugnant to the practice, and even to the sentiments, of
      those times, that when the answer of Constantius was publicly
      read in the Circus of Rome, so reasonable a project of
      accommodation was rejected with contempt and ridicule. The eager
      vehemence which animated the spectators in the decisive moment of
      a horse-race, was now directed towards a different object; and
      the Circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who repeatedly
      exclaimed, “One God, One Christ, One Bishop!” The zeal of the
      Roman people in the cause of Liberius was not confined to words
      alone; and the dangerous and bloody sedition which they excited
      soon after the departure of Constantius determined that prince to
      accept the submission of the exiled prelate, and to restore him
      to the undivided dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual
      resistance, his rival was expelled from the city by the
      permission of the emperor and the power of the opposite faction;
      the adherents of Fælix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in
      the public places, in the baths, and even in the churches; and
      the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, renewed
      the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and the
      proscriptions of Sylla. 149

      149 (return) [ See, on this ecclesiastical revolution of Rome,
      Ammianus, xv. 7 Athanas. tom. i. p. 834, 861. Sozomen, l. iv. c.
      15. Theodoret, l. ii c. 17. Sulp. Sever. Hist. Sacra, l. ii. p.
      413. Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin. Libell. p. 3, 4.
      Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p.]

      II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of Christians under the
      reign of the Flavian family, Rome, Alexandria, and the other
      great cities of the empire, still contained a strong and powerful
      faction of Infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who
      ridiculed, even in their theatres, the theological disputes of
      the church. Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being
      born and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the
      East had never been polluted by the worship of idols; and the
      whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the opinions, the
      virtues, and the passions, which distinguished the Christians of
      that age from the rest of mankind. After the death of Alexander,
      the episcopal throne was disputed by Paul and Macedonius. By
      their zeal and abilities they both deserved the eminent station
      to which they aspired; and if the moral character of Macedonius
      was less exceptionable, his competitor had the advantage of a
      prior election and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment
      to the Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar
      among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment of the
      Arians. In the space of fourteen years he was five times driven
      from his throne; to which he was more frequently restored by the
      violence of the people, than by the permission of the prince; and
      the power of Macedonius could be secured only by the death of his
      rival. The unfortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy
      deserts of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount
      Taurus, 150 confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six days
      without food, and at length strangled, by the order of Philip,
      one of the principal ministers of the emperor Constantius. 151
      The first blood which stained the new capital was spilt in this
      ecclesiastical contest; and many persons were slain on both
      sides, in the furious and obstinate seditions of the people. The
      commission of enforcing a sentence of banishment against Paul had
      been intrusted to Hermogenes, the master-general of the cavalry;
      but the execution of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose
      in the defence of their bishop; the palace of Hermogenes was
      consumed; the first military officer of the empire was dragged by
      the heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he
      expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton insults.
      152 The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the Prætorian
      præfect, to act with more precaution on a similar occasion. In
      the most gentle and honorable terms, he required the attendance
      of Paul in the baths of Xeuxippus, which had a private
      communication with the palace and the sea. A vessel, which lay
      ready at the garden stairs, immediately hoisted sail; and, while
      the people were still ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their
      bishop was already embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They
      soon beheld, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the
      palace thrown open, and the usurper Macedonius seated by the side
      of the præfect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded by troops
      of guards with drawn swords. The military procession advanced
      towards the cathedral; the Arians and the Catholics eagerly
      rushed to occupy that important post; and three thousand one
      hundred and fifty persons lost their lives in the confusion of
      the tumult. Macedonius, who was supported by a regular force,
      obtained a decisive victory; but his reign was disturbed by
      clamor and sedition; and the causes which appeared the least
      connected with the subject of dispute, were sufficient to nourish
      and to kindle the flame of civil discord. As the chapel in which
      the body of the great Constantine had been deposited was in a
      ruinous condition, the bishop transported those venerable remains
      into the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious
      measure was represented as a wicked profanation by the whole
      party which adhered to the Homoousian doctrine. The factions
      immediately flew to arms, the consecrated ground was used as
      their field of battle; and one of the ecclesiastical historians
      has observed, as a real fact, not as a figure of rhetoric, that
      the well before the church overflowed with a stream of blood,
      which filled the porticos and the adjacent courts. The writer who
      should impute these tumults solely to a religious principle,
      would betray a very imperfect knowledge of human nature; yet it
      must be confessed that the motive which misled the sincerity of
      zeal, and the pretence which disguised the licentiousness of
      passion, suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, would
      have succeeded to the rage of the Christians at Constantinople.
      153

      150 (return) [ Cucusus was the last stage of his life and
      sufferings. The situation of that lonely town, on the confines of
      Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has occasioned some
      geographical perplexity; but we are directed to the true spot by
      the course of the Roman road from Cæsarea to Anazarbus. See
      Cellarii Geograph. tom. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad Itinerar. p.
      179, 703.]

      151 (return) [ Athanasius (tom. i. p. 703, 813, 814) affirms, in
      the most positive terms, that Paul was murdered; and appeals, not
      only to common fame, but even to the unsuspicious testimony of
      Philagrius, one of the Arian persecutors. Yet he acknowledges
      that the heretics attributed to disease the death of the bishop
      of Constantinople. Athanasius is servilely copied by Socrates,
      (l. ii. c. 26;) but Sozomen, who discovers a more liberal temper.
      presumes (l. iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent doubt.]

      152 (return) [ Ammianus (xiv. 10) refers to his own account of
      this tragic event. But we no longer possess that part of his
      history. Note: The murder of Hermogenes took place at the first
      expulsion of Paul from the see of Constantinople.—M.]

      153 (return) [ See Socrates, l. ii. c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26,
      27, 38, and Sozomen, l. iii. 3, 4, 7, 9, l. iv. c. ii. 21. The
      acts of St. Paul of Constantinople, of which Photius has made an
      abstract, (Phot. Bibliot. p. 1419-1430,) are an indifferent copy
      of these historians; but a modern Greek, who could write the life
      of a saint without adding fables and miracles, is entitled to
      some commendation.]




      Chapter XXI: Persecution Of Heresy, State Of The Church.—Part
      VII.


      The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constantius, which did not
      always require the provocations of guilt and resistance, was
      justly exasperated by the tumults of his capital, and the
      criminal behavior of a faction, which opposed the authority and
      religion of their sovereign. The ordinary punishments of death,
      exile, and confiscation, were inflicted with partial vigor; and
      the Greeks still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a reader,
      and a sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes,
      and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict of
      Constantius against the Catholics which has not been judged
      worthy of a place in the Theodosian code, those who refused to
      communicate with the Arian bishops, and particularly with
      Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of ecclesiastics, and
      of the rights of Christians; they were compelled to relinquish
      the possession of the churches; and were strictly prohibited from
      holding their assemblies within the walls of the city. The
      execution of this unjust law, in the provinces of Thrace and Asia
      Minor, was committed to the zeal of Macedonius; the civil and
      military powers were directed to obey his commands; and the
      cruelties exercised by this Semi- Arian tyrant in the support of
      the _Homoiousion_, exceeded the commission, and disgraced the
      reign, of Constantius. The sacraments of the church were
      administered to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation,
      and abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites of baptism
      were conferred on women and children, who, for that purpose, had
      been torn from the arms of their friends and parents; the mouths
      of the communicants were held open by a wooden engine, while the
      consecrated bread was forced down their throat; the breasts of
      tender virgins were either burnt with red-hot egg-shells, or
      inhumanly compressed betweens harp and heavy boards. 154 The
      Novatians of Constantinople and the adjacent country, by their
      firm attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be
      confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius was
      informed, that a large district of Paphlagonia 155 was almost
      entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved either to
      convert or to extirpate them; and as he distrusted, on this
      occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he commanded
      a body of four thousand legionaries to march against the rebels,
      and to reduce the territory of Mantinium under his spiritual
      dominion. The Novatian peasants, animated by despair and
      religious fury, boldly encountered the invaders of their country;
      and though many of the Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman
      legions were vanquished by an irregular multitude, armed only
      with scythes and axes; and, except a few who escaped by an
      ignominious flight, four thousand soldiers were left dead on the
      field of battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed, in a
      concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities
      which afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in the
      reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, and of
      those of his eunuchs: “Many were imprisoned, and persecuted, and
      driven into exile. Whole troops of those who are styled heretics,
      were massacred, particularly at Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In
      Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and in many other provinces,
      towns and villages were laid waste, and utterly destroyed.” 156

      154 (return) [ Socrates, l. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, l. iv. c. 21.
      The principal assistants of Macedonius, in the work of
      persecution, were the two bishops of Nicomedia and Cyzicus, who
      were esteemed for their virtues, and especially for their
      charity. I cannot forbear reminding the reader, that the
      difference between the _Homoousion_ and _Homoiousion_, is almost
      invisible to the nicest theological eye.]

      155 (return) [ We are ignorant of the precise situation of
      Mantinium. In speaking of these four bands of legionaries,
      Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of St. Paul, use
      the indefinite terms of, which Nicephorus very properly
      translates thousands. Vales. ad Socrat. l. ii. c. 38.]

      156 (return) [ Julian. Epist. lii. p. 436, edit. Spanheim.]

      While the flames of the Arian controversy consumed the vitals of
      the empire, the African provinces were infested by their peculiar
      enemies, the savage fanatics, who, under the name of
      _Circumcellions_, formed the strength and scandal of the Donatist
      party. 157 The severe execution of the laws of Constantine had
      excited a spirit of discontent and resistance, the strenuous
      efforts of his son Constans, to restore the unity of the church,
      exasperated the sentiments of mutual hatred, which had first
      occasioned the separation; and the methods of force and
      corruption employed by the two Imperial commissioners, Paul and
      Macarius, furnished the schismatics with a specious contrast
      between the maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their
      pretended successors. 158 The peasants who inhabited the villages
      of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been
      imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws; who
      were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith; but who were
      actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their
      Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported the exile of their
      bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption
      of their secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of
      justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was
      sometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood of some
      popular ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel,
      inflamed their rude followers with an eager desire of revenging
      the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and
      rashness, the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their
      fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the
      criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their native
      villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs on
      the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits
      of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated
      by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of
      the sect. The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of
      captains of the saints; their principal weapon, as they were
      indifferently provided with swords and spears, was a huge and
      weighty club, which they termed an _Israelite;_ and the
      well-known sound of “Praise be to God,” which they used as their
      cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of
      Africa. At first their depredations were colored by the plea of
      necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence,
      indulged without control their intemperance and avarice, burnt
      the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious
      tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and
      the administration of justice, were interrupted; and as the
      Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of
      mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a
      secure asylum for the slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds
      to their holy standard. When they were not resisted, they usually
      contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition
      provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and some Catholic
      priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured
      by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The
      spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their
      defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the
      troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they
      attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an
      advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were
      taken in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same
      treatment which might have been shown to the wild beasts of the
      desert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the sword,
      the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were
      multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of
      rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the
      beginning of the present century, the example of the
      Circumcellions has been renewed in the persecution, the boldness,
      the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the Camisards; and if the
      fanatics of Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by their
      military achievements, the Africans maintained their fierce
      independence with more resolution and perseverance. 159

      157 (return) [ See Optatus Milevitanus, (particularly iii. 4,)
      with the Donatis history, by M. Dupin, and the original pieces at
      the end of his edition. The numerous circumstances which Augustin
      has mentioned, of the fury of the Circumcellions against others,
      and against themselves, have been laboriously collected by
      Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 147-165; and he has often,
      though without design, exposed injuries which had provoked those
      fanatics.]

      158 (return) [ It is amusing enough to observe the language of
      opposite parties, when they speak of the same men and things.
      Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the acclamations of an
      orthodox synod, “Gratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu... qui
      imperavit religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret
      unitatis, et mitteret ministros sancti operis _famulos Dei_
      Paulum et Macarium.” Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313.
      “Ecce subito,” (says the Donatist author of the Passion of
      Marculus), “de Constantis regif tyrannica domo.. pollutum
      Macarianæ persecutionis murmur increpuit, et _duabus bestiis_ ad
      Africam missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum
      prorsus ac dirum ecclesiæ certamen indictum est; ut populus
      Christianus ad unionem cum traditoribus faciendam, nudatis
      militum gladiis et draconum præsentibus signis, et tubarum
      vocibus cogeretur.” Monument. p. 304.]

      159 (return) [ The Histoire des Camisards, in 3 vols. 12mo.
      Villefranche, 1760 may be recommended as accurate and impartial.
      It requires some attention to discover the religion of the
      author.]

      Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but
      the rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very
      extraordinary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them
      in so extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any
      country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were possessed with
      the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom; and they deemed
      it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they
      perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the intention of
      devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope
      of eternal happiness. 160 Sometimes they rudely disturbed the
      festivals, and profaned the temples of Paganism, with the design
      of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the
      insulted honor of their gods. They sometimes forced their way
      into the courts of justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to
      give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently
      stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to
      inflict the stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if
      they consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they
      refused to grant so very singular a favor. When they were
      disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on
      which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they should
      cast themselves headlong from some lofty rock; and many
      precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by the number of
      religious suicides. In the actions of these desperate
      enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God,
      and abhorred by the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial
      philosopher may discover the influence and the last abuse of that
      inflexible spirit which was originally derived from the character
      and principles of the Jewish nation.

      160 (return) [ The Donatist suicides alleged in their
      justification the example of Razias, which is related in the 14th
      chapter of the second book of the Maccabees.]

      The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, which distracted
      the peace, and dishonored the triumph, of the church, will
      confirm the remark of a Pagan historian, and justify the
      complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus had
      convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians towards each
      other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts against man; 161 and
      Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of
      heaven was converted, by discord, into the image of chaos, of a
      nocturnal tempest, and of hell itself. 162 The fierce and partial
      writers of the times, ascribing _all_ virtue to themselves, and
      imputing _all_ guilt to their adversaries, have painted the
      battle of the angels and dæmons. Our calmer reason will reject
      such pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will
      impute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good
      and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed the
      appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in
      the same religion and the same civil society. Their hopes and
      fears in the present, or in a future life, were balanced in the
      same proportion. On either side, the error might be innocent, the
      faith sincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their
      passions were excited by similar objects; and they might
      alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of the people. The
      metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians and the Arians could not
      influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by
      the intolerant spirit which has been extracted from the pure and
      simple maxims of the gospel.

      161 (return) [ Nullus infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi
      ferales plerique Christianorum, expertus. Ammian. xxii. 5.]

      162 (return) [ Gregor, Nazianzen, Orav. i. p. 33. See Tillemont,
      tom vi. p. 501, qua to edit.]

      A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, has prefixed to his
      own history the honorable epithets of political and
      philosophical, 163 accuses the timid prudence of Montesquieu, for
      neglecting to enumerate, among the causes of the decline of the
      empire, a law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the Pagan
      worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part of his
      subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and of any
      public religion. The zeal of the philosophic historian for the
      rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce in the ambiguous
      testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have too lightly ascribed
      to their favorite hero the _merit_ of a general persecution. 164
      Instead of alleging this imaginary law, which would have blazed
      in the front of the Imperial codes, we may safely appeal to the
      original epistle, which Constantine addressed to the followers of
      the ancient religion; at a time when he no longer disguised his
      conversion, nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and
      exhorts, in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman
      empire to imitate the example of their master; but he declares,
      that those who still refuse to open their eyes to the celestial
      light, may freely enjoy their temples and their fancied gods. A
      report, that the ceremonies of paganism were suppressed, is
      formally contradicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns,
      as the principle of his moderation, the invincible force of
      habit, of prejudice, and of superstition. 165 Without violating
      the sanctity of his promise, without alarming the fears of the
      Pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow and cautious steps,
      to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of polytheism. The
      partial acts of severity which he occasionally exercised, though
      they were secretly promoted by a Christian zeal, were colored by
      the fairest pretences of justice and the public good; and while
      Constantine designed to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform
      the abuses, of the ancient religion. After the example of the
      wisest of his predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous
      penalties, the occult and impious arts of divination; which
      excited the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of
      those who were discontented with their present condition. An
      ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had been
      publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood; the effeminate priests
      of the Nile were abolished; and Constantine discharged the duties
      of a Roman censor, when he gave orders for the demolition of
      several temples of Phœnicia; in which every mode of prostitution
      was devoutly practised in the face of day, and to the honor of
      Venus. 166 The Imperial city of Constantinople was, in some
      measure, raised at the expense, and was adorned with the spoils,
      of the opulent temples of Greece and Asia; the sacred property
      was confiscated; the statues of gods and heroes were transported,
      with rude familiarity, among a people who considered them as
      objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity; the gold and silver
      were restored to circulation; and the magistrates, the bishops,
      and the eunuchs, improved the fortunate occasion of gratifying,
      at once, their zeal, their avarice, and their resentment. But
      these depredations were confined to a small part of the Roman
      world; and the provinces had been long since accustomed to endure
      the same sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes and
      proconsuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert
      the established religion. 167

      163 (return) [ Histoire Politique et Philosophique des
      Etablissemens des Europeens dans les deux Indes, tom. i. p. 9.]

      164 (return) [ According to Eusebius, (in Vit. Constantin. l. ii.
      c. 45,) the emperor prohibited, both in cities and in the
      country, the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. l Socrates (l.
      i. c. 17) and Sozomen (l. ii. c. 4, 5) have represented the
      conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth and history;
      which has been neglected by Theodoret (l. v. c. 21) and Orosius,
      (vii. 28.) Tum deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus
      _justo_ ordine et _pio_ vicem vertit edicto; siquidem statuit
      citra ullam hominum cædem, paganorum templa claudi.]

      165 (return) [ See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. ii. c. 56, 60.
      In the sermon to the assembly of saints, which the emperor
      pronounced when he was mature in years and piety, he declares to
      the idolaters (c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer
      sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious
      worship.]

      166 (return) [ See Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c.
      54-58, and l. iv. c. 23, 25. These acts of authority may be
      compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and the
      demolition of the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan
      Rome.]

      167 (return) [ Eusebius (in Vit. Constan. l. iii. c. 54-58) and
      Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 9, 10, edit. Gothofred) both
      mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, which they viewed in
      very different lights. The latter expressly declares, that “he
      made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal
      worship; the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred
      rites were performed there.” Lardner’s Jewish and Heathen
      Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 140.]

      The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps of their father,
      with more zeal, and with less discretion. The pretences of rapine
      and oppression were insensibly multiplied; 168 every indulgence
      was shown to the illegal behavior of the Christians; every doubt
      was explained to the disadvantage of Paganism; and the demolition
      of the temples was celebrated as one of the auspicious events of
      the reign of Constans and Constantius. 169 The name of
      Constantius is prefixed to a concise law, which might have
      superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions. “It is our
      pleasure, that in all places, and in all cities, the temples be
      immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may have the
      power of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our
      subjects should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be
      guilty of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and
      after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the
      public use. We denounce the same penalties against the governors
      of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the criminals.” 170
      But there is the strongest reason to believe, that this
      formidable edict was either composed without being published, or
      was published without being executed. The evidence of facts, and
      the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble,
      continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during
      the whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well
      as in the West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great
      number of temples were respected, or at least were spared; and
      the devout multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of
      festivals, and of processions, by the permission, or by the
      connivance, of the civil government. About four years after the
      supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the
      temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is recommended
      by a pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation of
      succeeding princes. “That emperor,” says Symmachus, “suffered the
      privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestowed
      the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted the
      customary allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites
      and sacrifices; and, though he had embraced a different religion,
      he never attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of
      antiquity.” 171 The senate still presumed to consecrate, by
      solemn decrees, the _divine_ memory of their sovereigns; and
      Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to those
      gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. The
      title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which
      had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were
      accepted, without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors; who
      were invested with a more absolute authority over the religion
      which they had deserted, than over that which they professed. 172

      168 (return) [ Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs
      who were spoliis templorum pasti. Libanius says (Orat. pro Templ.
      p. 23) that the emperor often gave away a temple, like a dog, or
      a horse, or a slave, or a gold cup; but the devout philosopher
      takes care to observe that these sacrilegious favorites very
      seldom prospered.]

      169 (return) [ See Gothofred. Cod. Theodos. tom. vi. p. 262.
      Liban. Orat. Parental c. x. in Fabric. Bibl. Græc. tom. vii. p.
      235.]

      170 (return) [ Placuit omnibus locis atque urbibus universis
      claudi protinus empla, et accessu vetitis omnibus licentiam
      delinquendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam cunctos a
      sacrificiis abstinere. Quod siquis aliquid forte hujusmodi
      perpetraverit, gladio sternatur: facultates etiam perempti fisco
      decernimus vindicari: et similiter adfligi rectores provinciarum
      si facinora vindicare neglexerint. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x.
      leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date
      of this extravagant law; the only one, perhaps, by which the
      negligence of magistrates is punished by death and confiscation.
      M. de la Bastie (Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xv. p. 98) conjectures,
      with a show of reason, that this was no more than the minutes of
      a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were found in
      Scriniis Memoriæ among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards
      inserted, as a worthy model, in the Theodosian Code.]

      171 (return) [ Symmach. Epistol. x. 54.]

      172 (return) [ The fourth Dissertation of M. de la Bastie, sur le
      Souverain Pontificat des Empereurs Romains, (in the Mém. de
      l’Acad. tom. xv. p. 75- 144,) is a very learned and judicious
      performance, which explains the state, and prove the toleration,
      of Paganism from Constantino to Gratian. The assertion of
      Zosimus, that Gratian was the first who refused the pontifical
      robe, is confirmed beyond a doubt; and the murmurs of bigotry on
      that subject are almost silenced.]

      The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of _Paganism;_
      173 and the holy war against the infidels was less vigorously
      prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were more immediately
      alarmed by the guilt and danger of domestic rebellion. The
      extirpation of _idolatry_ 174 might have been justified by the
      established principles of intolerance: but the hostile sects,
      which alternately reigned in the Imperial court were mutually
      apprehensive of alienating, and perhaps exasperating, the minds
      of a powerful, though declining faction. Every motive of
      authority and fashion, of interest and reason, now militated on
      the side of Christianity; but two or three generations elapsed,
      before their victorious influence was universally felt. The
      religion which had so long and so lately been established in the
      Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less
      attached indeed to speculative opinion, than to ancient custom.
      The honors of the state and army were indifferently bestowed on
      all the subjects of Constantine and Constantius; and a
      considerable portion of knowledge and wealth and valor was still
      engaged in the service of polytheism. The superstition of the
      senator and of the peasant, of the poet and the philosopher, was
      derived from very different causes, but they met with equal
      devotion in the temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly
      provoked by the insulting triumph of a proscribed sect; and their
      hopes were revived by the well-grounded confidence, that the
      presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant hero, who had
      delivered Gaul from the arms of the Barbarians, had secretly
      embraced the religion of his ancestors.

      173 (return) [ As I have freely anticipated the use of _pagans_
      and _paganism_, I shall now trace the singular revolutions of
      those celebrated words. 1. in the Doric dialect, so familiar to
      the Italians, signifies a fountain; and the rural neighborhood,
      which frequented the same fountain, derived the common
      appellation of _pagus_ and _pagans_. (Festus sub voce, and
      Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. By an easy extension of
      the word, pagan and rural became almost synonymous, (Plin. Hist.
      Natur. xxviii. 5;) and the meaner rustics acquired that name,
      which has been corrupted into _peasants_ in the modern languages
      of Europe. 3. The amazing increase of the military order
      introduced the necessity of a correlative term, (Hume’s Essays,
      vol. i. p. 555;) and all the _people_ who were not enlisted in
      the service of the prince were branded with the contemptuous
      epithets of pagans. (Tacit. Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal.
      Satir. 16. Tertullian de Pallio, c. 4.) 4. The Christians were
      the soldiers of Christ; their adversaries, who refused his
      _sacrament_, or military oath of baptism might deserve the
      metaphorical name of pagans; and this popular reproach was
      introduced as early as the reign of Valentinian (A. D. 365) into
      Imperial laws (Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 18) and
      theological writings. 5. Christianity gradually filled the cities
      of the empire: the old religion, in the time of Prudentius
      (advers. Symmachum, l. i. ad fin.) and Orosius, (in Præfat.
      Hist.,) retired and languished in obscure villages; and the word
      _pagans_, with its new signification, reverted to its primitive
      origin. 6. Since the worship of Jupiter and his family has
      expired, the vacant title of pagans has been successively applied
      to all the idolaters and polytheists of the old and new world. 7.
      The Latin Christians bestowed it, without scruple, on their
      mortal enemies, the Mahometans; and the purest _Unitarians_ were
      branded with the unjust reproach of idolatry and paganism. See
      Gerard Vossius, Etymologicon Linguæ Latinæ, in his works, tom. i.
      p. 420; Godefroy’s Commentary on the Theodosian Code, tom. vi. p.
      250; and Ducange, Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitat. Glossar.]

      174 (return) [ In the pure language of Ionia and Athens were
      ancient and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness, an
      apparition (Homer. Odys. xi. 601,) a representation, an _image_,
      created either by fancy or art. The latter denoted any sort of
      _service_ or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated the
      Hebrew Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx.
      4, 5) to the religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of
      the Hellenists, or Grecian Jews, has been adopted by the sacred
      and ecclesiastical writers and the reproach of _idolatry_ has
      stigmatized that visible and abject mode of superstition, which
      some sects of Christianity should not hastily impute to the
      polytheists of Greece and Rome.]




      Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part I.

     Julian Is Declared Emperor By The Legions Of Gaul.—His March And
     Success.—The Death Of Constantius.—Civil Administration Of Julian.


      While the Romans languished under the ignominious tyranny of
      eunuchs and bishops, the praises of Julian were repeated with
      transport in every part of the empire, except in the palace of
      Constantius. The barbarians of Germany had felt, and still
      dreaded, the arms of the young Cæsar; his soldiers were the
      companions of his victory; the grateful provincials enjoyed the
      blessings of his reign; but the favorites, who had opposed his
      elevation, were offended by his virtues; and they justly
      considered the friend of the people as the enemy of the court. As
      long as the fame of Julian was doubtful, the buffoons of the
      palace, who were skilled in the language of satire, tried the
      efficacy of those arts which they had so often practised with
      success. They easily discovered, that his simplicity was not
      exempt from affectation: the ridiculous epithets of a hairy
      savage, of an ape invested with the purple, were applied to the
      dress and person of the philosophic warrior; and his modest
      despatches were stigmatized as the vain and elaborate fictions of
      a loquacious Greek, a speculative soldier, who had studied the
      art of war amidst the groves of the academy. 1 The voice of
      malicious folly was at length silenced by the shouts of victory;
      the conqueror of the Franks and Alemanni could no longer be
      painted as an object of contempt; and the monarch himself was
      meanly ambitious of stealing from his lieutenant the honorable
      reward of his labors. In the letters crowned with laurel, which,
      according to ancient custom, were addressed to the provinces, the
      name of Julian was omitted. “Constantius had made his
      dispositions in person; _he_ had signalized his valor in the
      foremost ranks; _his_ military conduct had secured the victory;
      and the captive king of the barbarians was presented to _him_ on
      the field of battle,” from which he was at that time distant
      about forty days’ journey. 2 So extravagant a fable was
      incapable, however, of deceiving the public credulity, or even of
      satisfying the pride of the emperor himself. Secretly conscious
      that the applause and favor of the Romans accompanied the rising
      fortunes of Julian, his discontented mind was prepared to receive
      the subtle poison of those artful sycophants, who colored their
      mischievous designs with the fairest appearances of truth and
      candor. 3 Instead of depreciating the merits of Julian, they
      acknowledged, and even exaggerated, his popular fame, superior
      talents, and important services. But they darkly insinuated, that
      the virtues of the Cæsar might instantly be converted into the
      most dangerous crimes, if the inconstant multitude should prefer
      their inclinations to their duty; or if the general of a
      victorious army should be tempted from his allegiance by the
      hopes of revenge and independent greatness. The personal fears of
      Constantius were interpreted by his council as a laudable anxiety
      for the public safety; whilst in private, and perhaps in his own
      breast, he disguised, under the less odious appellation of fear,
      the sentiments of hatred and envy, which he had secretly
      conceived for the inimitable virtues of Julian.

      1 (return) [ Omnes qui plus poterant in palatio, adulandi
      professores jam docti, recte consulta, prospereque completa
      vertebant in deridiculum: talia sine modo strepentes insulse; in
      odium venit cum victoriis suis; capella, non homo; ut hirsutum
      Julianum carpentes, appellantesque loquacem talpam, et purpuratam
      simiam, et litterionem Græcum: et his congruentia plurima atque
      vernacula principi resonantes, audire hæc taliaque gestienti,
      virtutes ejus obruere verbis impudentibus conabantur, et segnem
      incessentes et timidum et umbratilem, gestaque secus verbis
      comptioribus exornantem. Ammianus, s. xvii. 11. * Note: The
      philosophers retaliated on the courtiers. Marius (says Eunapius
      in a newly-discovered fragment) was wont to call his antagonist
      Sylla a beast half lion and half fox. Constantius had nothing of
      the lion, but was surrounded by a whole litter of foxes. Mai.
      Script. Byz. Nov. Col. ii. 238. Niebuhr. Byzant. Hist. 66.—M.]

      2 (return) [ Ammian. xvi. 12. The orator Themistius (iv. p. 56,
      57) believed whatever was contained in the Imperial letters,
      which were addressed to the senate of Constantinople Aurelius
      Victor, who published his Abridgment in the last year of
      Constantius, ascribes the German victories to the _wisdom_ of the
      emperor, and the _fortune_ of the Cæsar. Yet the historian, soon
      afterwards, was indebted to the favor or esteem of Julian for the
      honor of a brass statue, and the important offices of consular of
      the second Pannonia, and præfect of the city, Ammian. xxi. 10.]

      3 (return) [ Callido nocendi artificio, accusatoriam diritatem
      laudum titulis peragebant. .. Hæ voces fuerunt ad inflammanda
      odia probria omnibus potentiores. See Mamertin, in Actione
      Gratiarum in Vet Panegyr. xi. 5, 6.]

      The apparent tranquillity of Gaul, and the imminent danger of the
      eastern provinces, offered a specious pretence for the design
      which was artfully concerted by the Imperial ministers. They
      resolved to disarm the Cæsar; to recall those faithful troops who
      guarded his person and dignity; and to employ, in a distant war
      against the Persian monarch, the hardy veterans who had
      vanquished, on the banks of the Rhine, the fiercest nations of
      Germany. While Julian used the laborious hours of his winter
      quarters at Paris in the administration of power, which, in his
      hands, was the exercise of virtue, he was surprised by the hasty
      arrival of a tribune and a notary, with positive orders, from the
      emperor, which _they_ were directed to execute, and _he_ was
      commanded not to oppose. Constantius signified his pleasure, that
      four entire legions, the Celtæ, and Petulants, the Heruli, and
      the Batavians, should be separated from the standard of Julian,
      under which they had acquired their fame and discipline; that in
      each of the remaining bands three hundred of the bravest youths
      should be selected; and that this numerous detachment, the
      strength of the Gallic army, should instantly begin their march,
      and exert their utmost diligence to arrive, before the opening of
      the campaign, on the frontiers of Persia. 4 The Cæsar foresaw and
      lamented the consequences of this fatal mandate. Most of the
      auxiliaries, who engaged their voluntary service, had stipulated,
      that they should never be obliged to pass the Alps. The public
      faith of Rome, and the personal honor of Julian, had been pledged
      for the observance of this condition. Such an act of treachery
      and oppression would destroy the confidence, and excite the
      resentment, of the independent warriors of Germany, who
      considered truth as the noblest of their virtues, and freedom as
      the most valuable of their possessions. The legionaries, who
      enjoyed the title and privileges of Romans, were enlisted for the
      general defence of the republic; but those mercenary troops heard
      with cold indifference the antiquated names of the republic and
      of Rome. Attached, either from birth or long habit, to the
      climate and manners of Gaul, they loved and admired Julian; they
      despised, and perhaps hated, the emperor; they dreaded the
      laborious march, the Persian arrows, and the burning deserts of
      Asia. They claimed as their own the country which they had saved;
      and excused their want of spirit, by pleading the sacred and more
      immediate duty of protecting their families and friends.

      The apprehensions of the Gauls were derived from the knowledge of
      the impending and inevitable danger. As soon as the provinces
      were exhausted of their military strength, the Germans would
      violate a treaty which had been imposed on their fears; and
      notwithstanding the abilities and valor of Julian, the general of
      a nominal army, to whom the public calamities would be imputed,
      must find himself, after a vain resistance, either a prisoner in
      the camp of the barbarians, or a criminal in the palace of
      Constantius. If Julian complied with the orders which he had
      received, he subscribed his own destruction, and that of a people
      who deserved his affection. But a positive refusal was an act of
      rebellion, and a declaration of war. The inexorable jealousy of
      the emperor, the peremptory, and perhaps insidious, nature of his
      commands, left not any room for a fair apology, or candid
      interpretation; and the dependent station of the Cæsar scarcely
      allowed him to pause or to deliberate. Solitude increased the
      perplexity of Julian; he could no longer apply to the faithful
      counsels of Sallust, who had been removed from his office by the
      judicious malice of the eunuchs: he could not even enforce his
      representations by the concurrence of the ministers, who would
      have been afraid or ashamed to approve the ruin of Gaul. The
      moment had been chosen, when Lupicinus, 5 the general of the
      cavalry, was despatched into Britain, to repulse the inroads of
      the Scots and Picts; and Florentius was occupied at Vienna by the
      assessment of the tribute. The latter, a crafty and corrupt
      statesman, declining to assume a responsible part on this
      dangerous occasion, eluded the pressing and repeated invitations
      of Julian, who represented to him, that in every important
      measure, the presence of the præfect was indispensable in the
      council of the prince. In the mean while the Cæsar was oppressed
      by the rude and importunate solicitations of the Imperial
      messengers, who presumed to suggest, that if he expected the
      return of his ministers, he would charge himself with the guilt
      of the delay, and reserve for them the merit of the execution.
      Unable to resist, unwilling to comply, Julian expressed, in the
      most serious terms, his wish, and even his intention, of
      resigning the purple, which he could not preserve with honor, but
      which he could not abdicate with safety.

      4 (return) [ The minute interval, which may be interposed,
      between the _hyeme adultâ_ and the _primo vere_ of Ammianus, (xx.
      l. 4,) instead of allowing a sufficient space for a march of
      three thousand miles, would render the orders of Constantius as
      extravagant as they were unjust. The troops of Gaul could not
      have reached Syria till the end of autumn. The memory of Ammianus
      must have been inaccurate, and his language incorrect. * Note:
      The late editor of Ammianus attempts to vindicate his author from
      the charge of inaccuracy. “It is clear, from the whole course of
      the narrative, that Constantius entertained this design of
      demanding his troops from Julian, immediately after the taking of
      Amida, in the autumn of the preceding year, and had transmitted
      his orders into Gaul, before it was known that Lupicinus had gone
      into Britain with the Herulians and Batavians.” Wagner, note to
      Amm. xx. 4. But it seems also clear that the troops were in
      winter quarters (hiemabant) when the orders arrived. Ammianus can
      scarcely be acquitted of incorrectness in his language at
      least.—M]

      5 (return) [ Ammianus, xx. l. The valor of Lupicinus, and his
      military skill, are acknowledged by the historian, who, in his
      affected language, accuses the general of exalting the horns of
      his pride, bellowing in a tragic tone, and exciting a doubt
      whether he was more cruel or avaricious. The danger from the
      Scots and Picts was so serious that Julian himself had some
      thoughts of passing over into the island.]

      After a painful conflict, Julian was compelled to acknowledge,
      that obedience was the virtue of the most eminent subject, and
      that the sovereign alone was entitled to judge of the public
      welfare. He issued the necessary orders for carrying into
      execution the commands of Constantius; a part of the troops began
      their march for the Alps; and the detachments from the several
      garrisons moved towards their respective places of assembly. They
      advanced with difficulty through the trembling and affrighted
      crowds of provincials, who attempted to excite their pity by
      silent despair, or loud lamentations, while the wives of the
      soldiers, holding their infants in their arms, accused the
      desertion of their husbands, in the mixed language of grief, of
      tenderness, and of indignation. This scene of general distress
      afflicted the humanity of the Cæsar; he granted a sufficient
      number of post-wagons to transport the wives and families of the
      soldiers, 6 endeavored to alleviate the hardships which he was
      constrained to inflict, and increased, by the most laudable arts,
      his own popularity, and the discontent of the exiled troops. The
      grief of an armed multitude is soon converted into rage; their
      licentious murmurs, which every hour were communicated from tent
      to tent with more boldness and effect, prepared their minds for
      the most daring acts of sedition; and by the connivance of their
      tribunes, a seasonable libel was secretly dispersed, which
      painted in lively colors the disgrace of the Cæsar, the
      oppression of the Gallic army, and the feeble vices of the tyrant
      of Asia. The servants of Constantius were astonished and alarmed
      by the progress of this dangerous spirit. They pressed the Cæsar
      to hasten the departure of the troops; but they imprudently
      rejected the honest and judicious advice of Julian; who proposed
      that they should not march through Paris, and suggested the
      danger and temptation of a last interview.

      6 (return) [ He granted them the permission of the _cursus
      clavularis_, or _clabularis_. These post-wagons are often
      mentioned in the Code, and were supposed to carry fifteen hundred
      pounds weight. See Vales. ad Ammian. xx. 4.]

      As soon as the approach of the troops was announced, the Cæsar
      went out to meet them, and ascended his tribunal, which had been
      erected in a plain before the gates of the city. After
      distinguishing the officers and soldiers, who by their rank or
      merit deserved a peculiar attention, Julian addressed himself in
      a studied oration to the surrounding multitude: he celebrated
      their exploits with grateful applause; encouraged them to accept,
      with alacrity, the honor of serving under the eye of a powerful
      and liberal monarch; and admonished them, that the commands of
      Augustus required an instant and cheerful obedience. The
      soldiers, who were apprehensive of offending their general by an
      indecent clamor, or of belying their sentiments by false and
      venal acclamations, maintained an obstinate silence; and after a
      short pause, were dismissed to their quarters. The principal
      officers were entertained by the Cæsar, who professed, in the
      warmest language of friendship, his desire and his inability to
      reward, according to their deserts, the brave companions of his
      victories. They retired from the feast, full of grief and
      perplexity; and lamented the hardship of their fate, which tore
      them from their beloved general and their native country. The
      only expedient which could prevent their separation was boldly
      agitated and approved; the popular resentment was insensibly
      moulded into a regular conspiracy; their just reasons of
      complaint were heightened by passion, and their passions were
      inflamed by wine; as, on the eve of their departure, the troops
      were indulged in licentious festivity. At the hour of midnight,
      the impetuous multitude, with swords, and bows, and torches in
      their hands, rushed into the suburbs; encompassed the palace; 7
      and, careless of future dangers, pronounced the fatal and
      irrevocable words, Julian Augustus! The prince, whose anxious
      suspense was interrupted by their disorderly acclamations,
      secured the doors against their intrusion; and as long as it was
      in his power, secluded his person and dignity from the accidents
      of a nocturnal tumult. At the dawn of day, the soldiers, whose
      zeal was irritated by opposition, forcibly entered the palace,
      seized, with respectful violence, the object of their choice,
      guarded Julian with drawn swords through the streets of Paris,
      placed him on the tribunal, and with repeated shouts saluted him
      as their emperor. Prudence, as well as loyalty, inculcated the
      propriety of resisting their treasonable designs; and of
      preparing, for his oppressed virtue, the excuse of violence.
      Addressing himself by turns to the multitude and to individuals,
      he sometimes implored their mercy, and sometimes expressed his
      indignation; conjured them not to sully the fame of their
      immortal victories; and ventured to promise, that if they would
      immediately return to their allegiance, he would undertake to
      obtain from the emperor not only a free and gracious pardon, but
      even the revocation of the orders which had excited their
      resentment. But the soldiers, who were conscious of their guilt,
      chose rather to depend on the gratitude of Julian, than on the
      clemency of the emperor. Their zeal was insensibly turned into
      impatience, and their impatience into rage. The inflexible Cæsar
      sustained, till the third hour of the day, their prayers, their
      reproaches, and their menaces; nor did he yield, till he had been
      repeatedly assured, that if he wished to live, he must consent to
      reign. He was exalted on a shield in the presence, and amidst the
      unanimous acclamations, of the troops; a rich military collar,
      which was offered by chance, supplied the want of a diadem; 8 the
      ceremony was concluded by the promise of a moderate donative; and
      the new emperor, overwhelmed with real or affected grief retired
      into the most secret recesses of his apartment. 10

      7 (return) [ Most probably the palace of the baths,
      (_Thermarum_,) of which a solid and lofty hall still subsists in
      the _Rue de la Harpe_. The buildings covered a considerable space
      of the modern quarter of the university; and the gardens, under
      the Merovingian kings, communicated with the abbey of St. Germain
      des Prez. By the injuries of time and the Normans, this ancient
      palace was reduced, in the twelfth century, to a maze of ruins,
      whose dark recesses were the scene of licentious love.

     Explicat aula sinus montemque amplectitur alis; Multiplici latebra
     scelerum tersura ruborem. .... pereuntis sæpe pudoris Celatura
     nefas, Venerisque accommoda furtis.

      (These lines are quoted from the Architrenius, l. iv. c. 8, a
      poetical work of John de Hauteville, or Hanville, a monk of St.
      Alban’s, about the year 1190. See Warton’s History of English
      Poetry, vol. i. dissert. ii.) Yet such _thefts_ might be less
      pernicious to mankind than the theological disputes of the
      Sorbonne, which have been since agitated on the same ground.
      Bonamy, Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xv. p. 678-632]

      8 (return) [ Even in this tumultuous moment, Julian attended to
      the forms of superstitious ceremony, and obstinately refused the
      inauspicious use of a female necklace, or a horse collar, which
      the impatient soldiers would have employed in the room of a
      diadem. ----An equal proportion of gold and silver, five pieces
      of the former one pound of the latter; the whole amounting to
      about five pounds ten shillings of our money.]

      10 (return) [ For the whole narrative of this revolt, we may
      appeal to authentic and original materials; Julian himself, (ad
      S. P. Q. Atheniensem, p. 282, 283, 284,) Libanius, (Orat.
      Parental. c. 44-48, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p.
      269-273,) Ammianus, (xx. 4,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 151, 152,
      153.) who, in the reign of Julian, appears to follow the more
      respectable authority of Eunapius. With such guides we _might_
      neglect the abbreviators and ecclesiastical historians.]

      The grief of Julian could proceed only from his innocence; out
      his innocence must appear extremely doubtful 11 in the eyes of
      those who have learned to suspect the motives and the professions
      of princes. His lively and active mind was susceptible of the
      various impressions of hope and fear, of gratitude and revenge,
      of duty and of ambition, of the love of fame, and of the fear of
      reproach. But it is impossible for us to calculate the respective
      weight and operation of these sentiments; or to ascertain the
      principles of action which might escape the observation, while
      they guided, or rather impelled, the steps of Julian himself. The
      discontent of the troops was produced by the malice of his
      enemies; their tumult was the natural effect of interest and of
      passion; and if Julian had tried to conceal a deep design under
      the appearances of chance, he must have employed the most
      consummate artifice without necessity, and probably without
      success. He solemnly declares, in the presence of Jupiter, of the
      Sun, of Mars, of Minerva, and of all the other deities, that till
      the close of the evening which preceded his elevation, he was
      utterly ignorant of the designs of the soldiers; 12 and it may
      seem ungenerous to distrust the honor of a hero and the truth of
      a philosopher. Yet the superstitious confidence that Constantius
      was the enemy, and that he himself was the favorite, of the gods,
      might prompt him to desire, to solicit, and even to hasten the
      auspicious moment of his reign, which was predestined to restore
      the ancient religion of mankind. When Julian had received the
      intelligence of the conspiracy, he resigned himself to a short
      slumber; and afterwards related to his friends that he had seen
      the genius of the empire waiting with some impatience at his
      door, pressing for admittance, and reproaching his want of spirit
      and ambition. 13 Astonished and perplexed, he addressed his
      prayers to the great Jupiter, who immediately signified, by a
      clear and manifest omen, that he should submit to the will of
      heaven and of the army. The conduct which disclaims the ordinary
      maxims of reason, excites our suspicion and eludes our inquiry.
      Whenever the spirit of fanaticism, at once so credulous and so
      crafty, has insinuated itself into a noble mind, it insensibly
      corrodes the vital principles of virtue and veracity.

      11 (return) [ Eutropius, a respectable witness, uses a doubtful
      expression, “consensu militum.” (x. 15.) Gregory Nazianzen, whose
      ignorance night excuse his fanaticism, directly charges the
      apostate with presumption, madness, and impious rebellion, Orat.
      iii. p. 67.]

      12 (return) [ Julian. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 284. The _devout_
      Abbé de la Bleterie (Vie de Julien, p. 159) is almost inclined to
      respect the _devout_ protestations of a Pagan.]

      13 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 5, with the note of Lindenbrogius on
      the Genius of the empire. Julian himself, in a confidential
      letter to his friend and physician, Oribasius, (Epist. xvii. p.
      384,) mentions another dream, to which, before the event, he gave
      credit; of a stately tree thrown to the ground, of a small plant
      striking a deep root into the earth. Even in his sleep, the mind
      of the Cæsar must have been agitated by the hopes and fears of
      his fortune. Zosimus (l. iii. p. 155) relates a subsequent
      dream.]

      To moderate the zeal of his party, to protect the persons of his
      enemies, 14 to defeat and to despise the secret enterprises which
      were formed against his life and dignity, were the cares which
      employed the first days of the reign of the new emperor. Although
      he was firmly resolved to maintain the station which he had
      assumed, he was still desirous of saving his country from the
      calamities of civil war, of declining a contest with the superior
      forces of Constantius, and of preserving his own character from
      the reproach of perfidy and ingratitude. Adorned with the ensigns
      of military and imperial pomp, Julian showed himself in the field
      of Mars to the soldiers, who glowed with ardent enthusiasm in the
      cause of their pupil, their leader, and their friend. He
      recapitulated their victories, lamented their sufferings,
      applauded their resolution, animated their hopes, and checked
      their impetuosity; nor did he dismiss the assembly, till he had
      obtained a solemn promise from the troops, that if the emperor of
      the East would subscribe an equitable treaty, they would renounce
      any views of conquest, and satisfy themselves with the tranquil
      possession of the Gallic provinces. On this foundation he
      composed, in his own name, and in that of the army, a specious
      and moderate epistle, 15 which was delivered to Pentadius, his
      master of the offices, and to his chamberlain Eutherius; two
      ambassadors whom he appointed to receive the answer, and observe
      the dispositions of Constantius. This epistle is inscribed with
      the modest appellation of Cæsar; but Julian solicits in a
      peremptory, though respectful, manner, the confirmation of the
      title of Augustus. He acknowledges the irregularity of his own
      election, while he justifies, in some measure, the resentment and
      violence of the troops which had extorted his reluctant consent.
      He allows the supremacy of his brother Constantius; and engages
      to send him an annual present of Spanish horses, to recruit his
      army with a select number of barbarian youths, and to accept from
      his choice a Prætorian præfect of approved discretion and
      fidelity. But he reserves for himself the nomination of his other
      civil and military officers, with the troops, the revenue, and
      the sovereignty of the provinces beyond the Alps. He admonishes
      the emperor to consult the dictates of justice; to distrust the
      arts of those venal flatterers, who subsist only by the discord
      of princes; and to embrace the offer of a fair and honorable
      treaty, equally advantageous to the republic and to the house of
      Constantine. In this negotiation Julian claimed no more than he
      already possessed. The delegated authority which he had long
      exercised over the provinces of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, was
      still obeyed under a name more independent and august. The
      soldiers and the people rejoiced in a revolution which was not
      stained even with the blood of the guilty. Florentius was a
      fugitive; Lupicinus a prisoner. The persons who were disaffected
      to the new government were disarmed and secured; and the vacant
      offices were distributed, according to the recommendation of
      merit, by a prince who despised the intrigues of the palace, and
      the clamors of the soldiers. 16

      14 (return) [ The difficult situation of the prince of a
      rebellious army is finely described by Tacitus, (Hist. 1, 80-85.)
      But Otho had much more guilt, and much less abilities, than
      Julian.]

      15 (return) [ To this ostensible epistle he added, says Ammianus,
      private letters, objurgatorias et mordaces, which the historian
      had not seen, and would not have published. Perhaps they never
      existed.]

      16 (return) [ See the first transactions of his reign, in Julian.
      ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 285, 286. Ammianus, xx. 5, 8. Liban. Orat.
      Parent. c. 49, 50, p. 273-275.]

      The negotiations of peace were accompanied and supported by the
      most vigorous preparations for war. The army, which Julian held
      in readiness for immediate action, was recruited and augmented by
      the disorders of the times. The cruel persecutions of the faction
      of Magnentius had filled Gaul with numerous bands of outlaws and
      robbers. They cheerfully accepted the offer of a general pardon
      from a prince whom they could trust, submitted to the restraints
      of military discipline, and retained only their implacable hatred
      to the person and government of Constantius. 17 As soon as the
      season of the year permitted Julian to take the field, he
      appeared at the head of his legions; threw a bridge over the
      Rhine in the neighborhood of Cleves; and prepared to chastise the
      perfidy of the Attuarii, a tribe of Franks, who presumed that
      they might ravage, with impunity, the frontiers of a divided
      empire. The difficulty, as well as glory, of this enterprise,
      consisted in a laborious march; and Julian had conquered, as soon
      as he could penetrate into a country, which former princes had
      considered as inaccessible. After he had given peace to the
      Barbarians, the emperor carefully visited the fortifications
      along the Qhine from Cleves to Basil; surveyed, with peculiar
      attention, the territories which he had recovered from the hands
      of the Alemanni, passed through Besançon, 18 which had severely
      suffered from their fury, and fixed his headquarters at Vienna
      for the ensuing winter. The barrier of Gaul was improved and
      strengthened with additional fortifications; and Julian
      entertained some hopes that the Germans, whom he had so often
      vanquished, might, in his absence, be restrained by the terror of
      his name. Vadomair 19 was the only prince of the Alemanni whom he
      esteemed or feared and while the subtle Barbarian affected to
      observe the faith of treaties, the progress of his arms
      threatened the state with an unseasonable and dangerous war. The
      policy of Julian condescended to surprise the prince of the
      Alemanni by his own arts: and Vadomair, who, in the character of
      a friend, had incautiously accepted an invitation from the Roman
      governors, was seized in the midst of the entertainment, and sent
      away prisoner into the heart of Spain. Before the Barbarians were
      recovered from their amazement, the emperor appeared in arms on
      the banks of the Rhine, and, once more crossing the river,
      renewed the deep impressions of terror and respect which had been
      already made by four preceding expeditions. 20

      17 (return) [ Liban. Orat. Parent. c. 50, p. 275, 276. A strange
      disorder, since it continued above seven years. In the factions
      of the Greek republics, the exiles amounted to 20,000 persons;
      and Isocrates assures Philip, that it would be easier to raise an
      army from the vagabonds than from the cities. See Hume’s Essays,
      tom. i. p. 426, 427.]

      18 (return) [ Julian (Epist. xxxviii. p. 414) gives a short
      description of Vesontio, or Besançon; a rocky peninsula almost
      encircled by the River Doux; once a magnificent city, filled with
      temples, &c., now reduced to a small town, emerging, however,
      from its ruins.]

      19 (return) [ Vadomair entered into the Roman service, and was
      promoted from a barbarian kingdom to the military rank of duke of
      Phœnicia. He still retained the same artful character, (Ammian.
      xxi. 4;) but under the reign of Valens, he signalized his valor
      in the Armenian war, (xxix. 1.)]

      20 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 10, xxi. 3, 4. Zosimus, l. iii. p.
      155.]




      Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part II.


      The ambassadors of Julian had been instructed to execute, with
      the utmost diligence, their important commission. But, in their
      passage through Italy and Illyricum, they were detained by the
      tedious and affected delays of the provincial governors; they
      were conducted by slow journeys from Constantinople to Cæsarea in
      Cappadocia; and when at length they were admitted to the presence
      of Constantius, they found that he had already conceived, from
      the despatches of his own officers, the most unfavorable opinion
      of the conduct of Julian, and of the Gallic army. The letters
      were heard with impatience; the trembling messengers were
      dismissed with indignation and contempt; and the looks, gestures,
      the furious language of the monarch, expressed the disorder of
      his soul. The domestic connection, which might have reconciled
      the brother and the husband of Helena, was recently dissolved by
      the death of that princess, whose pregnancy had been several
      times fruitless, and was at last fatal to herself. 21 The empress
      Eusebia had preserved, to the last moment of her life, the warm,
      and even jealous, affection which she had conceived for Julian;
      and her mild influence might have moderated the resentment of a
      prince, who, since her death, was abandoned to his own passions,
      and to the arts of his eunuchs. But the terror of a foreign
      invasion obliged him to suspend the punishment of a private
      enemy: he continued his march towards the confines of Persia, and
      thought it sufficient to signify the conditions which might
      entitle Julian and his guilty followers to the clemency of their
      offended sovereign. He required, that the presumptuous Cæsar
      should expressly renounce the appellation and rank of Augustus,
      which he had accepted from the rebels; that he should descend to
      his former station of a limited and dependent minister; that he
      should vest the powers of the state and army in the hands of
      those officers who were appointed by the Imperial court; and that
      he should trust his safety to the assurances of pardon, which
      were announced by Epictetus, a Gallic bishop, and one of the
      Arian favorites of Constantius. Several months were ineffectually
      consumed in a treaty which was negotiated at the distance of
      three thousand miles between Paris and Antioch; and, as soon as
      Julian perceived that his modest and respectful behavior served
      only to irritate the pride of an implacable adversary, he boldly
      resolved to commit his life and fortune to the chance of a civil
      war. He gave a public and military audience to the quæstor
      Leonas: the haughty epistle of Constantius was read to the
      attentive multitude; and Julian protested, with the most
      flattering deference, that he was ready to resign the title of
      Augustus, if he could obtain the consent of those whom he
      acknowledged as the authors of his elevation. The faint proposal
      was impetuously silenced; and the acclamations of “Julian
      Augustus, continue to reign, by the authority of the army, of the
      people, of the republic which you have saved,” thundered at once
      from every part of the field, and terrified the pale ambassador
      of Constantius. A part of the letter was afterwards read, in
      which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude of Julian, whom he
      had invested with the honors of the purple; whom he had educated
      with so much care and tenderness; whom he had preserved in his
      infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan.

      “An orphan!” interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by
      indulging his passions: “does the assassin of my family reproach
      me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those
      injuries which I have long studied to forget.” The assembly was
      dismissed; and Leonas, who, with some difficulty, had been
      protected from the popular fury, was sent back to his master with
      an epistle, in which Julian expressed, in a strain of the most
      vehement eloquence, the sentiments of contempt, of hatred, and of
      resentment, which had been suppressed and imbittered by the
      dissimulation of twenty years. After this message, which might be
      considered as a signal of irreconcilable war, Julian, who, some
      weeks before, had celebrated the Christian festival of the
      Epiphany, 22 made a public declaration that he committed the care
      of his safety to the Immortal Gods; and thus publicly renounced
      the religion as well as the friendship of Constantius. 23

      21 (return) [ Her remains were sent to Rome, and interred near
      those of her sister Constantina, in the suburb of the _Via
      Nomentana_. Ammian. xxi. 1. Libanius has composed a very weak
      apology, to justify his hero from a very absurd charge of
      poisoning his wife, and rewarding her physician with his mother’s
      jewels. (See the seventh of seventeen new orations, published at
      Venice, 1754, from a MS. in St. Mark’s Library, p. 117-127.)
      Elpidius, the Prætorian præfect of the East, to whose evidence
      the accuser of Julian appeals, is arraigned by Libanius, as
      _effeminate_ and ungrateful; yet the religion of Elpidius is
      praised by Jerom, (tom. i. p. 243,) and his Ammianus (xxi. 6.)]

      22 (return) [ Feriarum die quem celebrantes mense Januario,
      Christiani _Epiphania_ dictitant, progressus in eorum ecclesiam,
      solemniter numine orato discessit. Ammian. xxi. 2. Zonaras
      observes, that it was on Christmas day, and his assertion is not
      inconsistent; since the churches of Egypt, Asia, and perhaps
      Gaul, celebrated on the same day (the sixth of January) the
      nativity and the baptism of their Savior. The Romans, as ignorant
      as their brethren of the real date of his birth, fixed the solemn
      festival to the 25th of December, the _Brumalia_, or winter
      solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of the
      sun. See Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church, l. xx. c.
      4, and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheismo tom. ii. p.
      690-700.]

      23 (return) [ The public and secret negotiations between
      Constantius and Julian must be extracted, with some caution, from
      Julian himself. (Orat. ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286.) Libanius,
      (Orat. Parent. c. 51, p. 276,) Ammianus, (xx. 9,) Zosimus, (l.
      iii. p. 154,) and even Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 20, 21,
      22,) who, on this occasion, appears to have possessed and used
      some valuable materials.]

      The situation of Julian required a vigorous and immediate
      resolution. He had discovered, from intercepted letters, that his
      adversary, sacrificing the interest of the state to that of the
      monarch, had again excited the Barbarians to invade the provinces
      of the West. The position of two magazines, one of them collected
      on the banks of the Lake of Constance, the other formed at the
      foot of the Cottian Alps, seemed to indicate the march of two
      armies; and the size of those magazines, each of which consisted
      of six hundred thousand quarters of wheat, or rather flour, 24
      was a threatening evidence of the strength and numbers of the
      enemy who prepared to surround him. But the Imperial legions were
      still in their distant quarters of Asia; the Danube was feebly
      guarded; and if Julian could occupy, by a sudden incursion, the
      important provinces of Illyricum, he might expect that a people
      of soldiers would resort to his standard, and that the rich mines
      of gold and silver would contribute to the expenses of the civil
      war. He proposed this bold enterprise to the assembly of the
      soldiers; inspired them with a just confidence in their general,
      and in themselves; and exhorted them to maintain their reputation
      of being terrible to the enemy, moderate to their
      fellow-citizens, and obedient to their officers. His spirited
      discourse was received with the loudest acclamations, and the
      same troops which had taken up arms against Constantius, when he
      summoned them to leave Gaul, now declared with alacrity, that
      they would follow Julian to the farthest extremities of Europe or
      Asia. The oath of fidelity was administered; and the soldiers,
      clashing their shields, and pointing their drawn swords to their
      throats, devoted themselves, with horrid imprecations, to the
      service of a leader whom they celebrated as the deliverer of Gaul
      and the conqueror of the Germans. 25 This solemn engagement,
      which seemed to be dictated by affection rather than by duty, was
      singly opposed by Nebridius, who had been admitted to the office
      of Prætorian præfect. That faithful minister, alone and
      unassisted, asserted the rights of Constantius, in the midst of
      an armed and angry multitude, to whose fury he had almost fallen
      an honorable, but useless sacrifice. After losing one of his
      hands by the stroke of a sword, he embraced the knees of the
      prince whom he had offended. Julian covered the præfect with his
      Imperial mantle, and, protecting him from the zeal of his
      followers, dismissed him to his own house, with less respect than
      was perhaps due to the virtue of an enemy. 26 The high office of
      Nebridius was bestowed on Sallust; and the provinces of Gaul,
      which were now delivered from the intolerable oppression of
      taxes, enjoyed the mild and equitable administration of the
      friend of Julian, who was permitted to practise those virtues
      which he had instilled into the mind of his pupil. 27

      24 (return) [ Three hundred myriads, or three millions of
      _medimni_, a corn measure familiar to the Athenians, and which
      contained six Roman _modii_. Julian explains, like a soldier and
      a statesman, the danger of his situation, and the necessity and
      advantages of an offensive war, (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286,
      287.)]

      25 (return) [ See his oration, and the behavior of the troops, in
      Ammian. xxi. 5.]

      26 (return) [ He sternly refused his hand to the suppliant
      præfect, whom he sent into Tuscany. (Ammian. xxi. 5.) Libanius,
      with savage fury, insults Nebridius, applauds the soldiers, and
      almost censures the humanity of Julian. (Orat. Parent. c. 53, p.
      278.)]

      27 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 8. In this promotion, Julian obeyed
      the law which he publicly imposed on himself. Neque civilis
      quisquam judex nec militaris rector, alio quodam præter merita
      suffragante, ad potiorem veniat gradum. (Ammian. xx. 5.) Absence
      did not weaken his regard for Sallust, with whose name (A. D.
      363) he honored the consulship.]

      The hopes of Julian depended much less on the number of his
      troops, than on the celerity of his motions. In the execution of
      a daring enterprise, he availed himself of every precaution, as
      far as prudence could suggest; and where prudence could no longer
      accompany his steps, he trusted the event to valor and to
      fortune. In the neighborhood of Basil he assembled and divided
      his army. 28 One body, which consisted of ten thousand men, was
      directed under the command of Nevitta, general of the cavalry, to
      advance through the midland parts of Rhætia and Noricum. A
      similar division of troops, under the orders of Jovius and
      Jovinus, prepared to follow the oblique course of the highways,
      through the Alps, and the northern confines of Italy. The
      instructions to the generals were conceived with energy and
      precision: to hasten their march in close and compact columns,
      which, according to the disposition of the ground, might readily
      be changed into any order of battle; to secure themselves against
      the surprises of the night by strong posts and vigilant guards;
      to prevent resistance by their unexpected arrival; to elude
      examination by their sudden departure; to spread the opinion of
      their strength, and the terror of his name; and to join their
      sovereign under the walls of Sirmium. For himself Julian had
      reserved a more difficult and extraordinary part. He selected
      three thousand brave and active volunteers, resolved, like their
      leader, to cast behind them every hope of a retreat; at the head
      of this faithful band, he fearlessly plunged into the recesses of
      the Marcian, or Black Forest, which conceals the sources of the
      Danube; 29 and, for many days, the fate of Julian was unknown to
      the world. The secrecy of his march, his diligence, and vigor,
      surmounted every obstacle; he forced his way over mountains and
      morasses, occupied the bridges or swam the rivers, pursued his
      direct course, 30 without reflecting whether he traversed the
      territory of the Romans or of the Barbarians, and at length
      emerged, between Ratisbon and Vienna, at the place where he
      designed to embark his troops on the Danube. By a well-concerted
      stratagem, he seized a fleet of light brigantines, 31 as it lay
      at anchor; secured a apply of coarse provisions sufficient to
      satisfy the indelicate, and voracious, appetite of a Gallic army;
      and boldly committed himself to the stream of the Danube. The
      labors of the mariners, who plied their oars with incessant
      diligence, and the steady continuance of a favorable wind,
      carried his fleet above seven hundred miles in eleven days; 32
      and he had already disembarked his troops at Bononia, 3211 only
      nineteen miles from Sirmium, before his enemies could receive any
      certain intelligence that he had left the banks of the Rhine. In
      the course of this long and rapid navigation, the mind of Julian
      was fixed on the object of his enterprise; and though he accepted
      the deputations of some cities, which hastened to claim the merit
      of an early submission, he passed before the hostile stations,
      which were placed along the river, without indulging the
      temptation of signalizing a useless and ill-timed valor. The
      banks of the Danube were crowded on either side with spectators,
      who gazed on the military pomp, anticipated the importance of the
      event, and diffused through the adjacent country the fame of a
      young hero, who advanced with more than mortal speed at the head
      of the innumerable forces of the West. Lucilian, who, with the
      rank of general of the cavalry, commanded the military powers of
      Illyricum, was alarmed and perplexed by the doubtful reports,
      which he could neither reject nor believe. He had taken some slow
      and irresolute measures for the purpose of collecting his troops,
      when he was surprised by Dagalaiphus, an active officer, whom
      Julian, as soon as he landed at Bononia, had pushed forwards with
      some light infantry. The captive general, uncertain of his life
      or death, was hastily thrown upon a horse, and conducted to the
      presence of Julian; who kindly raised him from the ground, and
      dispelled the terror and amazement which seemed to stupefy his
      faculties. But Lucilian had no sooner recovered his spirits, than
      he betrayed his want of discretion, by presuming to admonish his
      conqueror that he had rashly ventured, with a handful of men, to
      expose his person in the midst of his enemies. “Reserve for your
      master Constantius these timid remonstrances,” replied Julian,
      with a smile of contempt: “when I gave you my purple to kiss, I
      received you not as a counsellor, but as a suppliant.” Conscious
      that success alone could justify his attempt, and that boldness
      only could command success, he instantly advanced, at the head of
      three thousand soldiers, to attack the strongest and most
      populous city of the Illyrian provinces. As he entered the long
      suburb of Sirmium, he was received by the joyful acclamations of
      the army and people; who, crowned with flowers, and holding
      lighted tapers in their hands, conducted their acknowledged
      sovereign to his Imperial residence. Two days were devoted to the
      public joy, which was celebrated by the games of the circus; but,
      early on the morning of the third day, Julian marched to occupy
      the narrow pass of Succi, in the defiles of Mount Hæmus; which,
      almost in the midway between Sirmium and Constantinople,
      separates the provinces of Thrace and Dacia, by an abrupt descent
      towards the former, and a gentle declivity on the side of the
      latter. 33 The defence of this important post was intrusted to
      the brave Nevitta; who, as well as the generals of the Italian
      division, successfully executed the plan of the march and
      junction which their master had so ably conceived. 34

      28 (return) [ Ammianus (xxi. 8) ascribes the same practice, and
      the same motive, to Alexander the Great and other skilful
      generals.]

      29 (return) [ This wood was a part of the great Hercynian forest,
      which, is the time of Cæsar, stretched away from the country of
      the Rauraci (Basil) into the boundless regions of the north. See
      Cluver, Germania Antiqua. l. iii. c. 47.]

      30 (return) [ Compare Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 53, p. 278, 279,
      with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 68. Even the saint admires
      the speed and secrecy of this march. A modern divine might apply
      to the progress of Julian the lines which were originally
      designed for another apostate:—

     —So eagerly the fiend, O’er bog, or steep, through strait, rough,
     dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
     And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.]

      31 (return) [ In that interval the _Notitia_ places two or three
      fleets, the Lauriacensis, (at Lauriacum, or Lorch,) the
      Arlapensis, the Maginensis; and mentions five legions, or
      cohorts, of Libernarii, who should be a sort of marines. Sect.
      lviii. edit. Labb.]

      32 (return) [ Zosimus alone (l. iii. p. 156) has specified this
      interesting circumstance. Mamertinus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xi. 6, 7,
      8,) who accompanied Julian, as count of the sacred largesses,
      describes this voyage in a florid and picturesque manner,
      challenges Triptolemus and the Argonauts of Greece, &c.]

      3211 (return) [ Banostar. _Mannert_.—M.]

      33 (return) [ The description of Ammianus, which might be
      supported by collateral evidence, ascertains the precise
      situation of the _Angustiæ Succorum_, or passes of _Succi_. M.
      d’Anville, from the trifling resemblance of names, has placed
      them between Sardica and Naissus. For my own justification I am
      obliged to mention the _only_ error which I have discovered in
      the maps or writings of that admirable geographer.]

      34 (return) [ Whatever circumstances we may borrow elsewhere,
      Ammianus (xx. 8, 9, 10) still supplies the series of the
      narrative.]

      The homage which Julian obtained, from the fears or the
      inclination of the people, extended far beyond the immediate
      effect of his arms. 35 The præfectures of Italy and Illyricum
      were administered by Taurus and Florentius, who united that
      important office with the vain honors of the consulship; and as
      those magistrates had retired with precipitation to the court of
      Asia, Julian, who could not always restrain the levity of his
      temper, stigmatized their flight by adding, in all the Acts of
      the Year, the epithet of _fugitive_ to the names of the two
      consuls. The provinces which had been deserted by their first
      magistrates acknowledged the authority of an emperor, who,
      conciliating the qualities of a soldier with those of a
      philosopher, was equally admired in the camps of the Danube and
      in the cities of Greece. From his palace, or, more properly, from
      his head-quarters of Sirmium and Naissus, he distributed to the
      principal cities of the empire, a labored apology for his own
      conduct; published the secret despatches of Constantius; and
      solicited the judgment of mankind between two competitors, the
      one of whom had expelled, and the other had invited, the
      Barbarians. 36 Julian, whose mind was deeply wounded by the
      reproach of ingratitude, aspired to maintain, by argument as well
      as by arms, the superior merits of his cause; and to excel, not
      only in the arts of war, but in those of composition. His epistle
      to the senate and people of Athens 37 seems to have been dictated
      by an elegant enthusiasm; which prompted him to submit his
      actions and his motives to the degenerate Athenians of his own
      times, with the same humble deference as if he had been pleading,
      in the days of Aristides, before the tribunal of the Areopagus.
      His application to the senate of Rome, which was still permitted
      to bestow the titles of Imperial power, was agreeable to the
      forms of the expiring republic. An assembly was summoned by
      Tertullus, præfect of the city; the epistle of Julian was read;
      and, as he appeared to be master of Italy his claims were
      admitted without a dissenting voice. His oblique censure of the
      innovations of Constantine, and his passionate invective against
      the vices of Constantius, were heard with less satisfaction; and
      the senate, as if Julian had been present, unanimously exclaimed,
      “Respect, we beseech you, the author of your own fortune.” 38 An
      artful expression, which, according to the chance of war, might
      be differently explained; as a manly reproof of the ingratitude
      of the usurper, or as a flattering confession, that a single act
      of such benefit to the state ought to atone for all the failings
      of Constantius.

      35 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 9, 10. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 54,
      p. 279, 280. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 156, 157.]

      36 (return) [ Julian (ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 286) positively
      asserts, that he intercepted the letters of Constantius to the
      Barbarians; and Libanius as positively affirms, that he read them
      on his march to the troops and the cities. Yet Ammianus (xxi. 4)
      expresses himself with cool and candid hesitation, si _famæ
      solius_ admittenda est fides. He specifies, however, an
      intercepted letter from Vadomair to Constantius, which supposes
      an intimate correspondence between them. “disciplinam non
      habet.”]

      37 (return) [ Zosimus mentions his epistles to the Athenians, the
      Corinthians, and the Lacedæmonians. The substance was probably
      the same, though the address was properly varied. The epistle to
      the Athenians is still extant, (p. 268-287,) and has afforded
      much valuable information. It deserves the praises of the Abbé de
      la Bleterie, (Pref. a l’Histoire de Jovien, p. 24, 25,) and is
      one of the best manifestoes to be found in any language.]

      38 (return) [ _Auctori tuo reverentiam rogamus_. Ammian. xxi. 10.
      It is amusing enough to observe the secret conflicts of the
      senate between flattery and fear. See Tacit. Hist. i. 85.]

      The intelligence of the march and rapid progress of Julian was
      speedily transmitted to his rival, who, by the retreat of Sapor,
      had obtained some respite from the Persian war. Disguising the
      anguish of his soul under the semblance of contempt, Constantius
      professed his intention of returning into Europe, and of giving
      chase to Julian; for he never spoke of his military expedition in
      any other light than that of a hunting party. 39 In the camp of
      Hierapolis, in Syria, he communicated this design to his army;
      slightly mentioned the guilt and rashness of the Cæsar; and
      ventured to assure them, that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed
      to meet them in the field, they would be unable to sustain the
      fire of their eyes, and the irresistible weight of their shout of
      onset. The speech of the emperor was received with military
      applause, and Theodotus, the president of the council of
      Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation, that _his_ city
      might be adorned with the head of the vanquished rebel. 40 A
      chosen detachment was despatched away in post-wagons, to secure,
      if it were yet possible, the pass of Succi; the recruits, the
      horses, the arms, and the magazines, which had been prepared
      against Sapor, were appropriated to the service of the civil war;
      and the domestic victories of Constantius inspired his partisans
      with the most sanguine assurances of success. The notary
      Gaudentius had occupied in his name the provinces of Africa; the
      subsistence of Rome was intercepted; and the distress of Julian
      was increased by an unexpected event, which might have been
      productive of fatal consequences. Julian had received the
      submission of two legions and a cohort of archers, who were
      stationed at Sirmium; but he suspected, with reason, the fidelity
      of those troops which had been distinguished by the emperor; and
      it was thought expedient, under the pretence of the exposed state
      of the Gallic frontier, to dismiss them from the most important
      scene of action. They advanced, with reluctance, as far as the
      confines of Italy; but as they dreaded the length of the way, and
      the savage fierceness of the Germans, they resolved, by the
      instigation of one of their tribunes, to halt at Aquileia, and to
      erect the banners of Constantius on the walls of that impregnable
      city. The vigilance of Julian perceived at once the extent of the
      mischief, and the necessity of applying an immediate remedy. By
      his order, Jovinus led back a part of the army into Italy; and
      the siege of Aquileia was formed with diligence, and prosecuted
      with vigor. But the legionaries, who seemed to have rejected the
      yoke of discipline, conducted the defence of the place with skill
      and perseverance; vited the rest of Italy to imitate the example
      of their courage and loyalty; and threatened the retreat of
      Julian, if he should be forced to yield to the superior numbers
      of the armies of the East. 41

      39 (return) [ Tanquam venaticiam prædam caperet: hoc enim ad
      Jeniendum suorum metum subinde prædicabat. Ammian. xxii. 7.]

      40 (return) [ See the speech and preparations in Ammianus, xxi.
      13. The vile Theodotus afterwards implored and obtained his
      pardon from the merciful conqueror, who signified his wish of
      diminishing his enemies and increasing the numbers of his
      friends, (xxii. 14.)]

      41 (return) [ Ammian. xxi. 7, 11, 12. He seems to describe, with
      superfluous labor, the operations of the siege of Aquileia,
      which, on this occasion, maintained its impregnable fame. Gregory
      Nazianzen (Orat. iii. p. 68) ascribes this accidental revolt to
      the wisdom of Constantius, whose assured victory he announces
      with some appearance of truth. Constantio quem credebat procul
      dubio fore victorem; nemo enim omnium tunc ab hac constanti
      sententia discrepebat. Ammian. xxi. 7.]

      But the humanity of Julian was preserved from the cruel
      alternative which he pathetically laments, of destroying or of
      being himself destroyed: and the seasonable death of Constantius
      delivered the Roman empire from the calamities of civil war. The
      approach of winter could not detain the monarch at Antioch; and
      his favorites durst not oppose his impatient desire of revenge. A
      slight fever, which was perhaps occasioned by the agitation of
      his spirits, was increased by the fatigues of the journey; and
      Constantius was obliged to halt at the little town of Mopsucrene,
      twelve miles beyond Tarsus, where he expired, after a short
      illness, in the forty-fifth year of his age, and the
      twenty-fourth of his reign. 42 His genuine character, which was
      composed of pride and weakness, of superstition and cruelty, has
      been fully displayed in the preceding narrative of civil and
      ecclesiastical events. The long abuse of power rendered him a
      considerable object in the eyes of his contemporaries; but as
      personal merit can alone deserve the notice of posterity, the
      last of the sons of Constantine may be dismissed from the world,
      with the remark, that he inherited the defects, without the
      abilities, of his father. Before Constantius expired, he is said
      to have named Julian for his successor; nor does it seem
      improbable, that his anxious concern for the fate of a young and
      tender wife, whom he left with child, may have prevailed, in his
      last moments, over the harsher passions of hatred and revenge.
      Eusebius, and his guilty associates, made a faint attempt to
      prolong the reign of the eunuchs, by the election of another
      emperor; but their intrigues were rejected with disdain, by an
      army which now abhorred the thought of civil discord; and two
      officers of rank were instantly despatched, to assure Julian,
      that every sword in the empire would be drawn for his service.
      The military designs of that prince, who had formed three
      different attacks against Thrace, were prevented by this
      fortunate event. Without shedding the blood of his
      fellow-citizens, he escaped the dangers of a doubtful conflict,
      and acquired the advantages of a complete victory. Impatient to
      visit the place of his birth, and the new capital of the empire,
      he advanced from Naissus through the mountains of Hæmus, and the
      cities of Thrace. When he reached Heraclea, at the distance of
      sixty miles, all Constantinople was poured forth to receive him;
      and he made his triumphal entry amidst the dutiful acclamations
      of the soldiers, the people, and the senate. An innumerable
      multitude pressed around him with eager respect and were perhaps
      disappointed when they beheld the small stature and simple garb
      of a hero, whose unexperienced youth had vanquished the
      Barbarians of Germany, and who had now traversed, in a successful
      career, the whole continent of Europe, from the shores of the
      Atlantic to those of the Bosphorus. 43 A few days afterwards,
      when the remains of the deceased emperor were landed in the
      harbor, the subjects of Julian applauded the real or affected
      humanity of their sovereign. On foot, without his diadem, and
      clothed in a mourning habit, he accompanied the funeral as far as
      the church of the Holy Apostles, where the body was deposited:
      and if these marks of respect may be interpreted as a selfish
      tribute to the birth and dignity of his Imperial kinsman, the
      tears of Julian professed to the world that he had forgot the
      injuries, and remembered only the obligations, which he had
      received from Constantius. 44 As soon as the legions of Aquileia
      were assured of the death of the emperor, they opened the gates
      of the city, and, by the sacrifice of their guilty leaders,
      obtained an easy pardon from the prudence or lenity of Julian;
      who, in the thirty-second year of his age, acquired the
      undisputed possession of the Roman empire. 45

      42 (return) [ His death and character are faithfully delineated
      by Ammianus, (xxi. 14, 15, 16;) and we are authorized to despise
      and detest the foolish calumny of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 68,)
      who accuses Julian of contriving the death of his benefactor. The
      private repentance of the emperor, that he had spared and
      promoted Julian, (p. 69, and Orat. xxi. p. 389,) is not
      improbable in itself, nor incompatible with the public verbal
      testament which prudential considerations might dictate in the
      last moments of his life. Note: Wagner thinks this sudden change
      of sentiment altogether a fiction of the attendant courtiers and
      chiefs of the army. who up to this time had been hostile to
      Julian. Note in loco Ammian.—M.]

      43 (return) [ In describing the triumph of Julian, Ammianus
      (xxii. l, 2) assumes the lofty tone of an orator or poet; while
      Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. 56, p. 281) sinks to the grave
      simplicity of an historian.]

      44 (return) [ The funeral of Constantius is described by
      Ammianus, (xxi. 16.) Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 119,)
      Mamertinus, in (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 27,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
      c. lvi. p. 283,) and Philostorgius, (l. vi. c. 6, with Godefroy’s
      Dissertations, p. 265.) These writers, and their followers,
      Pagans, Catholics, Arians, beheld with very different eyes both
      the dead and the living emperor.]

      45 (return) [ The day and year of the birth of Julian are not
      perfectly ascertained. The day is probably the sixth of November,
      and the year must be either 331 or 332. Tillemont, Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 693. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 50. I have
      preferred the earlier date.]




      Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part III.


      Philosophy had instructed Julian to compare the advantages of
      action and retirement; but the elevation of his birth, and the
      accidents of his life, never allowed him the freedom of choice.
      He might perhaps sincerely have preferred the groves of the
      academy, and the society of Athens; but he was constrained, at
      first by the will, and afterwards by the injustice, of
      Constantius, to expose his person and fame to the dangers of
      Imperial greatness; and to make himself accountable to the world,
      and to posterity, for the happiness of millions. 46 Julian
      recollected with terror the observation of his master Plato, 47
      that the government of our flocks and herds is always committed
      to beings of a superior species; and that the conduct of nations
      requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods or of the
      genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who
      presumes to reign, should aspire to the perfection of the divine
      nature; that he should purify his soul from her mortal and
      terrestrial part; that he should extinguish his appetites,
      enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue
      the wild beast, which, according to the lively metaphor of
      Aristotle, 48 seldom fails to ascend the throne of a despot. The
      throne of Julian, which the death of Constantius fixed on an
      independent basis, was the seat of reason, of virtue, and perhaps
      of vanity. He despised the honors, renounced the pleasures, and
      discharged with incessant diligence the duties, of his exalted
      station; and there were few among his subjects who would have
      consented to relieve him from the weight of the diadem, had they
      been obliged to submit their time and their actions to the
      rigorous laws which that philosophic emperor imposed on himself.
      One of his most intimate friends, 49 who had often shared the
      frugal simplicity of his table, has remarked, that his light and
      sparing diet (which was usually of the vegetable kind) left his
      mind and body always free and active, for the various and
      important business of an author, a pontiff, a magistrate, a
      general, and a prince. In one and the same day, he gave audience
      to several ambassadors, and wrote, or dictated, a great number of
      letters to his generals, his civil magistrates, his private
      friends, and the different cities of his dominions. He listened
      to the memorials which had been received, considered the subject
      of the petitions, and signified his intentions more rapidly than
      they could be taken in short-hand by the diligence of his
      secretaries. He possessed such flexibility of thought, and such
      firmness of attention, that he could employ his hand to write,
      his ear to listen, and his voice to dictate; and pursue at once
      three several trains of ideas without hesitation, and without
      error. While his ministers reposed, the prince flew with agility
      from one labor to another, and, after a hasty dinner, retired
      into his library, till the public business, which he had
      appointed for the evening, summoned him to interrupt the
      prosecution of his studies. The supper of the emperor was still
      less substantial than the former meal; his sleep was never
      clouded by the fumes of indigestion; and except in the short
      interval of a marriage, which was the effect of policy rather
      than love, the chaste Julian never shared his bed with a female
      companion. 50 He was soon awakened by the entrance of fresh
      secretaries, who had slept the preceding day; and his servants
      were obliged to wait alternately while their indefatigable master
      allowed himself scarcely any other refreshment than the change of
      occupation. The predecessors of Julian, his uncle, his brother,
      and his cousin, indulged their puerile taste for the games of the
      Circus, under the specious pretence of complying with the
      inclinations of the people; and they frequently remained the
      greatest part of the day as idle spectators, and as a part of the
      splendid spectacle, till the ordinary round of twenty-four races
      51 was completely finished. On solemn festivals, Julian, who felt
      and professed an unfashionable dislike to these frivolous
      amusements, condescended to appear in the Circus; and after
      bestowing a careless glance at five or six of the races, he
      hastily withdrew with the impatience of a philosopher, who
      considered every moment as lost that was not devoted to the
      advantage of the public or the improvement of his own mind. 52 By
      this avarice of time, he seemed to protract the short duration of
      his reign; and if the dates were less securely ascertained, we
      should refuse to believe, that only sixteen months elapsed
      between the death of Constantius and the departure of his
      successor for the Persian war. The actions of Julian can only be
      preserved by the care of the historian; but the portion of his
      voluminous writings, which is still extant, remains as a monument
      of the application, as well as of the genius, of the emperor. The
      Misopogon, the Cæsars, several of his orations, and his elaborate
      work against the Christian religion, were composed in the long
      nights of the two winters, the former of which he passed at
      Constantinople, and the latter at Antioch.

      46 (return) [ Julian himself (p. 253-267) has expressed these
      philosophical ideas with much eloquence and some affectation, in
      a very elaborate epistle to Themistius. The Abbé de la Bleterie,
      (tom. ii. p. 146-193,) who has given an elegant translation, is
      inclined to believe that it was the celebrated Themistius, whose
      orations are still extant.]

      47 (return) [ Julian. ad Themist. p. 258. Petavius (not. p. 95)
      observes that this passage is taken from the fourth book De
      Legibus; but either Julian quoted from memory, or his MSS. were
      different from ours Xenophon opens the Cyropædia with a similar
      reflection.]

      48 (return) [ Aristot. ap. Julian. p. 261. The MS. of Vossius,
      unsatisfied with the single beast, affords the stronger reading
      of which the experience of despotism may warrant.]

      49 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. lxxxiv. lxxxv. p.
      310, 311, 312) has given this interesting detail of the private
      life of Julian. He himself (in Misopogon, p. 350) mentions his
      vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual appetite of
      the people of Antioch.]

      50 (return) [ Lectulus... Vestalium toris purior, is the praise
      which Mamertinus (Panegyr. Vet. xi. 13) addresses to Julian
      himself. Libanius affirms, in sober peremptory language, that
      Julian never knew a woman before his marriage, or after the death
      of his wife, (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxviii. p. 313.) The chastity of
      Julian is confirmed by the impartial testimony of Ammianus, (xxv.
      4,) and the partial silence of the Christians. Yet Julian
      ironically urges the reproach of the people of Antioch, that he
      _almost always_ (in Misopogon, p. 345) lay alone. This suspicious
      expression is explained by the Abbé de la Bleterie (Hist. de
      Jovien, tom. ii. p. 103-109) with candor and ingenuity.]

      51 (return) [ See Salmasius ad Sueton in Claud. c. xxi. A
      twenty-fifth race, or _missus_, was added, to complete the number
      of one hundred chariots, four of which, the four colors, started
      each heat.

      Centum quadrijugos agitabo ad flumina currus.

      It appears, that they ran five or seven times round the _Meta_
      (Sueton. in Domitian. c. 4;) and (from the measure of the Circus
      Maximus at Rome, the Hippodrome at Constantinople, &c.) it might
      be about a four mile course.]

      52 (return) [ Julian. in Misopogon, p. 340. Julius Cæsar had
      offended the Roman people by reading his despatches during the
      actual race. Augustus indulged their taste, or his own, by his
      constant attention to the important business of the Circus, for
      which he professed the warmest inclination. Sueton. in August. c.
      xlv.]

      The reformation of the Imperial court was one of the first and
      most necessary acts of the government of Julian. 53 Soon after
      his entrance into the palace of Constantinople, he had occasion
      for the service of a barber. An officer, magnificently dressed,
      immediately presented himself. “It is a barber,” exclaimed the
      prince, with affected surprise, “that I want, and not a
      receiver-general of the finances.” 54 He questioned the man
      concerning the profits of his employment and was informed, that
      besides a large salary, and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed
      a daily allowance for twenty servants, and as many horses. A
      thousand barbers, a thousand cup-bearers, a thousand cooks, were
      distributed in the several offices of luxury; and the number of
      eunuchs could be compared only with the insects of a summer’s
      day. The monarch who resigned to his subjects the superiority of
      merit and virtue, was distinguished by the oppressive
      magnificence of his dress, his table, his buildings, and his
      train. The stately palaces erected by Constantine and his sons,
      were decorated with many colored marbles, and ornaments of massy
      gold. The most exquisite dainties were procured, to gratify their
      pride, rather than their taste; birds of the most distant
      climates, fish from the most remote seas, fruits out of their
      natural season, winter roses, and summer snows. 56 The domestic
      crowd of the palace surpassed the expense of the legions; yet the
      smallest part of this costly multitude was subservient to the
      use, or even to the splendor, of the throne. The monarch was
      disgraced, and the people was injured, by the creation and sale
      of an infinite number of obscure, and even titular employments;
      and the most worthless of mankind might purchase the privilege of
      being maintained, without the necessity of labor, from the public
      revenue. The waste of an enormous household, the increase of fees
      and perquisites, which were soon claimed as a lawful debt, and
      the bribes which they extorted from those who feared their
      enmity, or solicited their favor, suddenly enriched these haughty
      menials. They abused their fortune, without considering their
      past, or their future, condition; and their rapine and venality
      could be equalled only by the extravagance of their dissipations.
      Their silken robes were embroidered with gold, their tables were
      served with delicacy and profusion; the houses which they built
      for their own use, would have covered the farm of an ancient
      consul; and the most honorable citizens were obliged to dismount
      from their horses, and respectfully to salute a eunuch whom they
      met on the public highway. The luxury of the palace excited the
      contempt and indignation of Julian, who usually slept on the
      ground, who yielded with reluctance to the indispensable calls of
      nature; and who placed his vanity, not in emulating, but in
      despising, the pomp of royalty.

      53 (return) [ The reformation of the palace is described by
      Ammianus, (xxii. 4,) Libanius, Orat. (Parent. c. lxii. p. 288,
      &c.,) Mamertinus, in Panegyr. (Vet. xi. 11,) Socrates, (l. iii.
      c. l.,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 24.)]

      54 (return) [ Ego non _rationalem_ jussi sed tonsorem acciri.
      Zonaras uses the less natural image of a senator. Yet an officer
      of the finances, who was satisfied with wealth, might desire and
      obtain the honors of the senate.]

      56 (return) [ The expressions of Mamertinus are lively and
      forcible. Quis etiam prandiorum et cænarum laboratas magnitudines
      Romanus populus sensit; cum quæsitissimæ dapes non gustu sed
      difficultatibus æstimarentur; miracula avium, longinqui maris
      pisces, aheni temporis poma, æstivæ nives, hybernæ rosæ]

      By the total extirpation of a mischief which was magnified even
      beyond its real extent, he was impatient to relieve the distress,
      and to appease the murmurs of the people; who support with less
      uneasiness the weight of taxes, if they are convinced that the
      fruits of their industry are appropriated to the service of the
      state. But in the execution of this salutary work, Julian is
      accused of proceeding with too much haste and inconsiderate
      severity. By a single edict, he reduced the palace of
      Constantinople to an immense desert, and dismissed with ignominy
      the whole train of slaves and dependants, 57 without providing
      any just, or at least benevolent, exceptions, for the age, the
      services, or the poverty, of the faithful domestics of the
      Imperial family. Such indeed was the temper of Julian, who seldom
      recollected the fundamental maxim of Aristotle, that true virtue
      is placed at an equal distance between the opposite vices.

      The splendid and effeminate dress of the Asiatics, the curls and
      paint, the collars and bracelets, which had appeared so
      ridiculous in the person of Constantine, were consistently
      rejected by his philosophic successor. But with the fopperies,
      Julian affected to renounce the decencies of dress; and seemed to
      value himself for his neglect of the laws of cleanliness. In a
      satirical performance, which was designed for the public eye, the
      emperor descants with pleasure, and even with pride, on the
      length of his nails, and the inky blackness of his hands;
      protests, that although the greatest part of his body was covered
      with hair, the use of the razor was confined to his head alone;
      and celebrates, with visible complacency, the shaggy and
      _populous_ 58 beard, which he fondly cherished, after the example
      of the philosophers of Greece. Had Julian consulted the simple
      dictates of reason, the first magistrate of the Romans would have
      scorned the affectation of Diogenes, as well as that of Darius.

      57 (return) [ Yet Julian himself was accused of bestowing whole
      towns on the eunuchs, (Orat. vii. against Polyclet. p. 117-127.)
      Libanius contents himself with a cold but positive denial of the
      fact, which seems indeed to belong more properly to Constantius.
      This charge, however, may allude to some unknown circumstance.]

      58 (return) [ In the Misopogon (p. 338, 339) he draws a very
      singular picture of himself, and the following words are
      strangely characteristic. The friends of the Abbé de la Bleterie
      adjured him, in the name of the French nation, not to translate
      this passage, so offensive to their delicacy, (Hist. de Jovien,
      tom. ii. p. 94.) Like him, I have contented myself with a
      transient allusion; but the little animal which Julian _names_,
      is a beast familiar to man, and signifies love.]

      But the work of public reformation would have remained imperfect,
      if Julian had only corrected the abuses, without punishing the
      crimes, of his predecessor’s reign. “We are now delivered,” says
      he, in a familiar letter to one of his intimate friends, “we are
      now surprisingly delivered from the voracious jaws of the Hydra.
      59 I do not mean to apply the epithet to my brother Constantius.
      He is no more; may the earth lie light on his head! But his
      artful and cruel favorites studied to deceive and exasperate a
      prince, whose natural mildness cannot be praised without some
      efforts of adulation. It is not, however, my intention, that even
      those men should be oppressed: they are accused, and they shall
      enjoy the benefit of a fair and impartial trial.” To conduct this
      inquiry, Julian named six judges of the highest rank in the state
      and army; and as he wished to escape the reproach of condemning
      his personal enemies, he fixed this extraordinary tribunal at
      Chalcedon, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus; and transferred
      to the commissioners an absolute power to pronounce and execute
      their final sentence, without delay, and without appeal. The
      office of president was exercised by the venerable præfect of the
      East, a _second_ Sallust, 60 whose virtues conciliated the esteem
      of Greek sophists, and of Christian bishops. He was assisted by
      the eloquent Mamertinus, 61 one of the consuls elect, whose merit
      is loudly celebrated by the doubtful evidence of his own
      applause. But the civil wisdom of two magistrates was
      overbalanced by the ferocious violence of four generals, Nevitta,
      Agilo, Jovinus, and Arbetio. Arbetio, whom the public would have
      seen with less surprise at the bar than on the bench, was
      supposed to possess the secret of the commission; the armed and
      angry leaders of the Jovian and Herculian bands encompassed the
      tribunal; and the judges were alternately swayed by the laws of
      justice, and by the clamors of faction. 62

      59 (return) [ Julian, epist. xxiii. p. 389. He uses the words in
      writing to his friend Hermogenes, who, like himself, was
      conversant with the Greek poets.]

      60 (return) [ The two Sallusts, the præfect of Gaul, and the
      præfect of the East, must be carefully distinguished, (Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 696.) I have used the surname of
      _Secundus_, as a convenient epithet. The second Sallust extorted
      the esteem of the Christians themselves; and Gregory Nazianzen,
      who condemned his religion, has celebrated his virtues, (Orat.
      iii. p. 90.) See a curious note of the Abbé de la Bleterie, Vie
      de Julien, p. 363. Note: Gibbonus secundum habet pro numero, quod
      tamen est viri agnomen Wagner, nota in loc. Amm. It is not a
      mistake; it is rather an error in taste. Wagner inclines to
      transfer the chief guilt to Arbetio.—M.]

      61 (return) [ Mamertinus praises the emperor (xi. l.) for
      bestowing the offices of Treasurer and Præfect on a man of
      wisdom, firmness, integrity, &c., like himself. Yet Ammianus
      ranks him (xxi. l.) among the ministers of Julian, quorum merita
      norat et fidem.]

      62 (return) [ The proceedings of this chamber of justice are
      related by Ammianus, (xxii. 3,) and praised by Libanius, (Orat.
      Parent. c. 74, p. 299, 300.)]

      The chamberlain Eusebius, who had so long abused the favor of
      Constantius, expiated, by an ignominious death, the insolence,
      the corruption, and cruelty of his servile reign. The executions
      of Paul and Apodemius (the former of whom was burnt alive) were
      accepted as an inadequate atonement by the widows and orphans of
      so many hundred Romans, whom those legal tyrants had betrayed and
      murdered. But justice herself (if we may use the pathetic
      expression of Ammianus) 63 appeared to weep over the fate of
      Ursulus, the treasurer of the empire; and his blood accused the
      ingratitude of Julian, whose distress had been seasonably
      relieved by the intrepid liberality of that honest minister. The
      rage of the soldiers, whom he had provoked by his indiscretion,
      was the cause and the excuse of his death; and the emperor,
      deeply wounded by his own reproaches and those of the public,
      offered some consolation to the family of Ursulus, by the
      restitution of his confiscated fortunes. Before the end of the
      year in which they had been adorned with the ensigns of the
      prefecture and consulship, 64 Taurus and Florentius were reduced
      to implore the clemency of the inexorable tribunal of Chalcedon.
      The former was banished to Vercellæ in Italy, and a sentence of
      death was pronounced against the latter. A wise prince should
      have rewarded the crime of Taurus: the faithful minister, when he
      was no longer able to oppose the progress of a rebel, had taken
      refuge in the court of his benefactor and his lawful sovereign.
      But the guilt of Florentius justified the severity of the judges;
      and his escape served to display the magnanimity of Julian, who
      nobly checked the interested diligence of an informer, and
      refused to learn what place concealed the wretched fugitive from
      his just resentment. 65 Some months after the tribunal of
      Chalcedon had been dissolved, the prætorian vicegerent of Africa,
      the notary Gaudentius, and Artemius 66 duke of Egypt, were
      executed at Antioch. Artemius had reigned the cruel and corrupt
      tyrant of a great province; Gaudentius had long practised the
      arts of calumny against the innocent, the virtuous, and even the
      person of Julian himself. Yet the circumstances of their trial
      and condemnation were so unskillfully managed, that these wicked
      men obtained, in the public opinion, the glory of suffering for
      the obstinate loyalty with which they had supported the cause of
      Constantius. The rest of his servants were protected by a general
      act of oblivion; and they were left to enjoy with impunity the
      bribes which they had accepted, either to defend the oppressed,
      or to oppress the friendless. This measure, which, on the
      soundest principles of policy, may deserve our approbation, was
      executed in a manner which seemed to degrade the majesty of the
      throne. Julian was tormented by the importunities of a multitude,
      particularly of Egyptians, who loudly redemanded the gifts which
      they had imprudently or illegally bestowed; he foresaw the
      endless prosecution of vexatious suits; and he engaged a promise,
      which ought always to have been sacred, that if they would repair
      to Chalcedon, he would meet them in person, to hear and determine
      their complaints. But as soon as they were landed, he issued an
      absolute order, which prohibited the watermen from transporting
      any Egyptian to Constantinople; and thus detained his
      disappointed clients on the Asiatic shore till, their patience
      and money being utterly exhausted, they were obliged to return
      with indignant murmurs to their native country. 67

      63 (return) [ Ursuli vero necem ipsa mihi videtur flesse
      justitia. Libanius, who imputes his death to the soldiers,
      attempts to criminate the court of the largesses.]

      64 (return) [ Such respect was still entertained for the
      venerable names of the commonwealth, that the public was
      surprised and scandalized to hear Taurus summoned as a criminal
      under the consulship of Taurus. The summons of his colleague
      Florentius was probably delayed till the commencement of the
      ensuing year.]

      65 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 7.]

      66 (return) [ For the guilt and punishment of Artemius, see
      Julian (Epist. x. p. 379) and Ammianus, (xxii. 6, and Vales, ad
      hoc.) The merit of Artemius, who demolished temples, and was put
      to death by an apostate, has tempted the Greek and Latin churches
      to honor him as a martyr. But as ecclesiastical history attests
      that he was not only a tyrant, but an Arian, it is not altogether
      easy to justify this indiscreet promotion. Tillemont, Mém.
      Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1319.]

      67 (return) [ See Ammian. xxii. 6, and Vales, ad locum; and the
      Codex Theodosianus, l. ii. tit. xxxix. leg. i.; and Godefroy’s
      Commentary, tom. i. p. 218, ad locum.]




      Chapter XXII: Julian Declared Emperor.—Part IV.


      The numerous army of spies, of agents, and informers enlisted by
      Constantius to secure the repose of one man, and to interrupt
      that of millions, was immediately disbanded by his generous
      successor. Julian was slow in his suspicions, and gentle in his
      punishments; and his contempt of treason was the result of
      judgment, of vanity, and of courage. Conscious of superior merit,
      he was persuaded that few among his subjects would dare to meet
      him in the field, to attempt his life, or even to seat themselves
      on his vacant throne. The philosopher could excuse the hasty
      sallies of discontent; and the hero could despise the ambitious
      projects which surpassed the fortune or the abilities of the rash
      conspirators. A citizen of Ancyra had prepared for his own use a
      purple garment; and this indiscreet action, which, under the
      reign of Constantius, would have been considered as a capital
      offence, 68 was reported to Julian by the officious importunity
      of a private enemy. The monarch, after making some inquiry into
      the rank and character of his rival, despatched the informer with
      a present of a pair of purple slippers, to complete the
      magnificence of his Imperial habit. A more dangerous conspiracy
      was formed by ten of the domestic guards, who had resolved to
      assassinate Julian in the field of exercise near Antioch. Their
      intemperance revealed their guilt; and they were conducted in
      chains to the presence of their injured sovereign, who, after a
      lively representation of the wickedness and folly of their
      enterprise, instead of a death of torture, which they deserved
      and expected, pronounced a sentence of exile against the two
      principal offenders. The only instance in which Julian seemed to
      depart from his accustomed clemency, was the execution of a rash
      youth, who, with a feeble hand, had aspired to seize the reins of
      empire. But that youth was the son of Marcellus, the general of
      cavalry, who, in the first campaign of the Gallic war, had
      deserted the standard of the Cæsar and the republic. Without
      appearing to indulge his personal resentment, Julian might easily
      confound the crime of the son and of the father; but he was
      reconciled by the distress of Marcellus, and the liberality of
      the emperor endeavored to heal the wound which had been inflicted
      by the hand of justice. 69

      68 (return) [ The president Montesquieu (Considerations sur la
      Grandeur, &c., des Romains, c. xiv. in his works, tom. iii. p.
      448, 449,) excuses this minute and absurd tyranny, by supposing
      that actions the most indifferent in our eyes might excite, in a
      Roman mind, the idea of guilt and danger. This strange apology is
      supported by a strange misapprehension of the English laws, “chez
      une nation.... où il est défendu de boire à la santé d’une
      certaine personne.”]

      69 (return) [ The clemency of Julian, and the conspiracy which
      was formed against his life at Antioch, are described by Ammianus
      (xxii. 9, 10, and Vales, ad loc.) and Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
      99, p. 323.)]

      Julian was not insensible of the advantages of freedom. 70 From
      his studies he had imbibed the spirit of ancient sages and
      heroes; his life and fortunes had depended on the caprice of a
      tyrant; and when he ascended the throne, his pride was sometimes
      mortified by the reflection, that the slaves who would not dare
      to censure his defects were not worthy to applaud his virtues. 71
      He sincerely abhorred the system of Oriental despotism, which
      Diocletian, Constantine, and the patient habits of fourscore
      years, had established in the empire. A motive of superstition
      prevented the execution of the design, which Julian had
      frequently meditated, of relieving his head from the weight of a
      costly diadem; 72 but he absolutely refused the title of
      _Dominus_, or _Lord_, 73 a word which was grown so familiar to
      the ears of the Romans, that they no longer remembered its
      servile and humiliating origin. The office, or rather the name,
      of consul, was cherished by a prince who contemplated with
      reverence the ruins of the republic; and the same behavior which
      had been assumed by the prudence of Augustus was adopted by
      Julian from choice and inclination. On the calends of January, at
      break of day, the new consuls, Mamertinus and Nevitta, hastened
      to the palace to salute the emperor. As soon as he was informed
      of their approach, he leaped from his throne, eagerly advanced to
      meet them, and compelled the blushing magistrates to receive the
      demonstrations of his affected humility. From the palace they
      proceeded to the senate. The emperor, on foot, marched before
      their litters; and the gazing multitude admired the image of
      ancient times, or secretly blamed a conduct, which, in their
      eyes, degraded the majesty of the purple. 74 But the behavior of
      Julian was uniformly supported. During the games of the Circus,
      he had, imprudently or designedly, performed the manumission of a
      slave in the presence of the consul. The moment he was reminded
      that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction of _another_
      magistrate, he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of
      gold; and embraced this public occasion of declaring to the
      world, that he was subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens,
      to the laws, 75 and even to the forms, of the republic. The
      spirit of his administration, and his regard for the place of his
      nativity, induced Julian to confer on the senate of
      Constantinople the same honors, privileges, and authority, which
      were still enjoyed by the senate of ancient Rome. 76 A legal
      fiction was introduced, and gradually established, that one half
      of the national council had migrated into the East; and the
      despotic successors of Julian, accepting the title of Senators,
      acknowledged themselves the members of a respectable body, which
      was permitted to represent the majesty of the Roman name. From
      Constantinople, the attention of the monarch was extended to the
      municipal senates of the provinces. He abolished, by repeated
      edicts, the unjust and pernicious exemptions which had withdrawn
      so many idle citizens from the services of their country; and by
      imposing an equal distribution of public duties, he restored the
      strength, the splendor, or, according to the glowing expression
      of Libanius, 77 the soul of the expiring cities of his empire.
      The venerable age of Greece excited the most tender compassion in
      the mind of Julian, which kindled into rapture when he
      recollected the gods, the heroes, and the men superior to heroes
      and to gods, who have bequeathed to the latest posterity the
      monuments of their genius, or the example of their virtues. He
      relieved the distress, and restored the beauty, of the cities of
      Epirus and Peloponnesus. 78 Athens acknowledged him for her
      benefactor; Argos, for her deliverer. The pride of Corinth, again
      rising from her ruins with the honors of a Roman colony, exacted
      a tribute from the adjacent republics, for the purpose of
      defraying the games of the Isthmus, which were celebrated in the
      amphitheatre with the hunting of bears and panthers. From this
      tribute the cities of Elis, of Delphi, and of Argos, which had
      inherited from their remote ancestors the sacred office of
      perpetuating the Olympic, the Pythian, and the Nemean games,
      claimed a just exemption. The immunity of Elis and Delphi was
      respected by the Corinthians; but the poverty of Argos tempted
      the insolence of oppression; and the feeble complaints of its
      deputies were silenced by the decree of a provincial magistrate,
      who seems to have consulted only the interest of the capital in
      which he resided. Seven years after this sentence, Julian 79
      allowed the cause to be referred to a superior tribunal; and his
      eloquence was interposed, most probably with success, in the
      defence of a city, which had been the royal seat of Agamemnon, 80
      and had given to Macedonia a race of kings and conquerors. 81

      70 (return) [ According to some, says Aristotle, (as he is quoted
      by Julian ad Themist. p. 261,) the form of absolute government is
      contrary to nature. Both the prince and the philosopher choose,
      how ever to involve this eternal truth in artful and labored
      obscurity.]

      71 (return) [ That sentiment is expressed almost in the words of
      Julian himself. Ammian. xxii. 10.]

      72 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 95, p. 320,) who
      mentions the wish and design of Julian, insinuates, in mysterious
      language that the emperor was restrained by some particular
      revelation.]

      73 (return) [ Julian in Misopogon, p. 343. As he never abolished,
      by any public law, the proud appellations of _Despot_, or
      _Dominus_, they are still extant on his medals, (Ducange, Fam.
      Byzantin. p. 38, 39;) and the private displeasure which he
      affected to express, only gave a different tone to the servility
      of the court. The Abbé de la Bleterie (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii.
      p. 99-102) has curiously traced the origin and progress of the
      word _Dominus_ under the Imperial government.]

      74 (return) [ Ammian. xxii. 7. The consul Mamertinus (in Panegyr.
      Vet. xi. 28, 29, 30) celebrates the auspicious day, like an
      elegant slave, astonished and intoxicated by the condescension of
      his master.]

      75 (return) [ Personal satire was condemned by the laws of the
      twelve tables: Si male condiderit in quem quis carmina, jus est
      Judiciumque—Horat. Sat. ii. 1. 82. ——Julian (in Misopogon, p.
      337) owns himself subject to the law; and the Abbé de la Bleterie
      (Hist. de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 92) has eagerly embraced a
      declaration so agreeable to his own system, and, indeed, to the
      true spirit of the Imperial constitution.]

      76 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iii. p. 158.]

      77 (return) [ See Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 71, p. 296,)
      Ammianus, (xxii. 9,) and the Theodosian Code (l. xii. tit. i.
      leg. 50-55.) with Godefroy’s Commentary, (tom. iv. p. 390-402.)
      Yet the whole subject of the _Curia_, notwithstanding very ample
      materials, still remains the most obscure in the legal history of
      the empire.]

      78 (return) [ Quæ paulo ante arida et siti anhelantia visebantur,
      ea nunc perlui, mundari, madere; Fora, Deambulacra, Gymnasia,
      lætis et gaudentibus populis frequentari; dies festos, et
      celebrari veteres, et novos in honorem principis consecrari,
      (Mamertin. xi. 9.) He particularly restored the city of Nicopolis
      and the Actiac games, which had been instituted by Augustus.]

      79 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xxxv. p. 407-411. This epistle,
      which illustrates the declining age of Greece, is omitted by the
      Abbé de la Bleterie, and strangely disfigured by the Latin
      translator, who, by rendering _tributum_, and _populus_, directly
      contradicts the sense of the original.]

      80 (return) [ He reigned in Mycenæ at the distance of fifty
      stadia, or six miles from Argos: but these cities, which
      alternately flourished, are confounded by the Greek poets.
      Strabo, l. viii. p. 579, edit. Amstel. 1707.]

      81 (return) [ Marsham, Canon. Chron. p. 421. This pedigree from
      Temenus and Hercules may be suspicious; yet it was allowed, after
      a strict inquiry, by the judges of the Olympic games, (Herodot.
      l. v. c. 22,) at a time when the Macedonian kings were obscure
      and unpopular in Greece. When the Achæan league declared against
      Philip, it was thought decent that the deputies of Argos should
      retire, (T. Liv. xxxii. 22.)]

      The laborious administration of military and civil affairs, which
      were multiplied in proportion to the extent of the empire,
      exercised the abilities of Julian; but he frequently assumed the
      two characters of Orator 82 and of Judge, 83 which are almost
      unknown to the modern sovereigns of Europe. The arts of
      persuasion, so diligently cultivated by the first Cæsars, were
      neglected by the military ignorance and Asiatic pride of their
      successors; and if they condescended to harangue the soldiers,
      whom they feared, they treated with silent disdain the senators,
      whom they despised. The assemblies of the senate, which
      Constantius had avoided, were considered by Julian as the place
      where he could exhibit, with the most propriety, the maxims of a
      republican, and the talents of a rhetorician. He alternately
      practised, as in a school of declamation, the several modes of
      praise, of censure, of exhortation; and his friend Libanius has
      remarked, that the study of Homer taught him to imitate the
      simple, concise style of Menelaus, the copiousness of Nestor,
      whose words descended like the flakes of a winter’s snow, or the
      pathetic and forcible eloquence of Ulysses. The functions of a
      judge, which are sometimes incompatible with those of a prince,
      were exercised by Julian, not only as a duty, but as an
      amusement; and although he might have trusted the integrity and
      discernment of his Prætorian præfects, he often placed himself by
      their side on the seat of judgment. The acute penetration of his
      mind was agreeably occupied in detecting and defeating the
      chicanery of the advocates, who labored to disguise the truths of
      facts, and to pervert the sense of the laws. He sometimes forgot
      the gravity of his station, asked indiscreet or unseasonable
      questions, and betrayed, by the loudness of his voice, and the
      agitation of his body, the earnest vehemence with which he
      maintained his opinion against the judges, the advocates, and
      their clients. But his knowledge of his own temper prompted him
      to encourage, and even to solicit, the reproof of his friends and
      ministers; and whenever they ventured to oppose the irregular
      sallies of his passions, the spectators could observe the shame,
      as well as the gratitude, of their monarch. The decrees of Julian
      were almost always founded on the principles of justice; and he
      had the firmness to resist the two most dangerous temptations,
      which assault the tribunal of a sovereign, under the specious
      forms of compassion and equity. He decided the merits of the
      cause without weighing the circumstances of the parties; and the
      poor, whom he wished to relieve, were condemned to satisfy the
      just demands of a wealthy and noble adversary. He carefully
      distinguished the judge from the legislator; 84 and though he
      meditated a necessary reformation of the Roman jurisprudence, he
      pronounced sentence according to the strict and literal
      interpretation of those laws, which the magistrates were bound to
      execute, and the subjects to obey.

      82 (return) [ His eloquence is celebrated by Libanius, (Orat.
      Parent. c. 75, 76, p. 300, 301,) who distinctly mentions the
      orators of Homer. Socrates (l. iii. c. 1) has rashly asserted
      that Julian was the only prince, since Julius Cæsar, who
      harangued the senate. All the predecessors of Nero, (Tacit.
      Annal. xiii. 3,) and many of his successors, possessed the
      faculty of speaking in public; and it might be proved by various
      examples, that they frequently exercised it in the senate.]

      83 (return) [ Ammianus (xxi. 10) has impartially stated the
      merits and defects of his judicial proceedings. Libanius (Orat.
      Parent. c. 90, 91, p. 315, &c.) has seen only the fair side, and
      his picture, if it flatters the person, expresses at least the
      duties, of the judge. Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 120,) who
      suppresses the virtues, and exaggerates even the venial faults of
      the Apostate, triumphantly asks, whether such a judge was fit to
      be seated between Minos and Rhadamanthus, in the Elysian Fields.]

      84 (return) [ Of the laws which Julian enacted in a reign of
      sixteen months, fifty-four have been admitted into the codes of
      Theodosius and Justinian. (Gothofred. Chron. Legum, p. 64-67.)
      The Abbé de la Bleterie (tom. ii. p. 329-336) has chosen one of
      these laws to give an idea of Julian’s Latin style, which is
      forcible and elaborate, but less pure than his Greek.]

      The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple,
      and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the
      lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their
      obscurity. But the personal merit of Julian was, in some measure,
      independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his choice of life,
      by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense
      application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have
      deserved, the highest honors of his profession; and Julian might
      have raised himself to the rank of minister, or general, of the
      state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous
      caprice of power had disappointed his expectations, if he had
      prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the
      same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the
      reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When
      we inspect, with minute, or perhaps malevolent attention, the
      portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace and
      perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and
      sublime than that of Cæsar; nor did he possess the consummate
      prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady
      and natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and
      consistent. Yet Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and
      prosperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and
      twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans
      beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and
      his pleasures; who labored to relieve the distress, and to revive
      the spirit, of his subjects; and who endeavored always to connect
      authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction,
      and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the
      superiority of his genius, in peace as well as in war, and to
      confess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his
      country, and that he deserved the empire of the world. 85

      85 (return) [

     ... Ductor fortissimus armis; Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore
     manûque Consultor patriæ; sed non consultor habendæ Religionis;
     amans tercentum millia Divûm. Pertidus ille Deo, sed non et
     perfidus orbi. Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c.

      The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have raised
      the Christian post above his usual mediocrity.]




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part I.

     The Religion Of Julian.—Universal Toleration.—He Attempts To
     Restore And Reform The Pagan Worship—To Rebuild The Temple Of
     Jerusalem—His Artful Persecution Of The Christians.—Mutual Zeal
     And Injustice.


      The character of Apostate has injured the reputation of Julian;
      and the enthusiasm which clouded his virtues has exaggerated the
      real and apparent magnitude of his faults. Our partial ignorance
      may represent him as a philosophic monarch, who studied to
      protect, with an equal hand, the religious factions of the
      empire; and to allay the theological fever which had inflamed the
      minds of the people, from the edicts of Diocletian to the exile
      of Athanasius. A more accurate view of the character and conduct
      of Julian will remove this favorable prepossession for a prince
      who did not escape the general contagion of the times. We enjoy
      the singular advantage of comparing the pictures which have been
      delineated by his fondest admirers and his implacable enemies.
      The actions of Julian are faithfully related by a judicious and
      candid historian, the impartial spectator of his life and death.
      The unanimous evidence of his contemporaries is confirmed by the
      public and private declarations of the emperor himself; and his
      various writings express the uniform tenor of his religious
      sentiments, which policy would have prompted him to dissemble
      rather than to affect. A devout and sincere attachment for the
      gods of Athens and Rome constituted the ruling passion of Julian;
      1 the powers of an enlightened understanding were betrayed and
      corrupted by the influence of superstitious prejudice; and the
      phantoms which existed only in the mind of the emperor had a real
      and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The
      vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship, and
      overturned the altars of those fabulous deities, engaged their
      votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a very
      numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes tempted by
      the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to violate the
      laws of prudence, and even of justice. The triumph of the party,
      which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of infamy on the
      name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has been
      overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the
      signal was given by the sonorous trumpet 2 of Gregory Nazianzen.
      3 The interesting nature of the events which were crowded into
      the short reign of this active emperor, deserve a just and
      circumstantial narrative. His motives, his counsels, and his
      actions, as far as they are connected with the history of
      religion, will be the subject of the present chapter.

      1 (return) [ I shall transcribe some of his own expressions from
      a short religious discourse which the Imperial pontiff composed
      to censure the bold impiety of a Cynic. Orat. vii. p. 212. The
      variety and copiousness of the Greek tongue seem inadequate to
      the fervor of his devotion.]

      2 (return) [ The orator, with some eloquence, much enthusiasm,
      and more vanity, addresses his discourse to heaven and earth, to
      men and angels, to the living and the dead; and above all, to the
      great Constantius, an odd Pagan expression. He concludes with a
      bold assurance, that he has erected a monument not less durable,
      and much more portable, than the columns of Hercules. See Greg.
      Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 50, iv. p. 134.]

      3 (return) [ See this long invective, which has been
      injudiciously divided into two orations in Gregory’s works, tom.
      i. p. 49-134, Paris, 1630. It was published by Gregory and his
      friend Basil, (iv. p. 133,) about six months after the death of
      Julian, when his remains had been carried to Tarsus, (iv. p.
      120;) but while Jovian was still on the throne, (iii. p. 54, iv.
      p. 117) I have derived much assistance from a French version and
      remarks, printed at Lyons, 1735.]

      The cause of his strange and fatal apostasy may be derived from
      the early period of his life, when he was left an orphan in the
      hands of the murderers of his family. The names of Christ and of
      Constantius, the ideas of slavery and of religion, were soon
      associated in a youthful imagination, which was susceptible of
      the most lively impressions. The care of his infancy was
      intrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 4 who was related to
      him on the side of his mother; and till Julian reached the
      twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian
      preceptors the education, not of a hero, but of a saint. The
      emperor, less jealous of a heavenly than of an earthly crown,
      contented himself with the imperfect character of a catechumen,
      while he bestowed the advantages of baptism 5 on the nephews of
      Constantine. 6 They were even admitted to the inferior offices of
      the ecclesiastical order; and Julian publicly read the Holy
      Scriptures in the church of Nicomedia. The study of religion,
      which they assiduously cultivated, appeared to produce the
      fairest fruits of faith and devotion. 7 They prayed, they fasted,
      they distributed alms to the poor, gifts to the clergy, and
      oblations to the tombs of the martyrs; and the splendid monument
      of St. Mamas, at Cæsarea, was erected, or at least was
      undertaken, by the joint labor of Gallus and Julian. 8 They
      respectfully conversed with the bishops, who were eminent for
      superior sanctity, and solicited the benediction of the monks and
      hermits, who had introduced into Cappadocia the voluntary
      hardships of the ascetic life. 9 As the two princes advanced
      towards the years of manhood, they discovered, in their religious
      sentiments, the difference of their characters. The dull and
      obstinate understanding of Gallus embraced, with implicit zeal,
      the doctrines of Christianity; which never influenced his
      conduct, or moderated his passions. The mild disposition of the
      younger brother was less repugnant to the precepts of the gospel;
      and his active curiosity might have been gratified by a
      theological system, which explains the mysterious essence of the
      Deity, and opens the boundless prospect of invisible and future
      worlds. But the independent spirit of Julian refused to yield the
      passive and unresisting obedience which was required, in the name
      of religion, by the haughty ministers of the church. Their
      speculative opinions were imposed as positive laws, and guarded
      by the terrors of eternal punishments; but while they prescribed
      the rigid formulary of the thoughts, the words, and the actions
      of the young prince; whilst they silenced his objections, and
      severely checked the freedom of his inquiries, they secretly
      provoked his impatient genius to disclaim the authority of his
      ecclesiastical guides. He was educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst
      the scandals of the Arian controversy. 10 The fierce contests of
      the Eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds,
      and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct,
      insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they
      neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so
      fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs of
      Christianity with that favorable attention which adds weight to
      the most respectable evidence, he heard with suspicion, and
      disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for which he
      already entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young
      princes were directed to compose declamations on the subject of
      the prevailing controversies, Julian always declared himself the
      advocate of Paganism; under the specious excuse that, in the
      defence of the weaker cause, his learning and ingenuity might be
      more advantageously exercised and displayed.

      4 (return) [ Nicomediæ ab Eusebio educatus Episcopo, quem genere
      longius contingebat, (Ammian. xxii. 9.) Julian never expresses
      any gratitude towards that Arian prelate; but he celebrates his
      preceptor, the eunuch Mardonius, and describes his mode of
      education, which inspired his pupil with a passionate admiration
      for the genius, and perhaps the religion of Homer. Misopogon, p.
      351, 352.]

      5 (return) [ Greg. Naz. iii. p. 70. He labored to effect that
      holy mark in the blood, perhaps of a Taurobolium. Baron. Annal.
      Eccles. A. D. 361, No. 3, 4.]

      6 (return) [ Julian himself (Epist. li. p. 454) assures the
      Alexandrians that he had been a Christian (he must mean a sincere
      one) till the twentieth year of his age.]

      7 (return) [ See his Christian, and even ecclesiastical
      education, in Gregory, (iii. p. 58,) Socrates, (l. iii. c. 1,)
      and Sozomen, (l. v. c. 2.) He escaped very narrowly from being a
      bishop, and perhaps a saint.]

      8 (return) [ The share of the work which had been allotted to
      Gallus, was prosecuted with vigor and success; but the earth
      obstinately rejected and subverted the structures which were
      imposed by the sacrilegious hand of Julian. Greg. iii. p. 59, 60,
      61. Such a partial earthquake, attested by many living
      spectators, would form one of the clearest miracles in
      ecclesiastical story.]

      9 (return) [ The _philosopher_ (Fragment, p. 288,) ridicules the
      iron chains, &c, of these solitary fanatics, (see Tillemont, Mém.
      Eccles. tom. ix. p. 661, 632,) who had forgot that man is by
      nature a gentle and social animal. The _Pagan_ supposes, that
      because they had renounced the gods, they were possessed and
      tormented by evil dæmons.]

      10 (return) [ See Julian apud Cyril, l. vi. p. 206, l. viii. p.
      253, 262. “You persecute,” says he, “those heretics who do not
      mourn the dead man precisely in the way which you approve.” He
      shows himself a tolerable theologian; but he maintains that the
      Christian Trinity is not derived from the doctrine of Paul, of
      Jesus, or of Moses.]

      As soon as Gallus was invested with the honors of the purple,
      Julian was permitted to breathe the air of freedom, of
      literature, and of Paganism. 11 The crowd of sophists, who were
      attracted by the taste and liberality of their royal pupil, had
      formed a strict alliance between the learning and the religion of
      Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired as the
      original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to
      the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and the muses. The deities of
      Olympus, as they are painted by the immortal bard, imprint
      themselves on the minds which are the least addicted to
      superstitious credulity. Our familiar knowledge of their names
      and characters, their forms and attributes, _seems_ to bestow on
      those airy beings a real and substantial existence; and the
      pleasing enchantment produces an imperfect and momentary assent
      of the imagination to those fables, which are the most repugnant
      to our reason and experience. In the age of Julian, every
      circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion; the
      magnificent temples of Greece and Asia; the works of those
      artists who had expressed, in painting or in sculpture, the
      divine conceptions of the poet; the pomp of festivals and
      sacrifices; the successful arts of divination; the popular
      traditions of oracles and prodigies; and the ancient practice of
      two thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, in some
      measure, excused by the moderation of its claims; and the
      devotion of the Pagans was not incompatible with the most
      licentious scepticism. 12 Instead of an indivisible and regular
      system, which occupies the whole extent of the believing mind,
      the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a thousand loose and
      flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at liberty to
      define the degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed
      which Julian adopted for his own use was of the largest
      dimensions; and, by strange contradiction, he disdained the
      salutary yoke of the gospel, whilst he made a voluntary offering
      of his reason on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. One of the
      orations of Julian is consecrated to the honor of Cybele, the
      mother of the gods, who required from her effeminate priests the
      bloody sacrifice, so rashly performed by the madness of the
      Phrygian boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate, without a
      blush, and without a smile, the voyage of the goddess from the
      shores of Pergamus to the mouth of the Tyber, and the stupendous
      miracle, which convinced the senate and people of Rome that the
      lump of clay, which their ambassadors had transported over the
      seas, was endowed with life, and sentiment, and divine power. 13
      For the truth of this prodigy he appeals to the public monuments
      of the city; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly and
      affected taste of those men, who impertinently derided the sacred
      traditions of their ancestors. 14

      11 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parentalis, c. 9, 10, p. 232, &c.
      Greg. Nazianzen. Orat. iii. p 61. Eunap. Vit. Sophist. in Maximo,
      p. 68, 69, 70, edit Commelin.]

      12 (return) [ A modern philosopher has ingeniously compared the
      different operation of theism and polytheism, with regard to the
      doubt or conviction which they produce in the human mind. See
      Hume’s Essays vol. ii. p. 444- 457, in 8vo. edit. 1777.]

      13 (return) [ The Idæan mother landed in Italy about the end of
      the second Punic war. The miracle of Claudia, either virgin or
      matron, who cleared her fame by disgracing the graver modesty of
      the Roman Indies, is attested by a cloud of witnesses. Their
      evidence is collected by Drakenborch, (ad Silium Italicum, xvii.
      33;) but we may observe that Livy (xxix. 14) slides over the
      transaction with discreet ambiguity.]

      14 (return) [ I cannot refrain from transcribing the emphatical
      words of Julian: Orat. v. p. 161. Julian likewise declares his
      firm belief in the ancilia, the holy shields, which dropped from
      heaven on the Quirinal hill; and pities the strange blindness of
      the Christians, who preferred the cross to these celestial
      trophies. Apud Cyril. l. vi. p. 194.]

      But the devout philosopher, who sincerely embraced, and warmly
      encouraged, the superstition of the people, reserved for himself
      the privilege of a liberal interpretation; and silently withdrew
      from the foot of the altars into the sanctuary of the temple. The
      extravagance of the Grecian mythology proclaimed, with a clear
      and audible voice, that the pious inquirer, instead of being
      scandalized or satisfied with the literal sense, should
      diligently explore the occult wisdom, which had been disguised,
      by the prudence of antiquity, under the mask of folly and of
      fable. 15 The philosophers of the Platonic school, 16 Plotinus,
      Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most
      skilful masters of this allegorical science, which labored to
      soften and harmonize the deformed features of Paganism. Julian
      himself, who was directed in the mysterious pursuit by Ædesius,
      the venerable successor of Iamblichus, aspired to the possession
      of a treasure, which he esteemed, if we may credit his solemn
      asseverations, far above the empire of the world. 17 It was
      indeed a treasure, which derived its value only from opinion; and
      every artist who flattered himself that he had extracted the
      precious ore from the surrounding dross, claimed an equal right
      of stamping the name and figure the most agreeable to his
      peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had been already
      explained by Porphyry; but his labors served only to animate the
      pious industry of Julian, who invented and published his own
      allegory of that ancient and mystic tale. This freedom of
      interpretation, which might gratify the pride of the Platonists,
      exposed the vanity of their art. Without a tedious detail, the
      modern reader could not form a just idea of the strange
      allusions, the forced etymologies, the solemn trifling, and the
      impenetrable obscurity of these sages, who professed to reveal
      the system of the universe. As the traditions of Pagan mythology
      were variously related, the sacred interpreters were at liberty
      to select the most convenient circumstances; and as they
      translated an arbitrary cipher, they could extract from _any_
      fable _any_ sense which was adapted to their favorite system of
      religion and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus was
      tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or some
      physical truth; and the castration of Atys explained the
      revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of
      the human soul from vice and error. 18

      15 (return) [ See the principles of allegory, in Julian, (Orat.
      vii. p. 216, 222.) His reasoning is less absurd than that of some
      modern theologians, who assert that an extravagant or
      contradictory doctrine must be divine; since no man alive could
      have thought of inventing it.]

      16 (return) [ Eunapius has made these sophists the subject of a
      partial and fanatical history; and the learned Brucker (Hist.
      Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 217-303) has employed much labor to
      illustrate their obscure lives and incomprehensible doctrines.]

      17 (return) [ Julian, Orat. vii p 222. He swears with the most
      fervent and enthusiastic devotion; and trembles, lest he should
      betray too much of these holy mysteries, which the profane might
      deride with an impious Sardonic laugh.]

      18 (return) [ See the fifth oration of Julian. But all the
      allegories which ever issued from the Platonic school are not
      worth the short poem of Catullus on the same extraordinary
      subject. The transition of Atys, from the wildest enthusiasm to
      sober, pathetic complaint, for his irretrievable loss, must
      inspire a man with pity, a eunuch with despair.]

      The theological system of Julian appears to have contained the
      sublime and important principles of natural religion. But as the
      faith, which is not founded on revelation, must remain destitute
      of any firm assurance, the disciple of Plato imprudently relapsed
      into the habits of vulgar superstition; and the popular and
      philosophic notion of the Deity seems to have been confounded in
      the practice, the writings, and even in the mind of Julian. 19
      The pious emperor acknowledged and adored the Eternal Cause of
      the universe, to whom he ascribed all the perfections of an
      infinite nature, invisible to the eyes and inaccessible to the
      understanding, of feeble mortals. The Supreme God had created, or
      rather, in the Platonic language, had generated, the gradual
      succession of dependent spirits, of gods, of dæmons, of heroes,
      and of men; and every being which derived its existence
      immediately from the First Cause, received the inherent gift of
      immortality. That so precious an advantage might not be lavished
      upon unworthy objects, the Creator had intrusted to the skill and
      power of the inferior gods the office of forming the human body,
      and of arranging the beautiful harmony of the animal, the
      vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms. To the conduct of these
      divine ministers he delegated the temporal government of this
      lower world; but their imperfect administration is not exempt
      from discord or error. The earth and its inhabitants are divided
      among them, and the characters of Mars or Minerva, of Mercury or
      Venus, may be distinctly traced in the laws and manners of their
      peculiar votaries. As long as our immortal souls are confined in
      a mortal prison, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to
      solicit the favor, and to deprecate the wrath, of the powers of
      heaven; whose pride is gratified by the devotion of mankind; and
      whose grosser parts may be supposed to derive some nourishment
      from the fumes of sacrifice. 20 The inferior gods might sometimes
      condescend to animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples,
      which were dedicated to their honor. They might occasionally
      visit the earth, but the heavens were the proper throne and
      symbol of their glory. The invariable order of the sun, moon, and
      stars, was hastily admitted by Julian, as a proof of their
      _eternal_ duration; and their eternity was a sufficient evidence
      that they were the workmanship, not of an inferior deity, but of
      the Omnipotent King. In the system of Platonists, the visible was
      a type of the invisible world. The celestial bodies, as they were
      informed by a divine spirit, might be considered as the objects
      the most worthy of religious worship. The Sun, whose genial
      influence pervades and sustains the universe, justly claimed the
      adoration of mankind, as the bright representative of the Logos,
      the lively, the rational, the beneficent image of the
      intellectual Father. 21

      19 (return) [ The true religion of Julian may be deduced from the
      Cæsars, p. 308, with Spanheim’s notes and illustrations, from the
      fragments in Cyril, l. ii. p. 57, 58, and especially from the
      theological oration in Solem Regem, p. 130-158, addressed in the
      confidence of friendship, to the præfect Sallust.]

      20 (return) [ Julian adopts this gross conception by ascribing to
      his favorite Marcus Antoninus, (Cæsares, p. 333.) The Stoics and
      Platonists hesitated between the analogy of bodies and the purity
      of spirits; yet the gravest philosophers inclined to the
      whimsical fancy of Aristophanes and Lucian, that an unbelieving
      age might starve the immortal gods. See Observations de Spanheim,
      p. 284, 444, &c.]

      21 (return) [ Julian. Epist. li. In another place, (apud Cyril.
      l. ii. p. 69,) he calls the Sun God, and the throne of God.
      Julian believed the Platonician Trinity; and only blames the
      Christians for preferring a mortal to an immortal _Logos_.]

      In every age, the absence of genuine inspiration is supplied by
      the strong illusions of enthusiasm, and the mimic arts of
      imposture. If, in the time of Julian, these arts had been
      practised only by the pagan priests, for the support of an
      expiring cause, some indulgence might perhaps be allowed to the
      interest and habits of the sacerdotal character. But it may
      appear a subject of surprise and scandal, that the philosophers
      themselves should have contributed to abuse the superstitious
      credulity of mankind, 22 and that the Grecian mysteries should
      have been supported by the magic or theurgy of the modern
      Platonists. They arrogantly pretended to control the order of
      nature, to explore the secrets of futurity, to command the
      service of the inferior dæmons, to enjoy the view and
      conversation of the superior gods, and by disengaging the soul
      from her material bands, to reunite that immortal particle with
      the Infinite and Divine Spirit.

      22 (return) [ The sophists of Eunapias perform as many miracles
      as the saints of the desert; and the only circumstance in their
      favor is, that they are of a less gloomy complexion. Instead of
      devils with horns and tails, Iamblichus evoked the genii of love,
      Eros and Anteros, from two adjacent fountains. Two beautiful boys
      issued from the water, fondly embraced him as their father, and
      retired at his command, p. 26, 27.]

      The devout and fearless curiosity of Julian tempted the
      philosophers with the hopes of an easy conquest; which, from the
      situation of their young proselyte, might be productive of the
      most important consequences. 23 Julian imbibed the first
      rudiments of the Platonic doctrines from the mouth of Ædesius,
      who had fixed at Pergamus his wandering and persecuted school.
      But as the declining strength of that venerable sage was unequal
      to the ardor, the diligence, the rapid conception of his pupil,
      two of his most learned disciples, Chrysanthes and Eusebius,
      supplied, at his own desire, the place of their aged master.
      These philosophers seem to have prepared and distributed their
      respective parts; and they artfully contrived, by dark hints and
      affected disputes, to excite the impatient hopes of the
      _aspirant_, till they delivered him into the hands of their
      associate, Maximus, the boldest and most skilful master of the
      Theurgic science. By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at
      Ephesus, in the twentieth year of his age. His residence at
      Athens confirmed this unnatural alliance of philosophy and
      superstition.

      He obtained the privilege of a solemn initiation into the
      mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay of the
      Grecian worship, still retained some vestiges of their primæval
      sanctity; and such was the zeal of Julian, that he afterwards
      invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the court of Gaul, for the sole
      purpose of consummating, by mystic rites and sacrifices, the
      great work of his sanctification. As these ceremonies were
      performed in the depth of caverns, and in the silence of the
      night, and as the inviolable secret of the mysteries was
      preserved by the discretion of the initiated, I shall not presume
      to describe the horrid sounds, and fiery apparitions, which were
      presented to the senses, or the imagination, of the credulous
      aspirant, 24 till the visions of comfort and knowledge broke upon
      him in a blaze of celestial light. 25 In the caverns of Ephesus
      and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere,
      deep, and unalterable enthusiasm; though he might sometimes
      exhibit the vicissitudes of pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may
      be observed, or at least suspected, in the characters of the most
      conscientious fanatics. From that moment he consecrated his life
      to the service of the gods; and while the occupations of war, of
      government, and of study, seemed to claim the whole measure of
      his time, a stated portion of the hours of the night was
      invariably reserved for the exercise of private devotion. The
      temperance which adorned the severe manners of the soldier and
      the philosopher was connected with some strict and frivolous
      rules of religious abstinence; and it was in honor of Pan or
      Mercury, of Hecate or Isis, that Julian, on particular days,
      denied himself the use of some particular food, which might have
      been offensive to his tutelar deities. By these voluntary fasts,
      he prepared his senses and his understanding for the frequent and
      familiar visits with which he was honored by the celestial
      powers. Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian himself, we
      may learn from his faithful friend, the orator Libanius, that he
      lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods and goddesses;
      that they descended upon earth to enjoy the conversation of their
      favorite hero; that they gently interrupted his slumbers by
      touching his hand or his hair; that they warned him of every
      impending danger, and conducted him, by their infallible wisdom,
      in every action of his life; and that he had acquired such an
      intimate knowledge of his heavenly guests, as readily to
      distinguish the voice of Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the
      form of Apollo from the figure of Hercules. 26 These sleeping or
      waking visions, the ordinary effects of abstinence and
      fanaticism, would almost degrade the emperor to the level of an
      Egyptian monk. But the useless lives of Antony or Pachomius were
      consumed in these vain occupations. Julian could break from the
      dream of superstition to arm himself for battle; and after
      vanquishing in the field the enemies of Rome, he calmly retired
      into his tent, to dictate the wise and salutary laws of an
      empire, or to indulge his genius in the elegant pursuits of
      literature and philosophy.

      23 (return) [ The dexterous management of these sophists, who
      played their credulous pupil into each other’s hands, is fairly
      told by Eunapius (p. 69- 79) with unsuspecting simplicity. The
      Abbé de la Bleterie understands, and neatly describes, the whole
      comedy, (Vie de Julian, p. 61-67.)]

      24 (return) [ When Julian, in a momentary panic, made the sign of
      the cross the dæmons instantly disappeared, (Greg. Naz. Orat.
      iii. p. 71.) Gregory supposes that they were frightened, but the
      priests declared that they were indignant. The reader, according
      to the measure of his faith, will determine this profound
      question.]

      25 (return) [ A dark and distant view of the terrors and joys of
      initiation is shown by Dion Chrysostom, Themistius, Proclus, and
      Stobæus. The learned author of the Divine Legation has exhibited
      their words, (vol. i. p. 239, 247, 248, 280, edit. 1765,) which
      he dexterously or forcibly applies to his own hypothesis.]

      26 (return) [ Julian’s modesty confined him to obscure and
      occasional hints: but Libanius expiates with pleasure on the
      facts and visions of the religious hero. (Legat. ad Julian. p.
      157, and Orat. Parental. c. lxxxiii. p. 309, 310.)]

      The important secret of the apostasy of Julian was intrusted to
      the fidelity of the _initiated_, with whom he was united by the
      sacred ties of friendship and religion. 27 The pleasing rumor was
      cautiously circulated among the adherents of the ancient worship;
      and his future greatness became the object of the hopes, the
      prayers, and the predictions of the Pagans, in every province of
      the empire. From the zeal and virtues of their royal proselyte,
      they fondly expected the cure of every evil, and the restoration
      of every blessing; and instead of disapproving of the ardor of
      their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously confessed, that he was
      ambitious to attain a situation in which he might be useful to
      his country and to his religion. But this religion was viewed
      with a hostile eye by the successor of Constantine, whose
      capricious passions altercately saved and threatened the life of
      Julian. The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited
      under a despotic government, which condescended to fear them; and
      if the Pagans were reluctantly indulged in the exercise of their
      superstition, the rank of Julian would have excepted him from the
      general toleration. The apostate soon became the presumptive heir
      of the monarchy, and his death could alone have appeased the just
      apprehensions of the Christians. 28 But the young prince, who
      aspired to the glory of a hero rather than of a martyr, consulted
      his safety by dissembling his religion; and the easy temper of
      polytheism permitted him to join in the public worship of a sect
      which he inwardly despised. Libanius has considered the hypocrisy
      of his friend as a subject, not of censure, but of praise. “As
      the statues of the gods,” says that orator, “which have been
      defiled with filth, are again placed in a magnificent temple, so
      the beauty of truth was seated in the mind of Julian, after it
      had been purified from the errors and follies of his education.
      His sentiments were changed; but as it would have been dangerous
      to have avowed his sentiments, his conduct still continued the
      same. Very different from the ass in Æsop, who disguised himself
      with a lion’s hide, our lion was obliged to conceal himself under
      the skin of an ass; and, while he embraced the dictates of
      reason, to obey the laws of prudence and necessity.” 29 The
      dissimulation of Julian lasted about ten years, from his secret
      initiation at Ephesus to the beginning of the civil war; when he
      declared himself at once the implacable enemy of Christ and of
      Constantius. This state of constraint might contribute to
      strengthen his devotion; and as soon as he had satisfied the
      obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals, at the assemblies
      of the Christians, Julian returned, with the impatience of a
      lover, to burn his free and voluntary incense on the domestic
      chapels of Jupiter and Mercury. But as every act of dissimulation
      must be painful to an ingenuous spirit, the profession of
      Christianity increased the aversion of Julian for a religion
      which oppressed the freedom of his mind, and compelled him to
      hold a conduct repugnant to the noblest attributes of human
      nature, sincerity and courage.

      27 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. x. p. 233, 234. Gallus
      had some reason to suspect the secret apostasy of his brother;
      and in a letter, which may be received as genuine, he exhorts
      Julian to adhere to the religion of their _ancestors;_ an
      argument which, as it should seem, was not yet perfectly ripe.
      See Julian, Op. p. 454, and Hist. de Jovien tom ii. p. 141.]

      28 (return) [ Gregory, (iii. p. 50,) with inhuman zeal, censures
      Constantius for paring the infant apostate. His French translator
      (p. 265) cautiously observes, that such expressions must not be
      prises à la lettre.]

      29 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parental. c ix. p. 233.]




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part II.


      The inclination of Julian might prefer the gods of Homer, and of
      the Scipios, to the new faith, which his uncle had established in
      the Roman empire; and in which he himself had been sanctified by
      the sacrament of baptism. But, as a philosopher, it was incumbent
      on him to justify his dissent from Christianity, which was
      supported by the number of its converts, by the chain of
      prophecy, the splendor of miracles, and the weight of evidence.
      The elaborate work, 30 which he composed amidst the preparations
      of the Persian war, contained the substance of those arguments
      which he had long revolved in his mind. Some fragments have been
      transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the vehement Cyril
      of Alexandria; 31 and they exhibit a very singular mixture of wit
      and learning, of sophistry and fanaticism. The elegance of the
      style and the rank of the author, recommended his writings to the
      public attention; 32 and in the impious list of the enemies of
      Christianity, the celebrated name of Porphyry was effaced by the
      superior merit or reputation of Julian. The minds of the faithful
      were either seduced, or scandalized, or alarmed; and the pagans,
      who sometimes presumed to engage in the unequal dispute, derived,
      from the popular work of their Imperial missionary, an
      inexhaustible supply of fallacious objections. But in the
      assiduous prosecution of these theological studies, the emperor
      of the Romans imbibed the illiberal prejudices and passions of a
      polemic divine. He contracted an irrevocable obligation to
      maintain and propagate his religious opinions; and whilst he
      secretly applauded the strength and dexterity with which he
      wielded the weapons of controversy, he was tempted to distrust
      the sincerity, or to despise the understandings, of his
      antagonists, who could obstinately resist the force of reason and
      eloquence.

      30 (return) [ Fabricius (Biblioth. Græc. l. v. c. viii, p. 88-90)
      and Lardner (Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 44-47) have
      accurately compiled all that can now be discovered of Julian’s
      work against the Christians.]

      31 (return) [ About seventy years after the death of Julian, he
      executed a task which had been feebly attempted by Philip of
      Side, a prolix and contemptible writer. Even the work of Cyril
      has not entirely satisfied the most favorable judges; and the
      Abbé de la Bleterie (Preface a l’Hist. de Jovien, p. 30, 32)
      wishes that some _theologien philosophe_ (a strange centaur)
      would undertake the refutation of Julian.]

      32 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. lxxxvii. p. 313,) who
      has been suspected of assisting his friend, prefers this divine
      vindication (Orat. ix in necem Julian. p. 255, edit. Morel.) to
      the writings of Porphyry. His judgment may be arraigned,
      (Socrates, l. iii. c. 23,) but Libanius cannot be accused of
      flattery to a dead prince.]

      The Christians, who beheld with horror and indignation the
      apostasy of Julian, had much more to fear from his power than
      from his arguments. The pagans, who were conscious of his fervent
      zeal, expected, perhaps with impatience, that the flames of
      persecution should be immediately kindled against the enemies of
      the gods; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent
      some cruel refinements of death and torture which had been
      unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his predecessors.
      But the hopes, as well as the fears, of the religious factions
      were apparently disappointed, by the prudent humanity of a
      prince, 33 who was careful of his own fame, of the public peace,
      and of the rights of mankind. Instructed by history and
      reflection, Julian was persuaded, that if the diseases of the
      body may sometimes be cured by salutary violence, neither steel
      nor fire can eradicate the erroneous opinions of the mind. The
      reluctant victim may be dragged to the foot of the altar; but the
      heart still abhors and disclaims the sacrilegious act of the
      hand. Religious obstinacy is hardened and exasperated by
      oppression; and, as soon as the persecution subsides, those who
      have yielded are restored as penitents, and those who have
      resisted are honored as saints and martyrs. If Julian adopted the
      unsuccessful cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he was
      sensible that he should stain his memory with the name of a
      tyrant, and add new glories to the Catholic church, which had
      derived strength and increase from the severity of the pagan
      magistrates. Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of
      disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian surprised the
      world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or a
      philosopher. He extended to all the inhabitants of the Roman
      world the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only
      hardship which he inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive
      them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they
      stigmatized with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics. The
      pagans received a gracious permission, or rather an express
      order, to open All their temples; 34 and they were at once
      delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations,
      which they had sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of
      his sons. At the same time the bishops and clergy, who had been
      banished by the Arian monarch, were recalled from exile, and
      restored to their respective churches; the Donatists, the
      Novatians, the Macedonians, the Eunomians, and those who, with a
      more prosperous fortune, adhered to the doctrine of the Council
      of Nice. Julian, who understood and derided their theological
      disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects,
      that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious
      encounters. The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked the
      emperor to exclaim, “Hear me! the Franks have heard me, and the
      Alemanni;” but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with
      more obstinate and implacable enemies; and though he exerted the
      powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at
      least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied, before he dismissed
      them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the
      union of the Christians. The impartial Ammianus has ascribed this
      affected clemency to the desire of fomenting the intestine
      divisions of the church, and the insidious design of undermining
      the foundations of Christianity, was inseparably connected with
      the zeal which Julian professed, to restore the ancient religion
      of the empire. 35

      33 (return) [ Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. lviii. p. 283, 284) has
      eloquently explained the tolerating principles and conduct of his
      Imperial friend. In a very remarkable epistle to the people of
      Bostra, Julian himself (Epist. lii.) professes his moderation,
      and betrays his zeal, which is acknowledged by Ammianus, and
      exposed by Gregory (Orat. iii. p.72)]

      34 (return) [ In Greece the temples of Minerva were opened by his
      express command, before the death of Constantius, (Liban. Orat.
      Parent. c. 55, p. 280;) and Julian declares himself a Pagan in
      his public manifesto to the Athenians. This unquestionable
      evidence may correct the hasty assertion of Ammianus, who seems
      to suppose Constantinople to be the place where he discovered his
      attachment to the gods]

      35 (return) [ Ammianus, xxii. 5. Sozomen, l. v. c. 5. Bestia
      moritur, tranquillitas redit.... omnes episcopi qui de propriis
      sedibus fuerant exterminati per indulgentiam novi principis ad
      acclesias redeunt. Jerom. adversus Luciferianos, tom. ii. p. 143.
      Optatus accuses the Donatists for owing their safety to an
      apostate, (l. ii. c. 16, p. 36, 37, edit. Dupin.)]

      As soon as he ascended the throne, he assumed, according to the
      custom of his predecessors, the character of supreme pontiff; not
      only as the most honorable title of Imperial greatness, but as a
      sacred and important office; the duties of which he was resolved
      to execute with pious diligence. As the business of the state
      prevented the emperor from joining every day in the public
      devotion of his subjects, he dedicated a domestic chapel to his
      tutelar deity the Sun; his gardens were filled with statues and
      altars of the gods; and each apartment of the palace displaced
      the appearance of a magnificent temple. Every morning he saluted
      the parent of light with a sacrifice; the blood of another victim
      was shed at the moment when the Sun sunk below the horizon; and
      the Moon, the Stars, and the Genii of the night received their
      respective and seasonable honors from the indefatigable devotion
      of Julian. On solemn festivals, he regularly visited the temple
      of the god or goddess to whom the day was peculiarly consecrated,
      and endeavored to excite the religion of the magistrates and
      people by the example of his own zeal. Instead of maintaining the
      lofty state of a monarch, distinguished by the splendor of his
      purple, and encompassed by the golden shields of his guards,
      Julian solicited, with respectful eagerness, the meanest offices
      which contributed to the worship of the gods. Amidst the sacred
      but licentious crowd of priests, of inferior ministers, and of
      female dancers, who were dedicated to the service of the temple,
      it was the business of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the
      fire, to handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and,
      thrusting his bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring
      animal, to draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the
      consummate skill of an haruspex, imaginary signs of future
      events. The wisest of the Pagans censured this extravagant
      superstition, which affected to despise the restraints of
      prudence and decency. Under the reign of a prince, who practised
      the rigid maxims of economy, the expense of religious worship
      consumed a very large portion of the revenue; a constant supply
      of the scarcest and most beautiful birds was transported from
      distant climates, to bleed on the altars of the gods; a hundred
      oxen were frequently sacrificed by Julian on one and the same
      day; and it soon became a popular jest, that if he should return
      with conquest from the Persian war, the breed of horned cattle
      must infallibly be extinguished. Yet this expense may appear
      inconsiderable, when it is compared with the splendid presents
      which were offered either by the hand, or by order, of the
      emperor, to all the celebrated places of devotion in the Roman
      world; and with the sums allotted to repair and decorate the
      ancient temples, which had suffered the silent decay of time, or
      the recent injuries of Christian rapine. Encouraged by the
      example, the exhortations, the liberality, of their pious
      sovereign, the cities and families resumed the practice of their
      neglected ceremonies. “Every part of the world,” exclaims
      Libanius, with devout transport, “displayed the triumph of
      religion; and the grateful prospect of flaming altars, bleeding
      victims, the smoke of incense, and a solemn train of priests and
      prophets, without fear and without danger. The sound of prayer
      and of music was heard on the tops of the highest mountains; and
      the same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for
      their joyous votaries.” 36

      36 (return) [ The restoration of the Pagan worship is described
      by Julian, (Misopogon, p. 346,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 60,
      p. 286, 287, and Orat. Consular. ad Julian. p. 245, 246, edit.
      Morel.,) Ammianus, (xxii. 12,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv.
      p. 121.) These writers agree in the essential, and even minute,
      facts; but the different lights in which they view the extreme
      devotion of Julian, are expressive of the gradations of
      self-applause, passionate admiration, mild reproof, and partial
      invective.]

      But the genius and power of Julian were unequal to the enterprise
      of restoring a religion which was destitute of theological
      principles, of moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical discipline;
      which rapidly hastened to decay and dissolution, and was not
      susceptible of any solid or consistent reformation. The
      jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more especially after that
      office had been united with the Imperial dignity, comprehended
      the whole extent of the Roman empire. Julian named for his
      vicars, in the several provinces, the priests and philosophers
      whom he esteemed the best qualified to cooperate in the execution
      of his great design; and his pastoral letters, 37 if we may use
      that name, still represent a very curious sketch of his wishes
      and intentions. He directs, that in every city the sacerdotal
      order should be composed, without any distinction of birth and
      fortune, of those persons who were the most conspicuous for the
      love of the gods, and of men. “If they are guilty,” continues he,
      “of any scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded
      by the superior pontiff; but as long as they retain their rank,
      they are entitled to the respect of the magistrates and people.
      Their humility may be shown in the plainness of their domestic
      garb; their dignity, in the pomp of holy vestments. When they are
      summoned in their turn to officiate before the altar, they ought
      not, during the appointed number of days, to depart from the
      precincts of the temple; nor should a single day be suffered to
      elapse, without the prayers and the sacrifice, which they are
      obliged to offer for the prosperity of the state, and of
      individuals. The exercise of their sacred functions requires an
      immaculate purity, both of mind and body; and even when they are
      dismissed from the temple to the occupations of common life, it
      is incumbent on them to excel in decency and virtue the rest of
      their fellow-citizens. The priest of the gods should never be
      seen in theatres or taverns. His conversation should be chaste,
      his diet temperate, his friends of honorable reputation; and if
      he sometimes visits the Forum or the Palace, he should appear
      only as the advocate of those who have vainly solicited either
      justice or mercy. His studies should be suited to the sanctity of
      his profession. Licentious tales, or comedies, or satires, must
      be banished from his library, which ought solely to consist of
      historical or philosophical writings; of history, which is
      founded in truth, and of philosophy, which is connected with
      religion. The impious opinions of the Epicureans and sceptics
      deserve his abhorrence and contempt; 38 but he should diligently
      study the systems of Pythagoras, of Plato, and of the Stoics,
      which unanimously teach that there _are_ gods; that the world is
      governed by their providence; that their goodness is the source
      of every temporal blessing; and that they have prepared for the
      human soul a future state of reward or punishment.” The Imperial
      pontiff inculcates, in the most persuasive language, the duties
      of benevolence and hospitality; exhorts his inferior clergy to
      recommend the universal practice of those virtues; promises to
      assist their indigence from the public treasury; and declares his
      resolution of establishing hospitals in every city, where the
      poor should be received without any invidious distinction of
      country or of religion. Julian beheld with envy the wise and
      humane regulations of the church; and he very frankly confesses
      his intention to deprive the Christians of the applause, as well
      as advantage, which they had acquired by the exclusive practice
      of charity and beneficence. 39 The same spirit of imitation might
      dispose the emperor to adopt several ecclesiastical institutions,
      the use and importance of which were approved by the success of
      his enemies. But if these imaginary plans of reformation had been
      realized, the forced and imperfect copy would have been less
      beneficial to Paganism, than honorable to Christianity. 40 The
      Gentiles, who peaceably followed the customs of their ancestors,
      were rather surprised than pleased with the introduction of
      foreign manners; and in the short period of his reign, Julian had
      frequent occasions to complain of the want of fervor of his own
      party. 41

      37 (return) [ See Julian. Epistol. xlix. lxii. lxiii., and a long
      and curious fragment, without beginning or end, (p. 288-305.) The
      supreme pontiff derides the Mosaic history and the Christian
      discipline, prefers the Greek poets to the Hebrew prophets, and
      palliates, with the skill of a Jesuit the _relative_ worship of
      images.]

      38 (return) [ The exultation of Julian (p. 301) that these
      impious sects and even their writings, are extinguished, may be
      consistent enough with the sacerdotal character; but it is
      unworthy of a philosopher to wish that any opinions and arguments
      the most repugnant to his own should be concealed from the
      knowledge of mankind.]

      39 (return) [ Yet he insinuates, that the Christians, under the
      pretence of charity, inveigled children from their religion and
      parents, conveyed them on shipboard, and devoted those victims to
      a life of poverty or pervitude in a remote country, (p. 305.) Had
      the charge been proved it was his duty, not to complain, but to
      punish.]

      40 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen is facetious, ingenious, and
      argumentative, (Orat. iii. p. 101, 102, &c.) He ridicules the
      folly of such vain imitation; and amuses himself with inquiring,
      what lessons, moral or theological, could be extracted from the
      Grecian fables.]

      41 (return) [ He accuses one of his pontiffs of a secret
      confederacy with the Christian bishops and presbyters, (Epist.
      lxii.) &c. Epist. lxiii.]

      The enthusiasm of Julian prompted him to embrace the friends of
      Jupiter as his personal friends and brethren; and though he
      partially overlooked the merit of Christian constancy, he admired
      and rewarded the noble perseverance of those Gentiles who had
      preferred the favor of the gods to that of the emperor. 42 If
      they cultivated the literature, as well as the religion, of the
      Greeks, they acquired an additional claim to the friendship of
      Julian, who ranked the Muses in the number of his tutelar
      deities. In the religion which he had adopted, piety and learning
      were almost synonymous; 43 and a crowd of poets, of rhetoricians,
      and of philosophers, hastened to the Imperial court, to occupy
      the vacant places of the bishops, who had seduced the credulity
      of Constantius. His successor esteemed the ties of common
      initiation as far more sacred than those of consanguinity; he
      chose his favorites among the sages, who were deeply skilled in
      the occult sciences of magic and divination; and every impostor,
      who pretended to reveal the secrets of futurity, was assured of
      enjoying the present hour in honor and affluence. 44 Among the
      philosophers, Maximus obtained the most eminent rank in the
      friendship of his royal disciple, who communicated, with
      unreserved confidence, his actions, his sentiments, and his
      religious designs, during the anxious suspense of the civil war.
      45 As soon as Julian had taken possession of the palace of
      Constantinople, he despatched an honorable and pressing
      invitation to Maximus, who then resided at Sardes in Lydia, with
      Chrysanthius, the associate of his art and studies. The prudent
      and superstitious Chrysanthius refused to undertake a journey
      which showed itself, according to the rules of divination, with
      the most threatening and malignant aspect: but his companion,
      whose fanaticism was of a bolder cast, persisted in his
      interrogations, till he had extorted from the gods a seeming
      consent to his own wishes, and those of the emperor. The journey
      of Maximus through the cities of Asia displayed the triumph of
      philosophic vanity; and the magistrates vied with each other in
      the honorable reception which they prepared for the friend of
      their sovereign. Julian was pronouncing an oration before the
      senate, when he was informed of the arrival of Maximus. The
      emperor immediately interrupted his discourse, advanced to meet
      him, and after a tender embrace, conducted him by the hand into
      the midst of the assembly; where he publicly acknowledged the
      benefits which he had derived from the instructions of the
      philosopher. Maximus, 46 who soon acquired the confidence, and
      influenced the councils of Julian, was insensibly corrupted by
      the temptations of a court. His dress became more splendid, his
      demeanor more lofty, and he was exposed, under a succeeding
      reign, to a disgraceful inquiry into the means by which the
      disciple of Plato had accumulated, in the short duration of his
      favor, a very scandalous proportion of wealth. Of the other
      philosophers and sophists, who were invited to the Imperial
      residence by the choice of Julian, or by the success of Maximus,
      few were able to preserve their innocence or their reputation.
      The liberal gifts of money, lands, and houses, were insufficient
      to satiate their rapacious avarice; and the indignation of the
      people was justly excited by the remembrance of their abject
      poverty and disinterested professions. The penetration of Julian
      could not always be deceived: but he was unwilling to despise the
      characters of those men whose talents deserved his esteem: he
      desired to escape the double reproach of imprudence and
      inconstancy; and he was apprehensive of degrading, in the eyes of
      the profane, the honor of letters and of religion. 47 48

      42 (return) [ He praises the fidelity of Callixene, priestess of
      Ceres, who had been twice as constant as Penelope, and rewards
      her with the priesthood of the Phrygian goddess at Pessinus,
      (Julian. Epist. xxi.) He applauds the firmness of Sopater of
      Hierapolis, who had been repeatedly pressed by Constantius and
      Gallus to _apostatize_, (Epist. xxvii p. 401.)]

      43 (return) [ Orat. Parent. c. 77, p. 202. The same sentiment is
      frequently inculcated by Julian, Libanius, and the rest of their
      party.]

      44 (return) [ The curiosity and credulity of the emperor, who
      tried every mode of divination, are fairly exposed by Ammianus,
      xxii. 12.]

      45 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xxxviii. Three other epistles, (xv.
      xvi. xxxix.,) in the same style of friendship and confidence, are
      addressed to the philosopher Maximus.]

      46 (return) [ Eunapius (in Maximo, p. 77, 78, 79, and in
      Chrysanthio, p. 147, 148) has minutely related these anecdotes,
      which he conceives to be the most important events of the age.
      Yet he fairly confesses the frailty of Maximus. His reception at
      Constantinople is described by Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 86, p.
      301) and Ammianus, (xxii. 7.) * Note: Eunapius wrote a
      continuation of the History of Dexippus. Some valuable fragments
      of this work have been recovered by M. Mai, and reprinted in
      Niebuhr’s edition of the Byzantine Historians.—M.]

      47 (return) [ Chrysanthius, who had refused to quit Lydia, was
      created high priest of the province. His cautious and temperate
      use of power secured him after the revolution; and he lived in
      peace, while Maximus, Priscus, &c., were persecuted by the
      Christian ministers. See the adventures of those fanatic
      sophists, collected by Brucker, tom ii. p. 281-293.]

      48 (return) [ Sec Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 101, 102, p. 324,
      325, 326) and Eunapius, (Vit. Sophist. in Proæresio, p. 126.)
      Some students, whose expectations perhaps were groundless, or
      extravagant, retired in disgust, (Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. p. 120.)
      It is strange that we should not be able to contradict the title
      of one of Tillemont’s chapters, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p.
      960,) “La Cour de Julien est pleine de philosphes et de gens
      perdus.”]

      The favor of Julian was almost equally divided between the
      Pagans, who had firmly adhered to the worship of their ancestors,
      and the Christians, who prudently embraced the religion of their
      sovereign. The acquisition of new proselytes 49 gratified the
      ruling passions of his soul, superstition and vanity; and he was
      heard to declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he
      could render each individual richer than Midas, and every city
      greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the benefactor
      of mankind, unless, at the same time, he could reclaim his
      subjects from their impious revolt against the immortal gods. 50
      A prince who had studied human nature, and who possessed the
      treasures of the Roman empire, could adapt his arguments, his
      promises, and his rewards, to every order of Christians; 51 and
      the merit of a seasonable conversion was allowed to supply the
      defects of a candidate, or even to expiate the guilt of a
      criminal. As the army is the most forcible engine of absolute
      power, Julian applied himself, with peculiar diligence, to
      corrupt the religion of his troops, without whose hearty
      concurrence every measure must be dangerous and unsuccessful; and
      the natural temper of soldiers made this conquest as easy as it
      was important. The legions of Gaul devoted themselves to the
      faith, as well as to the fortunes, of their victorious leader;
      and even before the death of Constantius, he had the satisfaction
      of announcing to his friends, that they assisted with fervent
      devotion, and voracious appetite, at the sacrifices, which were
      repeatedly offered in his camp, of whole hecatombs of fat oxen.
      52 The armies of the East, which had been trained under the
      standard of the cross, and of Constantius, required a more artful
      and expensive mode of persuasion. On the days of solemn and
      public festivals, the emperor received the homage, and rewarded
      the merit, of the troops. His throne of state was encircled with
      the military ensigns of Rome and the republic; the holy name of
      Christ was erased from the _Labarum;_ and the symbols of war, of
      majesty, and of pagan superstition, were so dexterously blended,
      that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idolatry, when he
      respectfully saluted the person or image of his sovereign. The
      soldiers passed successively in review; and each of them, before
      he received from the hand of Julian a liberal donative,
      proportioned to his rank and services, was required to cast a few
      grains of incense into the flame which burnt upon the altar. Some
      Christian confessors might resist, and others might repent; but
      the far greater number, allured by the prospect of gold, and awed
      by the presence of the emperor, contracted the criminal
      engagement; and their future perseverance in the worship of the
      gods was enforced by every consideration of duty and of interest.

      By the frequent repetition of these arts, and at the expense of
      sums which would have purchased the service of half the nations
      of Scythia, Julian gradually acquired for his troops the
      imaginary protection of the gods, and for himself the firm and
      effectual support of the Roman legions. 53 It is indeed more than
      probable, that the restoration and encouragement of Paganism
      revealed a multitude of pretended Christians, who, from motives
      of temporal advantage, had acquiesced in the religion of the
      former reign; and who afterwards returned, with the same
      flexibility of conscience, to the faith which was professed by
      the successors of Julian.

      49 (return) [ Under the reign of Lewis XIV. his subjects of every
      rank aspired to the glorious title of _Convertisseur_, expressive
      of their zea and success in making proselytes. The word and the
      idea are growing obsolete in France may they never be introduced
      into England.]

      50 (return) [ See the strong expressions of Libanius, which were
      probably those of Julian himself, (Orat. Parent. c. 59, p. 285.)]

      51 (return) [ When Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. x. p. 167) is
      desirous to magnify the Christian firmness of his brother
      Cæsarius, physician to the Imperial court, he owns that Cæsarius
      disputed with a formidable adversary. In his invectives he
      scarcely allows any share of wit or courage to the apostate.]

      52 (return) [ Julian, Epist. xxxviii. Ammianus, xxii. 12. Adeo ut
      in dies pæne singulos milites carnis distentiore sagina
      victitantes incultius, potusque aviditate correpti, humeris
      impositi transeuntium per plateas, ex publicis ædibus..... ad sua
      diversoria portarentur. The devout prince and the indignant
      historian describe the same scene; and in Illyricum or Antioch,
      similar causes must have produced similar effects.]

      53 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 74, 75, 83-86) and Libanius,
      (Orat. Parent. c. lxxxi. lxxxii. p. 307, 308,). The sophist owns
      and justifies the expense of these military conversions.]

      While the devout monarch incessantly labored to restore and
      propagate the religion of his ancestors, he embraced the
      extraordinary design of rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. In a
      public epistle 54 to the nation or community of the Jews,
      dispersed through the provinces, he pities their misfortunes,
      condemns their oppressors, praises their constancy, declares
      himself their gracious protector, and expresses a pious hope,
      that after his return from the Persian war, he may be permitted
      to pay his grateful vows to the Almighty in his holy city of
      Jerusalem. The blind superstition, and abject slavery, of those
      unfortunate exiles, must excite the contempt of a philosophic
      emperor; but they deserved the friendship of Julian, by their
      implacable hatred of the Christian name. The barren synagogue
      abhorred and envied the fecundity of the rebellious church; the
      power of the Jews was not equal to their malice; but their
      gravest rabbis approved the private murder of an apostate; 55 and
      their seditious clamors had often awakened the indolence of the
      Pagan magistrates. Under the reign of Constantine, the Jews
      became the subjects of their revolted children nor was it long
      before they experienced the bitterness of domestic tyranny. The
      civil immunities which had been granted, or confirmed, by
      Severus, were gradually repealed by the Christian princes; and a
      rash tumult, excited by the Jews of Palestine, 56 seemed to
      justify the lucrative modes of oppression which were invented by
      the bishops and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. The Jewish
      patriarch, who was still permitted to exercise a precarious
      jurisdiction, held his residence at Tiberias; 57 and the
      neighboring cities of Palestine were filled with the remains of a
      people who fondly adhered to the promised land. But the edict of
      Hadrian was renewed and enforced; and they viewed from afar the
      walls of the holy city, which were profaned in their eyes by the
      triumph of the cross and the devotion of the Christians. 58

      54 (return) [ Julian’s epistle (xxv.) is addressed to the
      community of the Jews. Aldus (Venet. 1499) has branded it with
      an; but this stigma is justly removed by the subsequent editors,
      Petavius and Spanheim. This epistle is mentioned by Sozomen, (l.
      v. c. 22,) and the purport of it is confirmed by Gregory, (Orat.
      iv. p. 111.) and by Julian himself (Fragment. p. 295.)]

      55 (return) [ The Misnah denounced death against those who
      abandoned the foundation. The judgment of zeal is explained by
      Marsham (Canon. Chron. p. 161, 162, edit. fol. London, 1672) and
      Basnage, (Hist. des Juifs, tom. viii. p. 120.) Constantine made a
      law to protect Christian converts from Judaism. Cod. Theod. l.
      xvi. tit. viii. leg. 1. Godefroy, tom. vi. p. 215.]

      56 (return) [ Et interea (during the civil war of Magnentius)
      Judæorum seditio, qui Patricium, nefarie in regni speciem
      sustulerunt, oppressa. Aurelius Victor, in Constantio, c. xlii.
      See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 379, in 4to.]

      57 (return) [ The city and synagogue of Tiberias are curiously
      described by Reland. Palestin. tom. ii. p. 1036-1042.]

      58 (return) [ Basnage has fully illustrated the state of the Jews
      under Constantine and his successors, (tom. viii. c. iv. p.
      111-153.)]




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part III.


      In the midst of a rocky and barren country, the walls of
      Jerusalem 59 enclosed the two mountains of Sion and Acra, within
      an oval figure of about three English miles. 60 Towards the
      south, the upper town, and the fortress of David, were erected on
      the lofty ascent of Mount Sion: on the north side, the buildings
      of the lower town covered the spacious summit of Mount Acra; and
      a part of the hill, distinguished by the name of Moriah, and
      levelled by human industry, was crowned with the stately temple
      of the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of the temple
      by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare was drawn over
      the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction. Sion
      was deserted; and the vacant space of the lower city was filled
      with the public and private edifices of the Ælian colony, which
      spread themselves over the adjacent hill of Calvary. The holy
      places were polluted with mountains of idolatry; and, either from
      design or accident, a chapel was dedicated to Venus, on the spot
      which had been sanctified by the death and resurrection of
      Christ. 61 6111 Almost three hundred years after those stupendous
      events, the profane chapel of Venus was demolished by the order
      of Constantine; and the removal of the earth and stones revealed
      the holy sepulchre to the eyes of mankind. A magnificent church
      was erected on that mystic ground, by the first Christian
      emperor; and the effects of his pious munificence were extended
      to every spot which had been consecrated by the footstep of
      patriarchs, of prophets, and of the Son of God. 62

      59 (return) [ Reland (Palestin. l. i. p. 309, 390, l. iii. p.
      838) describes, with learning and perspicuity, Jerusalem, and the
      face of the adjacent country.]

      60 (return) [ I have consulted a rare and curious treatise of M.
      D’Anville, (sur l’Ancienne Jerusalem, Paris, 1747, p. 75.) The
      circumference of the ancient city (Euseb. Preparat. Evangel. l.
      ix. c. 36) was 27 stadia, or 2550 _toises_. A plan, taken on the
      spot, assigns no more than 1980 for the modern town. The circuit
      is defined by natural landmarks, which cannot be mistaken or
      removed.]

      61 (return) [ See two curious passages in Jerom, (tom. i. p. 102,
      tom. vi. p. 315,) and the ample details of Tillemont, (Hist, des
      Empereurs, tom. i. p. 569. tom. ii. p. 289, 294, 4to edition.)]

      6111 (return) [ On the site of the Holy Sepulchre, compare the
      chapter in Professor Robinson’s Travels in Palestine, which has
      renewed the old controversy with great vigor. To me, this temple
      of Venus, said to have been erected by Hadrian to insult the
      Christians, is not the least suspicious part of the whole
      legend.-M. 1845.]

      62 (return) [ Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. l. iii. c. 25-47,
      51-53. The emperor likewise built churches at Bethlem, the Mount
      of Olives, and the oa of Mambre. The holy sepulchre is described
      by Sandys, (Travels, p. 125-133,) and curiously delineated by Le
      Bruyn, (Voyage au Levant, p. 28-296.)]

      The passionate desire of contemplating the original monuments of
      their redemption attracted to Jerusalem a successive crowd of
      pilgrims, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, and the most
      distant countries of the East; 63 and their piety was authorized
      by the example of the empress Helena, who appears to have united
      the credulity of age with the warm feelings of a recent
      conversion. Sages and heroes, who have visited the memorable
      scenes of ancient wisdom or glory, have confessed the inspiration
      of the genius of the place; 64 and the Christian who knelt before
      the holy sepulchre, ascribed his lively faith, and his fervent
      devotion, to the more immediate influence of the Divine Spirit.
      The zeal, perhaps the avarice, of the clergy of Jerusalem,
      cherished and multiplied these beneficial visits. They fixed, by
      unquestionable tradition, the scene of each memorable event. They
      exhibited the instruments which had been used in the passion of
      Christ; the nails and the lance that had pierced his hands, his
      feet, and his side; the crown of thorns that was planted on his
      head; the pillar at which he was scourged; and, above all, they
      showed the cross on which he suffered, and which was dug out of
      the earth in the reign of those princes, who inserted the symbol
      of Christianity in the banners of the Roman legions. 65 Such
      miracles as seemed necessary to account for its extraordinary
      preservation, and seasonable discovery, were gradually propagated
      without opposition. The custody of the _true cross_, which on
      Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the people, was intrusted
      to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify the
      curious devotion of the pilgrims, by the gift of small pieces,
      which they encased in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph
      to their respective countries. But as this gainful branch of
      commerce must soon have been annihilated, it was found convenient
      to suppose, that the marvelous wood possessed a secret power of
      vegetation; and that its substance, though continually
      diminished, still remained entire and unimpaired. 66 It might
      perhaps have been expected, that the influence of the place and
      the belief of a perpetual miracle, should have produced some
      salutary effects on the morals, as well as on the faith, of the
      people. Yet the most respectable of the ecclesiastical writers
      have been obliged to confess, not only that the streets of
      Jerusalem were filled with the incessant tumult of business and
      pleasure, 67 but that every species of vice—adultery, theft,
      idolatry, poisoning, murder—was familiar to the inhabitants of
      the holy city. 68 The wealth and preëminence of the church of
      Jerusalem excited the ambition of Arian, as well as orthodox,
      candidates; and the virtues of Cyril, who, since his death, has
      been honored with the title of Saint, were displayed in the
      exercise, rather than in the acquisition, of his episcopal
      dignity. 69

      63 (return) [ The Itinerary from Bourdeaux to Jerusalem was
      composed in the year 333, for the use of pilgrims; among whom
      Jerom (tom. i. p. 126) mentions the Britons and the Indians. The
      causes of this superstitious fashion are discussed in the learned
      and judicious preface of Wesseling. (Itinarar. p. 537-545.)
      ——Much curious information on this subject is collected in the
      first chapter of Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge.—M.]

      64 (return) [ Cicero (de Finibus, v. 1) has beautifully expressed
      the common sense of mankind.]

      65 (return) [ Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 326, No. 42-50) and
      Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 8-16) are the historians and
      champions of the miraculous _invention_ of the cross, under the
      reign of Constantine. Their oldest witnesses are Paulinus,
      Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Ambrose, and perhaps Cyril of
      Jerusalem. The silence of Eusebius, and the Bourdeaux pilgrim,
      which satisfies those who think perplexes those who believe. See
      Jortin’s sensible remarks, vol. ii. p 238-248.]

      66 (return) [ This multiplication is asserted by Paulinus,
      (Epist. xxxvi. See Dupin. Bibliot. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 149,) who
      seems to have improved a rhetorical flourish of Cyril into a real
      fact. The same supernatural privilege must have been communicated
      to the Virgin’s milk, (Erasmi Opera, tom. i. p. 778, Lugd. Batav.
      1703, in Colloq. de Peregrinat. Religionis ergo,) saints’ heads,
      &c. and other relics, which are repeated in so many different
      churches. * Note: Lord Mahon, in a memoir read before the Society
      of Antiquaries, (Feb. 1831,) has traced in a brief but
      interesting manner, the singular adventures of the “true” cross.
      It is curious to inquire, what authority we have, except of
      _late_ tradition, for the _Hill_ of Calvary. There is none in the
      sacred writings; the uniform use of the common word, instead of
      any word expressing assent or acclivity, is against the
      notion.—M.]

      67 (return) [ Jerom, (tom. i. p. 103,) who resided in the
      neighboring village of Bethlem, describes the vices of Jerusalem
      from his personal experience.]

      68 (return) [ Gregor. Nyssen, apud Wesseling, p. 539. The whole
      epistle, which condemns either the use or the abuse of religious
      pilgrimage, is painful to the Catholic divines, while it is dear
      and familiar to our Protestant polemics.]

      69 (return) [ He renounced his orthodox ordination, officiated as
      a deacon, and was re-ordained by the hands of the Arians. But
      Cyril afterwards changed with the times, and prudently conformed
      to the Nicene faith. Tillemont, (Mém. Eccles. tom. viii.,) who
      treats his memory with tenderness and respect, has thrown his
      virtues into the text, and his faults into the notes, in decent
      obscurity, at the end of the volume.]

      The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might aspire to restore the
      ancient glory of the temple of Jerusalem. 70 As the Christians
      were firmly persuaded that a sentence of everlasting destruction
      had been pronounced against the whole fabric of the Mosaic law,
      the Imperial sophist would have converted the success of his
      undertaking into a specious argument against the faith of
      prophecy, and the truth of revelation. 71 He was displeased with
      the spiritual worship of the synagogue; but he approved the
      institutions of Moses, who had not disdained to adopt many of the
      rites and ceremonies of Egypt. 72 The local and national deity of
      the Jews was sincerely adored by a polytheist, who desired only
      to multiply the number of the gods; 73 and such was the appetite
      of Julian for bloody sacrifice, that his emulation might be
      excited by the piety of Solomon, who had offered, at the feast of
      the dedication, twenty-two thousand oxen, and one hundred and
      twenty thousand sheep. 74 These considerations might influence
      his designs; but the prospect of an immediate and important
      advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect the
      remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He resolved to
      erect, without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a
      stately temple, which might eclipse the splendor of the church of
      the resurrection on the adjacent hill of Calvary; to establish an
      order of priests, whose interested zeal would detect the arts,
      and resist the ambition, of their Christian rivals; and to invite
      a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern fanaticism would be always
      prepared to second, and even to anticipate, the hostile measures
      of the Pagan government. Among the friends of the emperor (if the
      names of emperor, and of friend, are not incompatible) the first
      place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the virtuous and
      learned Alypius. 75 The humanity of Alypius was tempered by
      severe justice and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his
      abilities in the civil administration of Britain, he imitated, in
      his poetical compositions, the harmony and softness of the odes
      of Sappho. This minister, to whom Julian communicated, without
      reserve, his most careless levities, and his most serious
      counsels, received an extraordinary commission to restore, in its
      pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem; and the diligence of
      Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support of the
      governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the
      Jews, from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy
      mountain of their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and
      exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of
      rebuilding the temple has in every age been the ruling passion of
      the children of Israel. In this propitious moment the men forgot
      their avarice, and the women their delicacy; spades and pickaxes
      of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the
      rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every
      purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a
      share in the pious labor, and the commands of a great monarch
      were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people. 76

      70 (return) [ Imperii sui memoriam magnitudine operum gestiens
      propagare Ammian. xxiii. 1. The temple of Jerusalem had been
      famous even among the Gentiles. _They_ had many temples in each
      city, (at Sichem five, at Gaza eight, at Rome four hundred and
      twenty-four;) but the wealth and religion of the Jewish nation
      was centred in one spot.]

      71 (return) [ The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the
      late bishop of Gloucester, the learned and dogmatic Warburton;
      who, with the authority of a theologian, prescribes the motives
      and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse entitled _Julian_
      (2d edition, London, 1751) is strongly marked with all the
      peculiarities which are imputed to the Warburtonian school.]

      72 (return) [ I shelter myself behind Maimonides, Marsham,
      Spencer, Le Clerc, Warburton, &c., who have fairly derided the
      fears, the folly, and the falsehood of some superstitious
      divines. See Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 25, &c.]

      73 (return) [ Julian (Fragment. p. 295) respectfully styles him,
      and mentions him elsewhere (Epist. lxiii.) with still higher
      reverence. He doubly condemns the Christians for believing, and
      for renouncing, the religion of the Jews. Their Deity was a
      _true_, but not the _only_, God Apul Cyril. l. ix. p. 305, 306.]

      74 (return) [ 1 Kings, viii. 63. 2 Chronicles, vii. 5. Joseph.
      Antiquitat. Judaic. l. viii. c. 4, p. 431, edit. Havercamp. As
      the blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might be inconvenient,
      Lightfoot, the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. Le
      Clerc (ad loca) is bold enough to suspect to fidelity of the
      numbers. * Note: According to the historian Kotobeddym, quoted by
      Burckhardt, (Travels in Arabia, p. 276,) the Khalif Mokteder
      sacrificed, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, in the year of the
      Hejira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand
      sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their
      carcasses given to the poor. Quarterly Review, xiii.p.39—M.]

      75 (return) [ Julian, epist. xxix. xxx. La Bleterie has neglected
      to translate the second of these epistles.]

      76 (return) [ See the zeal and impatience of the Jews in Gregory
      Nazianzen (Orat. iv. p. 111) and Theodoret. (l. iii. c. 20.)]

      Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm
      were unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple, which is
      now covered by a Mahometan mosque, 77 still continued to exhibit
      the same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. Perhaps the
      absence and death of the emperor, and the new maxims of a
      Christian reign, might explain the interruption of an arduous
      work, which was attempted only in the last six months of the life
      of Julian. 78 But the Christians entertained a natural and pious
      expectation, that, in this memorable contest, the honor of
      religion would be vindicated by some signal miracle. An
      earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which overturned
      and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are attested,
      with some variations, by contemporary and respectable evidence.
      79 This public event is described by Ambrose, 80 bishop of Milan,
      in an epistle to the emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the
      severe animadversion of the Jews; by the eloquent Chrysostom, 81
      who might appeal to the memory of the elder part of his
      congregation at Antioch; and by Gregory Nazianzen, 82 who
      published his account of the miracle before the expiration of the
      same year. The last of these writers has boldly declared, that
      this preternatural event was not disputed by the infidels; and
      his assertion, strange as it may seem is confirmed by the
      unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus. 83 The
      philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues, without adopting the
      prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in his judicious and
      candid history of his own times, the extraordinary obstacles
      which interrupted the restoration of the temple of Jerusalem.
      “Whilst Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged,
      with vigor and diligence, the execution of the work, horrible
      balls of fire breaking out near the foundations, with frequent
      and reiterated attacks, rendered the place, from time to time,
      inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen; and the
      victorious element continuing in this manner obstinately and
      resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the
      undertaking was abandoned.” 8311 Such authority should satisfy a
      believing, and must astonish an incredulous, mind. Yet a
      philosopher may still require the original evidence of impartial
      and intelligent spectators. At this important crisis, any
      singular accident of nature would assume the appearance, and
      produce the effects of a real prodigy. This glorious deliverance
      would be speedily improved and magnified by the pious art of the
      clergy of Jerusalem, and the active credulity of the Christian
      world and, at the distance of twenty years, a Roman historian,
      careless of theological disputes, might adorn his work with the
      specious and splendid miracle. 84

      77 (return) [ Built by Omar, the second Khalif, who died A. D.
      644. This great mosque covers the whole consecrated ground of the
      Jewish temple, and constitutes almost a square of 760 _toises_,
      or one Roman mile in circumference. See D’Anville, Jerusalem, p.
      45.]

      78 (return) [ Ammianus records the consults of the year 363,
      before he proceeds to mention the _thoughts_ of Julian. Templum.
      ... instaurare sumptibus _cogitabat_ immodicis. Warburton has a
      secret wish to anticipate the design; but he must have
      understood, from former examples, that the execution of such a
      work would have demanded many years.]

      79 (return) [ The subsequent witnesses, Socrates, Sozomen,
      Theodoret, Philostorgius, &c., add contradictions rather than
      authority. Compare the objections of Basnage (Hist. des Juifs,
      tom. viii. p. 156-168) with Warburton’s answers, (Julian, p.
      174-258.) The bishop has ingeniously explained the miraculous
      crosses which appeared on the garments of the spectators by a
      similar instance, and the natural effects of lightning.]

      80 (return) [ Ambros. tom. ii. epist. xl. p. 946, edit.
      Benedictin. He composed this fanatic epistle (A. D. 388) to
      justify a bishop who had been condemned by the civil magistrate
      for burning a synagogue.]

      81 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 580, advers. Judæos et
      Gentes, tom. ii. p. 574, de Sto Babyla, edit. Montfaucon. I have
      followed the common and natural supposition; but the learned
      Benedictine, who dates the composition of these sermons in the
      year 383, is confident they were never pronounced from the
      pulpit.]

      82 (return) [ Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 110-113.]

      83 (return) [ Ammian. xxiii. 1. Cum itaque rei fortiter instaret
      Alypius, juvaretque provinciæ rector, metuendi globi flammarum
      prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes fecere locum
      exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum; hocque modo elemento
      destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum. Warburton labors (p.
      60-90) to extort a confession of the miracle from the mouths of
      Julian and Libanius, and to employ the evidence of a rabbi who
      lived in the fifteenth century. Such witnesses can only be
      received by a very favorable judge.]

      8311 (return) [ Michaelis has given an ingenious and sufficiently
      probable explanation of this remarkable incident, which the
      positive testimony of Ammianus, a contemporary and a pagan, will
      not permit us to call in question. It was suggested by a passage
      in Tacitus. That historian, speaking of Jerusalem, says, [I omit
      the first part of the quotation adduced by M. Guizot, which only
      by a most extraordinary mistranslation of muri introrsus sinuati
      by “_enfoncemens_” could be made to bear on the question.—M.]
      “The Temple itself was a kind of citadel, which had its own
      walls, superior in their workmanship and construction to those of
      the city. The porticos themselves, which surrounded the temple,
      were an excellent fortification. There was a fountain of
      constantly running water; _subterranean excavations under the
      mountain; reservoirs and cisterns to collect the rain-water_.”
      Tac. Hist. v. ii. 12. These excavations and reservoirs must have
      been very considerable. The latter furnished water during the
      whole siege of Jerusalem to 1,100,000 inhabitants, for whom the
      fountain of Siloe could not have sufficed, and who had no fresh
      rain-water, the siege having taken place from the month of April
      to the month of August, a period of the year during which it
      rarely rains in Jerusalem. As to the excavations, they served
      after, and even before, the return of the Jews from Babylon, to
      contain not only magazines of oil, wine, and corn, but also the
      treasures which were laid up in the Temple. Josephus has related
      several incidents which show their extent. When Jerusalem was on
      the point of being taken by Titus, the rebel chiefs, placing
      their last hopes in these vast subterranean cavities, formed a
      design of concealing themselves there, and remaining during the
      conflagration of the city, and until the Romans had retired to a
      distance. The greater part had not time to execute their design;
      but one of them, Simon, the Son of Gioras, having provided
      himself with food, and tools to excavate the earth descended into
      this retreat with some companions: he remained there till Titus
      had set out for Rome: under the pressure of famine he issued
      forth on a sudden in the very place where the Temple had stood,
      and appeared in the midst of the Roman guard. He was seized and
      carried to Rome for the triumph. His appearance made it be
      suspected that other Jews might have chosen the same asylum;
      search was made, and a great number discovered. Joseph. de Bell.
      Jud. l. vii. c. 2. It is probable that the greater part of these
      excavations were the remains of the time of Solomon, when it was
      the custom to work to a great extent under ground: no other date
      can be assigned to them. The Jews, on their return from the
      captivity, were too poor to undertake such works; and, although
      Herod, on rebuilding the Temple, made some excavations, (Joseph.
      Ant. Jud. xv. 11, vii.,) the haste with which that building was
      completed will not allow us to suppose that they belonged to that
      period. Some were used for sewers and drains, others served to
      conceal the immense treasures of which Crassus, a hundred and
      twenty years before, plundered the Jews, and which doubtless had
      been since replaced. The Temple was destroyed A. C. 70; the
      attempt of Julian to rebuild it, and the fact related by
      Ammianus, coincide with the year 363. There had then elapsed
      between these two epochs an interval of near 300 years, during
      which the excavations, choked up with ruins, must have become
      full of inflammable air. The workmen employed by Julian as they
      were digging, arrived at the excavations of the Temple; they
      would take torches to explore them; sudden flames repelled those
      who approached; explosions were heard, and these phenomena were
      renewed every time that they penetrated into new subterranean
      passages. This explanation is confirmed by the relation of an
      event nearly similar, by Josephus. King Herod having heard that
      immense treasures had been concealed in the sepulchre of David,
      he descended into it with a few confidential persons; he found in
      the first subterranean chamber only jewels and precious stuffs:
      but having wished to penetrate into a second chamber, which had
      been long closed, he was repelled, when he opened it, by flames
      which killed those who accompanied him. (Ant. Jud. xvi. 7, i.) As
      here there is no room for miracle, this fact may be considered as
      a new proof of the veracity of that related by Ammianus and the
      contemporary writers.—G. ——To the illustrations of the extent of
      the subterranean chambers adduced by Michaelis, may be added,
      that when John of Gischala, during the siege, surprised the
      Temple, the party of Eleazar took refuge within them. Bell. Jud.
      vi. 3, i. The sudden sinking of the hill of Sion when Jerusalem
      was occupied by Barchocab, may have been connected with similar
      excavations. Hist. of Jews, vol. iii. 122 and 186.—M. ——It is a
      fact now popularly known, that when mines which have been long
      closed are opened, one of two things takes place; either the
      torches are extinguished and the men fall first into a swoor and
      soon die; or, if the air is inflammable, a little flame is seen
      to flicker round the lamp, which spreads and multiplies till the
      conflagration becomes general, is followed by an explosion, and
      kill all who are in the way.—G.]

      84 (return) [ Dr. Lardner, perhaps alone of the Christian
      critics, presumes to doubt the truth of this famous miracle.
      (Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 47-71.)]

      The silence of Jerom would lead to a suspicion that the same
      story which was celebrated at a distance, might be despised on
      the spot. * Note: Gibbon has forgotten Basnage, to whom Warburton
      replied.—M.




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part IV.


      The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected with
      the ruin of the Christian church. Julian still continued to
      maintain the freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing
      whether this universal toleration proceeded from his justice or
      his clemency. He affected to pity the unhappy Christians, who
      were mistaken in the most important object of their lives; but
      his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was embittered by
      hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed in a style of
      sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever
      it issues from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that
      the Christians gloried in the name of their Redeemer, he
      countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable
      appellation of Galilæans. 85 He declared, that by the folly of
      the Galilæans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics,
      contemptible to men, and odious to the gods, the empire had been
      reduced to the brink of destruction; and he insinuates in a
      public edict, that a frantic patient might sometimes be cured by
      salutary violence. 86 An ungenerous distinction was admitted into
      the mind and counsels of Julian, that, according to the
      difference of their religious sentiments, one part of his
      subjects deserved his favor and friendship, while the other was
      entitled only to the common benefits that his justice could not
      refuse to an obedient people. According to a principle, pregnant
      with mischief and oppression, the emperor transferred to the
      pontiffs of his own religion the management of the liberal
      allowances from the public revenue, which had been granted to the
      church by the piety of Constantine and his sons. The proud system
      of clerical honors and immunities, which had been constructed
      with so much art and labor, was levelled to the ground; the hopes
      of testamentary donations were intercepted by the rigor of the
      laws; and the priests of the Christian sect were confounded with
      the last and most ignominious class of the people. Such of these
      regulations as appeared necessary to check the ambition and
      avarice of the ecclesiastics, were soon afterwards imitated by
      the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The peculiar distinctions which
      policy has bestowed, or superstition has lavished, on the
      sacerdotal order, _must_ be confined to those priests who profess
      the religion of the state. But the will of the legislator was not
      exempt from prejudice and passion; and it was the object of the
      insidious policy of Julian, to deprive the Christians of all the
      temporal honors and advantages which rendered them respectable in
      the eyes of the world. 88

      85 (return) [ Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 81. And this law was
      confirmed by the invariable practice of Julian himself. Warburton
      has justly observed (p. 35,) that the Platonists believed in the
      mysterious virtue of words and Julian’s dislike for the name of
      Christ might proceed from superstition, as well as from
      contempt.]

      86 (return) [ Fragment. Julian. p. 288. He derides the (Epist.
      vii.,) and so far loses sight of the principles of toleration, as
      to wish (Epist. xlii.).]

      88 (return) [ These laws, which affected the clergy, may be found
      in the slight hints of Julian himself, (Epist. lii.) in the vague
      declamations of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) and in the
      positive assertions of Sozomen, (l. v. c. 5.)]

      A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law which
      prohibited the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and
      rhetoric. 89 The motives alleged by the emperor to justify this
      partial and oppressive measure, might command, during his
      lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause of Gatterers.
      Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be
      indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the
      Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the
      merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the
      advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they
      refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to
      content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church
      of the Galilæans. 90 In all the cities of the Roman world, the
      education of the youth was intrusted to masters of grammar and
      rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the
      public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable
      privileges. The edict of Julian appears to have included the
      physicians, and professors of all the liberal arts; and the
      emperor, who reserved to himself the approbation of the
      candidates, was authorized by the laws to corrupt, or to punish,
      the religious constancy of the most learned of the Christians. 91
      As soon as the resignation of the more obstinate 92 teachers had
      established the unrivalled dominion of the Pagan sophists, Julian
      invited the rising generation to resort with freedom to the
      public schools, in a just confidence, that their tender minds
      would receive the impressions of literature and idolatry. If the
      greatest part of the Christian youth should be deterred by their
      own scruples, or by those of their parents, from accepting this
      dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the same time,
      relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason
      to expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would
      relapse into its primæval simplicity, and that the theologians,
      who possessed an adequate share of the learning and eloquence of
      the age, would be succeeded by a generation of blind and ignorant
      fanatics, incapable of defending the truth of their own
      principles, or of exposing the various follies of Polytheism. 93

      89 (return) [ Inclemens.... perenni obruendum silentio. Ammian.
      xxii. 10, ixv. 5.]

      90 (return) [ The edict itself, which is still extant among the
      epistles of Julian, (xlii.,) may be compared with the loose
      invectives of Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 96.) Tillemont (Mém. Eccles.
      tom. vii. p. 1291-1294) has collected the seeming differences of
      ancients and moderns. They may be easily reconciled. The
      Christians were _directly_ forbid to teach, they were
      _indirectly_ forbid to learn; since they would not frequent the
      schools of the Pagans.]

      91 (return) [ Codex Theodos. l. xiii. tit. iii. de medicis et
      professoribus, leg. 5, (published the 17th of June, received, at
      Spoleto in Italy, the 29th of July, A. D. 363,) with Godefroy’s
      Illustrations, tom. v. p. 31.]

      92 (return) [ Orosius celebrates their disinterested resolution,
      Sicut a majori bus nostris compertum habemus, omnes ubique
      propemodum... officium quam fidem deserere maluerunt, vii. 30.
      Proæresius, a Christian sophist, refused to accept the partial
      favor of the emperor Hieronym. in Chron. p. 185, edit. Scaliger.
      Eunapius in Proæresio p. 126.]

      93 (return) [ They had recourse to the expedient of composing
      books for their own schools. Within a few months Apollinaris
      produced his Christian imitations of Homer, (a sacred history in
      twenty-four books,) Pindar, Euripides, and Menander; and Sozomen
      is satisfied, that they equalled, or excelled, the originals. *
      Note: Socrates, however, implies that, on the death of Julian,
      they were contemptuously thrown aside by the Christians. Socr.
      Hist. iii.16.—M.]

      It was undoubtedly the wish and design of Julian to deprive the
      Christians of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge, and of
      power; but the injustice of excluding them from all offices of
      trust and profit seems to have been the result of his general
      policy, rather than the immediate consequence of any positive
      law. 94 Superior merit might deserve and obtain, some
      extraordinary exceptions; but the greater part of the Christian
      officers were gradually removed from their employments in the
      state, the army, and the provinces. The hopes of future
      candidates were extinguished by the declared partiality of a
      prince, who maliciously reminded them, that it was unlawful for a
      Christian to use the sword, either of justice, or of war; and who
      studiously guarded the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of
      idolatry. The powers of government were intrusted to the pagans,
      who professed an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors;
      and as the choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules
      of divination, the favorites whom he preferred as the most
      agreeable to the gods, did not always obtain the approbation of
      mankind. 95 Under the administration of their enemies, the
      Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. The temper
      of Julian was averse to cruelty; and the care of his reputation,
      which was exposed to the eyes of the universe, restrained the
      philosophic monarch from violating the laws of justice and
      toleration, which he himself had so recently established. But the
      provincial ministers of his authority were placed in a less
      conspicuous station. In the exercise of arbitrary power, they
      consulted the wishes, rather than the commands, of their
      sovereign; and ventured to exercise a secret and vexatious
      tyranny against the sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to
      confer the honors of martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled as
      long as possible his knowledge of the injustice that was
      exercised in his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of
      his officers, by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards. 96

      94 (return) [ It was the instruction of Julian to his
      magistrates, (Epist. vii.,). Sozomen (l. v. c. 18) and Socrates
      (l. iii. c. 13) must be reduced to the standard of Gregory,
      (Orat. iii. p. 95,) not less prone to exaggeration, but more
      restrained by the actual knowledge of his contemporary readers.]

      95 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. 88, p. 814.]

      96 (return) [ Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 74, 91, 92. Socrates, l.
      iii. c. 14. The doret, l. iii. c. 6. Some drawback may, however,
      be allowed for the violence of _their_ zeal, not less partial
      than the zeal of Julian]

      The most effectual instrument of oppression, with which they were
      armed, was the law that obliged the Christians to make full and
      ample satisfaction for the temples which they had destroyed under
      the preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant church had not
      always expected the sanction of the public authority; and the
      bishops, who were secure of impunity, had often marched at the
      head of their congregation, to attack and demolish the fortresses
      of the prince of darkness. The consecrated lands, which had
      increased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the clergy, were
      clearly defined, and easily restored. But on these lands, and on
      the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently
      erected their own religious edifices: and as it was necessary to
      remove the church before the temple could be rebuilt, the justice
      and piety of the emperor were applauded by one party, while the
      other deplored and execrated his sacrilegious violence. 97 After
      the ground was cleared, the restitution of those stately
      structures which had been levelled with the dust, and of the
      precious ornaments which had been converted to Christian uses,
      swelled into a very large account of damages and debt. The
      authors of the injury had neither the ability nor the inclination
      to discharge this accumulated demand: and the impartial wisdom of
      a legislator would have been displayed in balancing the adverse
      claims and complaints, by an equitable and temperate arbitration.

      But the whole empire, and particularly the East, was thrown into
      confusion by the rash edicts of Julian; and the Pagan
      magistrates, inflamed by zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous
      privilege of the Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of
      his inadequate property, the person of the insolvent debtor.
      Under the preceding reign, Mark, bishop of Arethusa, 98 had
      labored in the conversion of his people with arms more effectual
      than those of persuasion. 99 The magistrates required the full
      value of a temple which had been destroyed by his intolerant
      zeal: but as they were satisfied of his poverty, they desired
      only to bend his inflexible spirit to the promise of the
      slightest compensation. They apprehended the aged prelate, they
      inhumanly scourged him, they tore his beard; and his naked body,
      annointed with honey, was suspended, in a net, between heaven and
      earth, and exposed to the stings of insects and the rays of a
      Syrian sun. 100 From this lofty station, Mark still persisted to
      glory in his crime, and to insult the impotent rage of his
      persecutors. He was at length rescued from their hands, and
      dismissed to enjoy the honor of his divine triumph. The Arians
      celebrated the virtue of their pious confessor; the Catholics
      ambitiously claimed his alliance; 101 and the Pagans, who might
      be susceptible of shame or remorse, were deterred from the
      repetition of such unavailing cruelty. 102 Julian spared his
      life: but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of
      Julian, 103 posterity will condemn the ingratitude, instead of
      praising the clemency, of the emperor.

      97 (return) [ If we compare the gentle language of Libanius
      (Orat. Parent c. 60. p. 286) with the passionate exclamations of
      Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) we may find it difficult to
      persuade ourselves that the two orators are really describing the
      same events.]

      98 (return) [ Restan, or Arethusa, at the equal distance of
      sixteen miles between Emesa (_Hems_) and Epiphania, (_Hamath_,)
      was founded, or at least named, by Seleucus Nicator. Its peculiar
      æra dates from the year of Rome 685, according to the medals of
      the city. In the decline of the Seleucides, Emesa and Arethusa
      were usurped by the Arab Sampsiceramus, whose posterity, the
      vassals of Rome, were not extinguished in the reign of
      Vespasian.——See D’Anville’s Maps and Geographie Ancienne, tom.
      ii. p. 134. Wesseling, Itineraria, p. 188, and Noris. Epoch
      Syro-Macedon, p. 80, 481, 482.]

      99 (return) [ Sozomen, l. v. c. 10. It is surprising, that
      Gregory and Theodoret should suppress a circumstance, which, in
      their eyes, must have enhanced the religious merit of the
      confessor.]

      100 (return) [ The sufferings and constancy of Mark, which
      Gregory has so tragically painted, (Orat. iii. p. 88-91,) are
      confirmed by the unexceptionable and reluctant evidence of
      Libanius. Epist. 730, p. 350, 351. Edit. Wolf. Amstel. 1738.]

      101 (return) [ Certatim eum sibi (Christiani) vindicant. It is
      thus that La Croze and Wolfius (ad loc.) have explained a Greek
      word, whose true signification had been mistaken by former
      interpreters, and even by Le Clerc, (Bibliothèque Ancienne et
      Moderne, tom. iii. p. 371.) Yet Tillemont is strangely puzzled to
      understand (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1309) _how_ Gregory and
      Theodoret could mistake a Semi-Arian bishop for a saint.]

      102 (return) [ See the probable advice of Sallust, (Greg.
      Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 90, 91.) Libanius intercedes for a
      similar offender, lest they should find many _Marks;_ yet he
      allows, that if Orion had secreted the consecrated wealth, he
      deserved to suffer the punishment of Marsyas; to be flayed alive,
      (Epist. 730, p. 349-351.)]

      103 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 90) is satisfied that, by
      saving the apostate, Mark had deserved still more than he had
      suffered.]

      At the distance of five miles from Antioch, the Macedonian kings
      of Syria had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant places
      of devotion in the Pagan world. 104 A magnificent temple rose in
      honor of the god of light; and his colossal figure 105 almost
      filled the capacious sanctuary, which was enriched with gold and
      gems, and adorned by the skill of the Grecian artists. The deity
      was represented in a bending attitude, with a golden cup in his
      hand, pouring out a libation on the earth; as if he supplicated
      the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous
      Daphne: for the spot was ennobled by fiction; and the fancy of
      the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks
      of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient rites of
      Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. A stream of
      prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of the Delphic
      oracle, flowed from the _Castalian_ fountain of Daphne. 106 In
      the adjacent fields a stadium was built by a special privilege,
      107 which had been purchased from Elis; the Olympic games were
      celebrated at the expense of the city; and a revenue of thirty
      thousand pounds sterling was annually applied to the public
      pleasures. 108 The perpetual resort of pilgrims and spectators
      insensibly formed, in the neighborhood of the temple, the stately
      and populous village of Daphne, which emulated the splendor,
      without acquiring the title, of a provincial city. The temple and
      the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels and
      cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of ten miles,
      and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and impenetrable
      shade. A thousand streams of the purest water, issuing from every
      hill, preserved the verdure of the earth, and the temperature of
      the air; the senses were gratified with harmonious sounds and
      aromatic odors; and the peaceful grove was consecrated to health
      and joy, to luxury and love. The vigorous youth pursued, like
      Apollo, the object of his desires; and the blushing maid was
      warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of unseasonable
      coyness. The soldier and the philosopher wisely avoided the
      temptation of this sensual paradise: 109 where pleasure, assuming
      the character of religion, imperceptibly dissolved the firmness
      of manly virtue. But the groves of Daphne continued for many ages
      to enjoy the veneration of natives and strangers; the privileges
      of the holy ground were enlarged by the munificence of succeeding
      emperors; and every generation added new ornaments to the
      splendor of the temple. 110

      104 (return) [ The grove and temple of Daphne are described by
      Strabo, (l. xvi. p. 1089, 1090, edit. Amstel. 1707,) Libanius,
      (Nænia, p. 185-188. Antiochic. Orat. xi. p. 380, 381,) and
      Sozomen, (l. v. c. 19.) Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 581) and Casaubon
      (ad Hist. August. p. 64) illustrate this curious subject.]

      105 (return) [ Simulacrum in eo Olympiaci Jovis imitamenti
      æquiparans magnitudinem. Ammian. xxii. 13. The Olympic Jupiter
      was sixty feet high, and his bulk was consequently equal to that
      of a thousand men. See a curious _Mémoire_ of the Abbé Gedoyn,
      (Académie des Inscriptions, tom. ix. p. 198.)]

      106 (return) [ Hadrian read the history of his future fortunes on
      a leaf dipped in the Castalian stream; a trick which, according
      to the physician Vandale, (de Oraculis, p. 281, 282,) might be
      easily performed by chemical preparations. The emperor stopped
      the source of such dangerous knowledge; which was again opened by
      the devout curiosity of Julian.]

      107 (return) [ It was purchased, A. D. 44, in the year 92 of the
      æra of Antioch, (Noris. Epoch. Syro-Maced. p. 139-174,) for the
      term of ninety Olympiads. But the Olympic games of Antioch were
      not regularly celebrated till the reign of Commodus. See the
      curious details in the Chronicle of John Malala, (tom. i. p. 290,
      320, 372-381,) a writer whose merit and authority are confined
      within the limits of his native city.]

      108 (return) [ Fifteen talents of gold, bequeathed by Sosibius,
      who died in the reign of Augustus. The theatrical merits of the
      Syrian cities in the reign of Constantine, are computed in the
      Expositio totius Murd, p. 8, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor tom. iii.)]

      109 (return) [ Avidio Cassio Syriacas legiones dedi luxuria
      diffluentes et _Daphnicis_ moribus. These are the words of the
      emperor Marcus Antoninus in an original letter preserved by his
      biographer in Hist. August. p. 41. Cassius dismissed or punished
      every soldier who was seen at Daphne.]

      110 (return) [ Aliquantum agrorum Daphnensibus dedit, (_Pompey_,)
      quo lucus ibi spatiosior fieret; delectatus amœnitate loci et
      aquarum abundantiz, Eutropius, vi. 14. Sextus Rufus, de
      Provinciis, c. 16.]

      When Julian, on the day of the annual festival, hastened to adore
      the Apollo of Daphne, his devotion was raised to the highest
      pitch of eagerness and impatience. His lively imagination
      anticipated the grateful pomp of victims, of libations and of
      incense; a long procession of youths and virgins, clothed in
      white robes, the symbol of their innocence; and the tumultuous
      concourse of an innumerable people. But the zeal of Antioch was
      diverted, since the reign of Christianity, into a different
      channel. Instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed by the
      tribes of a wealthy city to their tutelar deity the emperor
      complains that he found only a single goose, provided at the
      expense of a priest, the pale and solitary inhabitant of this
      decayed temple. 111 The altar was deserted, the oracle had been
      reduced to silence, and the holy ground was profaned by the
      introduction of Christian and funereal rites. After Babylas 112
      (a bishop of Antioch, who died in prison in the persecution of
      Decius) had rested near a century in his grave, his body, by the
      order of Cæsar Gallus, was transported into the midst of the
      grove of Daphne. A magnificent church was erected over his
      remains; a portion of the sacred lands was usurped for the
      maintenance of the clergy, and for the burial of the Christians
      at Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at the feet of their
      bishop; and the priests of Apollo retired, with their affrighted
      and indignant votaries. As soon as another revolution seemed to
      restore the fortune of Paganism, the church of St. Babylas was
      demolished, and new buildings were added to the mouldering
      edifice which had been raised by the piety of Syrian kings. But
      the first and most serious care of Julian was to deliver his
      oppressed deity from the odious presence of the dead and living
      Christians, who had so effectually suppressed the voice of fraud
      or enthusiasm. 113 The scene of infection was purified, according
      to the forms of ancient rituals; the bodies were decently
      removed; and the ministers of the church were permitted to convey
      the remains of St. Babylas to their former habitation within the
      walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might have assuaged
      the jealousy of a hostile government was neglected, on this
      occasion, by the zeal of the Christians. The lofty car, that
      transported the relics of Babylas, was followed, and accompanied,
      and received, by an innumerable multitude; who chanted, with
      thundering acclamations, the Psalms of David the most expressive
      of their contempt for idols and idolaters. The return of the
      saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult on the
      religion of the emperor, who exerted his pride to dissemble his
      resentment. During the night which terminated this indiscreet
      procession, the temple of Daphne was in flames; the statue of
      Apollo was consumed; and the walls of the edifice were left a
      naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians of Antioch
      asserted, with religious confidence, that the powerful
      intercession of St. Babylas had pointed the lightnings of heaven
      against the devoted roof: but as Julian was reduced to the
      alternative of believing either a crime or a miracle, he chose,
      without hesitation, without evidence, but with some color of
      probability, to impute the fire of Daphne to the revenge of the
      Galilæans. 114 Their offence, had it been sufficiently proved,
      might have justified the retaliation, which was immediately
      executed by the order of Julian, of shutting the doors, and
      confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of Antioch. To discover
      the criminals who were guilty of the tumult, of the fire, or of
      secreting the riches of the church, several of the ecclesiastics
      were tortured; 115 and a Presbyter, of the name of Theodoret, was
      beheaded by the sentence of the Count of the East. But this hasty
      act was blamed by the emperor; who lamented, with real or
      affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his ministers would
      tarnish his reign with the disgrace of persecution. 116

      111 (return) [ Julian (Misopogon, p. 367, 362) discovers his own
      character with _naïveté_, that unconscious simplicity which
      always constitutes genuine humor.]

      112 (return) [ Babylas is named by Eusebius in the succession of
      the bishops of Antioch, (Hist. Eccles. l. vi. c. 29, 39.) His
      triumph over two emperors (the first fabulous, the second
      historical) is diffusely celebrated by Chrysostom, (tom. ii. p.
      536-579, edit. Montfaucon.) Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. iii.
      part ii. p. 287-302, 459-465) becomes almost a sceptic.]

      113 (return) [ Ecclesiastical critics, particularly those who
      love relics, exult in the confession of Julian (Misopogon, p.
      361) and Libanius, (Lænia, p. 185,) that Apollo was disturbed by
      the vicinity of _one_ dead man. Yet Ammianus (xxii. 12) clears
      and purifies the whole ground, according to the rites which the
      Athenians formerly practised in the Isle of Delos.]

      114 (return) [ Julian (in Misopogon, p. 361) rather insinuates,
      than affirms, their guilt. Ammianus (xxii. 13) treats the
      imputation as _levissimus rumor_, and relates the story with
      extraordinary candor.]

      115 (return) [ Quo tam atroci casu repente consumpto, ad id usque
      e imperatoris ira provexit, ut quæstiones agitare juberet solito
      acriores, (yet Julian blames the lenity of the magistrates of
      Antioch,) et majorem ecclesiam Antiochiæ claudi. This
      interdiction was performed with some circumstances of indignity
      and profanation; and the seasonable death of the principal actor,
      Julian’s uncle, is related with much superstitious complacency by
      the Abbé de la Bleterie. Vie de Julien, p. 362-369.]

      116 (return) [ Besides the ecclesiastical historians, who are
      more or less to be suspected, we may allege the passion of St.
      Theodore, in the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 591. The complaint
      of Julian gives it an original and authentic air.]




      Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.—Part V.


      The zeal of the ministers of Julian was instantly checked by the
      frown of their sovereign; but when the father of his country
      declares himself the leader of a faction, the license of popular
      fury cannot easily be restrained, nor consistently punished.
      Julian, in a public composition, applauds the devotion and
      loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious inhabitants had
      destroyed, at the first signal, the sepulchres of the Galilæans;
      and faintly complains, that they had revenged the injuries of the
      gods with less moderation than he should have recommended. 117
      This imperfect and reluctant confession may appear to confirm the
      ecclesiastical narratives; that in the cities of Gaza, Ascalon,
      Cæsarea, Heliopolis, &c., the Pagans abused, without prudence or
      remorse, the moment of their prosperity. That the unhappy objects
      of their cruelty were released from torture only by death; and as
      their mangled bodies were dragged through the streets, they were
      pierced (such was the universal rage) by the spits of cooks, and
      the distaffs of enraged women; and that the entrails of Christian
      priests and virgins, after they had been tasted by those bloody
      fanatics, were mixed with barley, and contemptuously thrown to
      the unclean animals of the city. 118 Such scenes of religious
      madness exhibit the most contemptible and odious picture of human
      nature; but the massacre of Alexandria attracts still more
      attention, from the certainty of the fact, the rank of the
      victims, and the splendor of the capital of Egypt.

      117 (return) [ Julian. Misopogon, p. 361.]

      118 (return) [ See Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iii. p. 87.) Sozomen
      (l. v. c. 9) may be considered as an original, though not
      impartial, witness. He was a native of Gaza, and had conversed
      with the confessor Zeno, who, as bishop of Maiuma, lived to the
      age of a hundred, (l. vii. c. 28.) Philostorgius (l. vii. c. 4,
      with Godefroy’s Dissertations, p. 284) adds some tragic
      circumstances, of Christians who were _literally_ sacrificed at
      the altars of the gods, &c.]

      George, 119 from his parents or his education, surnamed the
      Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller’s
      shop. From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by
      the talents of a parasite; and the patrons, whom he assiduously
      flattered, procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative
      commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His
      employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He accumulated
      wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption; but his
      malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to
      escape from the pursuits of justice. After this disgrace, in
      which he appears to have saved his fortune at the expense of his
      honor, he embraced, with real or affected zeal, the profession of
      Arianism. From the love, or the ostentation, of learning, he
      collected a valuable library of history rhetoric, philosophy, and
      theology, 120 and the choice of the prevailing faction promoted
      George of Cappadocia to the throne of Athanasius. The entrance of
      the new archbishop was that of a Barbarian conqueror; and each
      moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice. The
      Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned to a tyrant,
      qualified, by nature and education, to exercise the office of
      persecution; but he oppressed with an impartial hand the various
      inhabitants of his extensive diocese. The primate of Egypt
      assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty station; but he still
      betrayed the vices of his base and servile extraction. The
      merchants of Alexandria were impoverished by the unjust, and
      almost universal, monopoly, which he acquired, of nitre, salt,
      paper, funerals, &c.: and the spiritual father of a great people
      condescended to practise the vile and pernicious arts of an
      informer. The Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the
      tax, which he suggested, on all the houses of the city; under an
      obsolete claim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his
      successors, the Ptolemies and the Cæsars, the perpetual property
      of the soil. The Pagans, who had been flattered with the hopes of
      freedom and toleration, excited his devout avarice; and the rich
      temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or insulted by the
      haughty prince, who exclaimed, in a loud and threatening tone,
      “How long will these sepulchres be permitted to stand?” Under the
      reign of Constantius, he was expelled by the fury, or rather by
      the justice, of the people; and it was not without a violent
      struggle, that the civil and military powers of the state could
      restore his authority, and gratify his revenge. The messenger who
      proclaimed at Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the
      downfall of the archbishop. George, with two of his obsequious
      ministers, Count Diodorus, and Dracontius, master of the mint
      were ignominiously dragged in chains to the public prison. At the
      end of twenty-four days, the prison was forced open by the rage
      of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious forms of
      judicial proceedings. The enemies of gods and men expired under
      their cruel insults; the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and
      his associates were carried in triumph through the streets on the
      back of a camel; 12011 and the inactivity of the Athanasian party
      121 was esteemed a shining example of evangelical patience. The
      remains of these guilty wretches were thrown into the sea; and
      the popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to
      disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept the
      future honors of these _martyrs_, who had been punished, like
      their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. 122 The
      fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions ineffectual.
      The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of
      his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the
      Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries introduced
      his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church. 123 The odious
      stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place,
      assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; 124
      and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed 125
      into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of
      chivalry, and of the garter. 126

      119 (return) [ The life and death of George of Cappadocia are
      described by Ammianus, (xxii. 11,) Gregory of Nazianzen, (Orat.
      xxi. p. 382, 385, 389, 390,) and Epiphanius, (Hæres. lxxvi.) The
      invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit,
      unless they were confirmed by the testimony of the cool and
      impartial infidel.]

      120 (return) [ After the massacre of George, the emperor Julian
      repeatedly sent orders to preserve the library for his own use,
      and to torture the slaves who might be suspected of secreting any
      books. He praises the merit of the collection, from whence he had
      borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts while he pursued his
      studies in Cappadocia. He could wish, indeed, that the works of
      the Galiæans might perish but he requires an exact account even
      of those theological volumes lest other treatises more valuable
      should be confounded in their less Julian. Epist. ix. xxxvi.]

      12011 (return) [ Julian himself says, that they tore him to
      pieces like dogs, Epist. x.—M.]

      121 (return) [ Philostorgius, with cautious malice, insinuates
      their guilt, l. vii. c. ii. Godefroy p. 267.]

      122 (return) [ Cineres projecit in mare, id metuens ut clamabat,
      ne, collectis supremis, ædes illis exstruerentur ut reliquis, qui
      deviare a religione compulsi, pertulere, cruciabiles pœnas,
      adusque gloriosam mortem intemeratâ fide progressi, et nunc
      Martyres appellantur. Ammian. xxii. 11. Epiphanius proves to the
      Arians, that George was not a martyr.]

      123 (return) [ Some Donatists (Optatus Milev. p. 60, 303, edit.
      Dupin; and Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 713, in 4to.) and
      Priscillianists (Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 517, in
      4to.) have in like manner usurped the honors of the Catholic
      saints and martyrs.]

      124 (return) [ The saints of Cappadocia, Basil, and the
      Gregories, were ignorant of their holy companion. Pope Gelasius,
      (A. D. 494,) the first Catholic who acknowledges St. George,
      places him among the martyrs “qui Deo magis quam hominibus noti
      sunt.” He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics. Some,
      perhaps, not the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant;
      and, through a cloud of fiction, we may yet distinguish the
      combat which St. George of Cappadocia sustained, in the presence
      of Queen _Alexandria_, against the _magician Athanasius_.]

      125 (return) [ This transformation is not given as absolutely
      certain, but as _extremely_ probable. See the Longueruana, tom.
      i. p. 194. ——Note: The late Dr. Milner (the Roman Catholic
      bishop) wrote a tract to vindicate the existence and the
      orthodoxy of the tutelar saint of England. He succeeds, I think,
      in tracing the worship of St. George up to a period which makes
      it improbable that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the
      Catholic church as a saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by
      Gelasius may have been of Arian origin, and designed to ingraft
      the story of their hero on the obscure adventures of some earlier
      saint. See an Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Existence
      and Character of Saint George, in a letter to the Earl of
      Leicester, by the Rev. J. Milner. F. S. A. London 1792.—M.]

      126 (return) [ A curious history of the worship of St. George,
      from the sixth century, (when he was already revered in
      Palestine, in Armenia at Rome, and at Treves in Gaul,) might be
      extracted from Dr. Heylin (History of St. George, 2d edition,
      London, 1633, in 4to. p. 429) and the Bollandists, (Act. Ss.
      Mens. April. tom. iii. p. 100-163.) His fame and popularity in
      Europe, and especially in England, proceeded from the Crusades.]

      About the same time that Julian was informed of the tumult of
      Alexandria, he received intelligence from Edessa, that the proud
      and wealthy faction of the Arians had insulted the weakness of
      the Valentinians, and committed such disorders as ought not to be
      suffered with impunity in a well-regulated state. Without
      expecting the slow forms of justice, the exasperated prince
      directed his mandate to the magistrates of Edessa, 127 by which
      he confiscated the whole property of the church: the money was
      distributed among the soldiers; the lands were added to the
      domain; and this act of oppression was aggravated by the most
      ungenerous irony. “I show myself,” says Julian, “the true friend
      of the Galilæans. Their _admirable_ law has promised the kingdom
      of heaven to the poor; and they will advance with more diligence
      in the paths of virtue and salvation, when they are relieved by
      my assistance from the load of temporal possessions. Take care,”
      pursued the monarch, in a more serious tone, “take care how you
      provoke my patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I
      will revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people; and you
      will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and exile, but
      fire and the sword.” The tumults of Alexandria were doubtless of
      a more bloody and dangerous nature: but a Christian bishop had
      fallen by the hands of the Pagans; and the public epistle of
      Julian affords a very lively proof of the partial spirit of his
      administration. His reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are
      mingled with expressions of esteem and tenderness; and he
      laments, that, on this occasion, they should have departed from
      the gentle and generous manners which attested their Grecian
      extraction. He gravely censures the offence which they had
      committed against the laws of justice and humanity; but he
      recapitulates, with visible complacency, the intolerable
      provocations which they had so long endured from the impious
      tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the principle,
      that a wise and vigorous government should chastise the insolence
      of the people; yet, in consideration of their founder Alexander,
      and of Serapis their tutelar deity, he grants a free and gracious
      pardon to the guilty city, for which he again feels the affection
      of a brother. 128

      127 (return) [ Julian. Epist. xliii.]

      128 (return) [ Julian. Epist. x. He allowed his friends to
      assuage his anger Ammian. xxii. 11.]

      After the tumult of Alexandria had subsided, Athanasius, amidst
      the public acclamations, seated himself on the throne from whence
      his unworthy competitor had been precipitated: and as the zeal of
      the archbishop was tempered with discretion, the exercise of his
      authority tended not to inflame, but to reconcile, the minds of
      the people. His pastoral labors were not confined to the narrow
      limits of Egypt. The state of the Christian world was present to
      his active and capacious mind; and the age, the merit, the
      reputation of Athanasius, enabled him to assume, in a moment of
      danger, the office of Ecclesiastical Dictator. 129 Three years
      were not yet elapsed since the majority of the bishops of the
      West had ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the Confession of
      Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they dreaded the
      unseasonable rigor of their orthodox brethren; and if their pride
      was stronger than their faith, they might throw themselves into
      the arms of the Arians, to escape the indignity of a public
      penance, which must degrade them to the condition of obscure
      laymen. At the same time the domestic differences concerning the
      union and distinction of the divine persons, were agitated with
      some heat among the Catholic doctors; and the progress of this
      metaphysical controversy seemed to threaten a public and lasting
      division of the Greek and Latin churches. By the wisdom of a
      select synod, to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave
      the authority of a general council, the bishops, who had unwarily
      deviated into error, were admitted to the communion of the
      church, on the easy condition of subscribing the Nicene Creed;
      without any formal acknowledgment of their past fault, or any
      minute definition of their scholastic opinions. The advice of the
      primate of Egypt had already prepared the clergy of Gaul and
      Spain, of Italy and Greece, for the reception of this salutary
      measure; and, notwithstanding the opposition of some ardent
      spirits, 130 the fear of the common enemy promoted the peace and
      harmony of the Christians. 131

      129 (return) [ See Athanas. ad Rufin. tom. ii. p. 40, 41, and
      Greg. Nazianzen Orat. iii. p. 395, 396; who justly states the
      temperate zeal of the primate, as much more meritorious than his
      prayers, his fasts, his persecutions, &c.]

      130 (return) [ I have not leisure to follow the blind obstinacy
      of Lucifer of Cagliari. See his adventures in Tillemont, (Mém.
      Eccles. tom. vii. p. 900-926;) and observe how the color of the
      narrative insensibly changes, as the confessor becomes a
      schismatic.]

      131 (return) [ Assensus est huic sententiæ Occidens, et, per tam
      necessarium conilium, Satanæ faucibus mundus ereptus. The lively
      and artful dialogue of Jerom against the Luciferians (tom. ii. p.
      135-155) exhibits an original picture of the ecclesiastical
      policy of the times.]

      The skill and diligence of the primate of Egypt had improved the
      season of tranquillity, before it was interrupted by the hostile
      edicts of the emperor. 132 Julian, who despised the Christians,
      honored Athanasius with his sincere and peculiar hatred. For his
      sake alone, he introduced an arbitrary distinction, repugnant at
      least to the spirit of his former declarations. He maintained,
      that the Galilæans, whom he had recalled from exile, were not
      restored, by that general indulgence, to the possession of their
      respective churches; and he expressed his astonishment, that a
      criminal, who had been repeatedly condemned by the judgment of
      the emperors, should dare to insult the majesty of the laws, and
      insolently usurp the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria, without
      expecting the orders of his sovereign. As a punishment for the
      imaginary offence, he again banished Athanasius from the city;
      and he was pleased to suppose, that this act of justice would be
      highly agreeable to his pious subjects. The pressing
      solicitations of the people soon convinced him, that the majority
      of the Alexandrians were Christians; and that the greatest part
      of the Christians were firmly attached to the cause of their
      oppressed primate. But the knowledge of their sentiments, instead
      of persuading him to recall his decree, provoked him to extend to
      all Egypt the term of the exile of Athanasius. The zeal of the
      multitude rendered Julian still more inexorable: he was alarmed
      by the danger of leaving at the head of a tumultuous city, a
      daring and popular leader; and the language of his resentment
      discovers the opinion which he entertained of the courage and
      abilities of Athanasius. The execution of the sentence was still
      delayed, by the caution or negligence of Ecdicius, præfect of
      Egypt, who was at length awakened from his lethargy by a severe
      reprimand. “Though you neglect,” says Julian, “to write to me on
      any other subject, at least it is your duty to inform me of your
      conduct towards Athanasius, the enemy of the gods. My intentions
      have been long since communicated to you. I swear by the great
      Serapis, that unless, on the calends of December, Athanasius has
      departed from Alexandria, nay, from Egypt, the officers of your
      government shall pay a fine of one hundred pounds of gold. You
      know my temper: I am slow to condemn, but I am still slower to
      forgive.” This epistle was enforced by a short postscript,
      written with the emperor’s own hand. “The contempt that is shown
      for all the gods fills me with grief and indignation. There is
      nothing that I should see, nothing that I should hear, with more
      pleasure, than the expulsion of Athanasius from all Egypt. The
      abominable wretch! Under my reign, the baptism of several Grecian
      ladies of the highest rank has been the effect of his
      persecutions.” 133 The death of Athanasius was not _expressly_
      commanded; but the præfect of Egypt understood that it was safer
      for him to exceed, than to neglect, the orders of an irritated
      master. The archbishop prudently retired to the monasteries of
      the Desert; eluded, with his usual dexterity, the snares of the
      enemy; and lived to triumph over the ashes of a prince, who, in
      words of formidable import, had declared his wish that the whole
      venom of the Galilæan school were contained in the single person
      of Athanasius. 134 13411

      132 (return) [ Tillemont, who supposes that George was massacred
      in August crowds the actions of Athanasius into a narrow space,
      (Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 360.) An original fragment, published
      by the Marquis Maffei, from the old Chapter library of Verona,
      (Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 60-92,) affords many
      important dates, which are authenticated by the computation of
      Egyptian months.]

      133 (return) [ I have preserved the ambiguous sense of the last
      word, the ambiguity of a tyrant who wished to find, or to create,
      guilt.]

      134 (return) [ The three epistles of Julian, which explain his
      intentions and conduct with regard to Athanasius, should be
      disposed in the following chronological order, xxvi. x. vi. * See
      likewise, Greg. Nazianzen xxi. p. 393. Sozomen, l. v. c. 15.
      Socrates, l. iii. c. 14. Theodoret, l iii. c. 9, and Tillemont,
      Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 361-368, who has used some materials
      prepared by the Bollandists.]

      13411 (return) [ The sentence in the text is from Epist. li.
      addressed to the people of Alexandria.—M.]

      I have endeavored faithfully to represent the artful system by
      which Julian proposed to obtain the effects, without incurring
      the guilt, or reproach, of persecution. But if the deadly spirit
      of fanaticism perverted the heart and understanding of a virtuous
      prince, it must, at the same time, be confessed that the _real_
      sufferings of the Christians were inflamed and magnified by human
      passions and religious enthusiasm. The meekness and resignation
      which had distinguished the primitive disciples of the gospel,
      was the object of the applause, rather than of the imitation of
      their successors. The Christians, who had now possessed above
      forty years the civil and ecclesiastical government of the
      empire, had contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, 135 and
      the habit of believing that the saints alone were entitled to
      reign over the earth. As soon as the enmity of Julian deprived
      the clergy of the privileges which had been conferred by the
      favor of Constantine, they complained of the most cruel
      oppression; and the free toleration of idolaters and heretics was
      a subject of grief and scandal to the orthodox party. 136 The
      acts of violence, which were no longer countenanced by the
      magistrates, were still committed by the zeal of the people. At
      Pessinus, the altar of Cybele was overturned almost in the
      presence of the emperor; and in the city of Cæsarea in
      Cappadocia, the temple of Fortune, the sole place of worship
      which had been left to the Pagans, was destroyed by the rage of a
      popular tumult. On these occasions, a prince, who felt for the
      honor of the gods, was not disposed to interrupt the course of
      justice; and his mind was still more deeply exasperated, when he
      found that the fanatics, who had deserved and suffered the
      punishment of incendiaries, were rewarded with the honors of
      martyrdom. 137 The Christian subjects of Julian were assured of
      the hostile designs of their sovereign; and, to their jealous
      apprehension, every circumstance of his government might afford
      some grounds of discontent and suspicion. In the ordinary
      administration of the laws, the Christians, who formed so large a
      part of the people, must frequently be condemned: but their
      indulgent brethren, without examining the merits of the cause,
      presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, and imputed the
      severity of their judge to the partial malice of religious
      persecution. 138 These present hardships, intolerable as they
      might appear, were represented as a slight prelude of the
      impending calamities. The Christians considered Julian as a cruel
      and crafty tyrant; who suspended the execution of his revenge
      till he should return victorious from the Persian war. They
      expected, that as soon as he had triumphed over the foreign
      enemies of Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of
      dissimulation; that the amphitheatre would stream with the blood
      of hermits and bishops; and that the Christians who still
      persevered in the profession of the faith, would be deprived of
      the common benefits of nature and society. 139 Every calumny 140
      that could wound the reputation of the Apostate, was credulously
      embraced by the fears and hatred of his adversaries; and their
      indiscreet clamors provoked the temper of a sovereign, whom it
      was their duty to respect, and their interest to flatter.

      They still protested, that prayers and tears were their only
      weapons against the impious tyrant, whose head they devoted to
      the justice of offended Heaven. But they insinuated, with sullen
      resolution, that their submission was no longer the effect of
      weakness; and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, the
      patience, which is founded on principle, may be exhausted by
      persecution. It is impossible to determine how far the zeal of
      Julian would have prevailed over his good sense and humanity; but
      if we seriously reflect on the strength and spirit of the church,
      we shall be convinced, that before the emperor could have
      extinguished the religion of Christ, he must have involved his
      country in the horrors of a civil war. 141

      135 (return) [ See the fair confession of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p.
      61, 62.)]

      136 (return) [ Hear the furious and absurd complaint of Optatus,
      (de Schismat Denatist. l. ii. c. 16, 17.)]

      137 (return) [ Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 91, iv. p. 133. He
      praises the rioters of Cæsarea. See Sozomen, l. v. 4, 11.
      Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 649, 650) owns, that their
      behavior was not dans l’ordre commun: but he is perfectly
      satisfied, as the great St. Basil always celebrated the festival
      of these blessed martyrs.]

      138 (return) [ Julian determined a lawsuit against the new
      Christian city at Maiuma, the port of Gaza; and his sentence,
      though it might be imputed to bigotry, was never reversed by his
      successors. Sozomen, l. v. c. 3. Reland, Palestin. tom. ii. p.
      791.]

      139 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 93, 94, 95. Orat. iv. p.
      114) pretends to speak from the information of Julian’s
      confidants, whom Orosius (vii. 30) could not have seen.]

      140 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 91) charges the Apostate
      with secret sacrifices of boys and girls; and positively affirms,
      that the dead bodies were thrown into the Orontes. See Theodoret,
      l. iii. c. 26, 27; and the equivocal candor of the Abbé de la
      Bleterie, Vie de Julien, p. 351, 352. Yet _contemporary_ malice
      could not impute to Julian the troops of martyrs, more especially
      in the West, which Baronius so greedily swallows, and Tillemont
      so faintly rejects, (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 1295-1315.)]

      141 (return) [ The resignation of Gregory is truly edifying,
      (Orat. iv. p. 123, 124.) Yet, when an officer of Julian attempted
      to seize the church of Nazianzus, he would have lost his life, if
      he had not yielded to the zeal of the bishop and people, (Orat.
      xix. p. 308.) See the reflections of Chrysostom, as they are
      alleged by Tillemont, (Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p. 575.)]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part I.

     Residence Of Julian At Antioch.—His Successful Expedition Against
     The Persians.—Passage Of The Tigris—The Retreat And Death Of
     Julian.—Election Of Jovian.—He Saves The Roman Army By A
     Disgraceful Treaty.


      The philosophical fable which Julian composed under the name of
      the Cæsars, 1 is one of the most agreeable and instructive
      productions of ancient wit. 2 During the freedom and equality of
      the days of the Saturnalia, Romulus prepared a feast for the
      deities of Olympus, who had adopted him as a worthy associate,
      and for the Roman princes, who had reigned over his martial
      people, and the vanquished nations of the earth. The immortals
      were placed in just order on their thrones of state, and the
      table of the Cæsars was spread below the Moon in the upper region
      of the air. The tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of
      gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis,
      into the Tartarean abyss. The rest of the Cæsars successively
      advanced to their seats; and as they passed, the vices, the
      defects, the blemishes of their respective characters, were
      maliciously noticed by old Silenus, a laughing moralist, who
      disguised the wisdom of a philosopher under the mask of a
      Bacchanal. 3 As soon as the feast was ended, the voice of Mercury
      proclaimed the will of Jupiter, that a celestial crown should be
      the reward of superior merit. Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Trajan, and
      Marcus Antoninus, were selected as the most illustrious
      candidates; the effeminate Constantine 4 was not excluded from
      this honorable competition, and the great Alexander was invited
      to dispute the prize of glory with the Roman heroes. Each of the
      candidates was allowed to display the merit of his own exploits;
      but, in the judgment of the gods, the modest silence of Marcus
      pleaded more powerfully than the elaborate orations of his
      haughty rivals. When the judges of this awful contest proceeded
      to examine the heart, and to scrutinize the springs of action,
      the superiority of the Imperial Stoic appeared still more
      decisive and conspicuous. 5 Alexander and Cæsar, Augustus,
      Trajan, and Constantine, acknowledged, with a blush, that fame,
      or power, or pleasure had been the important object of _their_
      labors: but the gods themselves beheld, with reverence and love,
      a virtuous mortal, who had practised on the throne the lessons of
      philosophy; and who, in a state of human imperfection, had
      aspired to imitate the moral attributes of the Deity. The value
      of this agreeable composition (the Cæsars of Julian) is enhanced
      by the rank of the author. A prince, who delineates, with
      freedom, the vices and virtues of his predecessors, subscribes,
      in every line, the censure or approbation of his own conduct.

      1 (return) [ See this fable or satire, p. 306-336 of the Leipsig
      edition of Julian’s works. The French version of the learned
      Ezekiel Spanheim (Paris, 1683) is coarse, languid, and correct;
      and his notes, proofs, illustrations, &c., are piled on each
      other till they form a mass of 557 close-printed quarto pages.
      The Abbé’ de la Bleterie (Vie de Jovien, tom. i. p. 241-393) has
      more happily expressed the spirit, as well as the sense, of the
      original, which he illustrates with some concise and curious
      notes.]

      2 (return) [ Spanheim (in his preface) has most learnedly
      discussed the etymology, origin, resemblance, and disagreement of
      the Greek _satyrs_, a dramatic piece, which was acted after the
      tragedy; and the Latin _satires_, (from _Satura_,) a
      _miscellaneous_ composition, either in prose or verse. But the
      Cæsars of Julian are of such an original cast, that the critic is
      perplexed to which class he should ascribe them. * Note: See also
      Casaubon de Satira, with Rambach’s observations.—M.]

      3 (return) [ This mixed character of Silenus is finely painted in
      the sixth eclogue of Virgil.]

      4 (return) [ Every impartial reader must perceive and condemn the
      partiality of Julian against his uncle Constantine, and the
      Christian religion. On this occasion, the interpreters are
      compelled, by a most sacred interest, to renounce their
      allegiance, and to desert the cause of their author.]

      5 (return) [ Julian was secretly inclined to prefer a Greek to a
      Roman. But when he seriously compared a hero with a philosopher,
      he was sensible that mankind had much greater obligations to
      Socrates than to Alexander, (Orat. ad Themistium, p. 264.)]

      In the cool moments of reflection, Julian preferred the useful
      and benevolent virtues of Antoninus; but his ambitious spirit was
      inflamed by the glory of Alexander; and he solicited, with equal
      ardor, the esteem of the wise, and the applause of the multitude.
      In the season of life when the powers of the mind and body enjoy
      the most active vigor, the emperor who was instructed by the
      experience, and animated by the success, of the German war,
      resolved to signalize his reign by some more splendid and
      memorable achievement. The ambassadors of the East, from the
      continent of India, and the Isle of Ceylon, 6 had respectfully
      saluted the Roman purple. 7 The nations of the West esteemed and
      dreaded the personal virtues of Julian, both in peace and war. He
      despised the trophies of a Gothic victory, and was satisfied that
      the rapacious Barbarians of the Danube would be restrained from
      any future violation of the faith of treaties by the terror of
      his name, and the additional fortifications with which he
      strengthened the Thracian and Illyrian frontiers. The successor
      of Cyrus and Artaxerxes was the only rival whom he deemed worthy
      of his arms; and he resolved, by the final conquest of Persia, to
      chastise the naughty nation which had so long resisted and
      insulted the majesty of Rome. 9 As soon as the Persian monarch
      was informed that the throne of Constantius was filled by a
      prince of a very different character, he condescended to make
      some artful, or perhaps sincere, overtures towards a negotiation
      of peace. But the pride of Sapor was astonished by the firmness
      of Julian; who sternly declared, that he would never consent to
      hold a peaceful conference among the flames and ruins of the
      cities of Mesopotamia; and who added, with a smile of contempt,
      that it was needless to treat by ambassadors, as he himself had
      determined to visit speedily the court of Persia. The impatience
      of the emperor urged the diligence of the military preparations.
      The generals were named; and Julian, marching from Constantinople
      through the provinces of Asia Minor, arrived at Antioch about
      eight months after the death of his predecessor. His ardent
      desire to march into the heart of Persia, was checked by the
      indispensable duty of regulating the state of the empire; by his
      zeal to revive the worship of the gods; and by the advice of his
      wisest friends; who represented the necessity of allowing the
      salutary interval of winter quarters, to restore the exhausted
      strength of the legions of Gaul, and the discipline and spirit of
      the Eastern troops. Julian was persuaded to fix, till the ensuing
      spring, his residence at Antioch, among a people maliciously
      disposed to deride the haste, and to censure the delays, of their
      sovereign. 10

      6 (return) [ Inde nationibus Indicis certatim cum aonis optimates
      mittentibus.... ab usque Divis et _Serendivis_. Ammian. xx. 7.
      This island, to which the names of Taprobana, Serendib, and
      Ceylon, have been successively applied, manifests how imperfectly
      the seas and lands to the east of Cape Comorin were known to the
      Romans. 1. Under the reign of Claudius, a freedman, who farmed
      the customs of the Red Sea, was accidentally driven by the winds
      upon this strange and undiscovered coast: he conversed six months
      with the natives; and the king of Ceylon, who heard, for the
      first time, of the power and justice of Rome, was persuaded to
      send an embassy to the emperor. (Plin. Hist. Nat. vi. 24.) 2. The
      geographers (and even Ptolemy) have magnified, above fifteen
      times, the real size of this new world, which they extended as
      far as the equator, and the neighborhood of China. * Note: The
      name of Diva gens or Divorum regio, according to the probable
      conjecture of M. Letronne, (Trois Mém. Acad. p. 127,) was applied
      by the ancients to the whole eastern coast of the Indian
      Peninsula, from Ceylon to the Canges. The name may be traced in
      Devipatnam, Devidan, Devicotta, Divinelly, the point of Divy.——M.
      Letronne, p.121, considers the freedman with his embassy from
      Ceylon to have been an impostor.—M.]

      7 (return) [ These embassies had been sent to Constantius.
      Ammianus, who unwarily deviates into gross flattery, must have
      forgotten the length of the way, and the short duration of the
      reign of Julian. ——Gothos sæpe fallaces et perfidos; hostes
      quærere se meliores aiebat: illis enim sufficere mercators
      Galatas per quos ubique sine conditionis discrimine venumdantur.
      (Ammian. xxii. 7.) Within less than fifteen years, these Gothic
      slaves threatened and subdued their masters.]

      9 (return) [ Alexander reminds his rival Cæsar, who depreciated
      the fame and merit of an Asiatic victory, that Crassus and Antony
      had felt the Persian arrows; and that the Romans, in a war of
      three hundred years, had not yet subdued the single province of
      Mesopotamia or Assyria, (Cæsares, p. 324.)]

      10 (return) [ The design of the Persian war is declared by
      Ammianus, (xxii. 7, 12,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 79, 80, p.
      305, 306,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 158,) and Socrates, (l. iii. c.
      19.)]

      If Julian had flattered himself, that his personal connection
      with the capital of the East would be productive of mutual
      satisfaction to the prince and people, he made a very false
      estimate of his own character, and of the manners of Antioch. 11
      The warmth of the climate disposed the natives to the most
      intemperate enjoyment of tranquillity and opulence; and the
      lively licentiousness of the Greeks was blended with the
      hereditary softness of the Syrians. Fashion was the only law,
      pleasure the only pursuit, and the splendor of dress and
      furniture was the only distinction of the citizens of Antioch.
      The arts of luxury were honored; the serious and manly virtues
      were the subject of ridicule; and the contempt for female modesty
      and reverent age announced the universal corruption of the
      capital of the East. The love of spectacles was the taste, or
      rather passion, of the Syrians; the most skilful artists were
      procured from the adjacent cities; 12 a considerable share of the
      revenue was devoted to the public amusements; and the
      magnificence of the games of the theatre and circus was
      considered as the happiness and as the glory of Antioch. The
      rustic manners of a prince who disdained such glory, and was
      insensible of such happiness, soon disgusted the delicacy of his
      subjects; and the effeminate Orientals could neither imitate, nor
      admire, the severe simplicity which Julian always maintained, and
      sometimes affected. The days of festivity, consecrated, by
      ancient custom, to the honor of the gods, were the only occasions
      in which Julian relaxed his philosophic severity; and those
      festivals were the only days in which the Syrians of Antioch
      could reject the allurements of pleasure. The majority of the
      people supported the glory of the Christian name, which had been
      first invented by their ancestors: 13 they contended themselves
      with disobeying the moral precepts, but they were scrupulously
      attached to the speculative doctrines of their religion. The
      church of Antioch was distracted by heresy and schism; but the
      Arians and the Athanasians, the followers of Meletius and those
      of Paulinus, 14 were actuated by the same pious hatred of their
      common adversary.

      11 (return) [ The Satire of Julian, and the Homilies of St.
      Chrysostom, exhibit the same picture of Antioch. The miniature
      which the Abbé de la Bleterie has copied from thence, (Vie de
      Julian, p. 332,) is elegant and correct.]

      12 (return) [ Laodicea furnished charioteers; Tyre and Berytus,
      comedians; Cæsarea, pantomimes; Heliopolis, singers; Gaza,
      gladiators, Ascalon, wrestlers; and Castabala, rope-dancers. See
      the Expositio totius Mundi, p. 6, in the third tome of Hudson’s
      Minor Geographers.]

      13 (return) [ The people of Antioch ingenuously professed their
      attachment to the _Chi_, (Christ,) and the _Kappa_,
      (Constantius.) Julian in Misopogon, p. 357.]

      14 (return) [ The schism of Antioch, which lasted eighty-five
      years, (A. D. 330-415,) was inflamed, while Julian resided in
      that city, by the indiscreet ordination of Paulinus. See
      Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. iii. p. 803 of the quarto edition,
      (Paris, 1701, &c,) which henceforward I shall quote.]

      The strongest prejudice was entertained against the character of
      an apostate, the enemy and successor of a prince who had engaged
      the affections of a very numerous sect; and the removal of St.
      Babylas excited an implacable opposition to the person of Julian.
      His subjects complained, with superstitious indignation, that
      famine had pursued the emperor’s steps from Constantinople to
      Antioch; and the discontent of a hungry people was exasperated by
      the injudicious attempt to relieve their distress. The inclemency
      of the season had affected the harvests of Syria; and the price
      of bread, 15 in the markets of Antioch, had naturally risen in
      proportion to the scarcity of corn. But the fair and reasonable
      proportion was soon violated by the rapacious arts of monopoly.
      In this unequal contest, in which the produce of the land is
      claimed by one party as his exclusive property, is used by
      another as a lucrative object of trade, and is required by a
      third for the daily and necessary support of life, all the
      profits of the intermediate agents are accumulated on the head of
      the defenceless customers. The hardships of their situation were
      exaggerated and increased by their own impatience and anxiety;
      and the apprehension of a scarcity gradually produced the
      appearances of a famine. When the luxurious citizens of Antioch
      complained of the high price of poultry and fish, Julian publicly
      declared, that a frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular
      supply of wine, oil, and bread; but he acknowledged, that it was
      the duty of a sovereign to provide for the subsistence of his
      people. With this salutary view, the emperor ventured on a very
      dangerous and doubtful step, of fixing, by legal authority, the
      value of corn. He enacted, that, in a time of scarcity, it should
      be sold at a price which had seldom been known in the most
      plentiful years; and that his own example might strengthen his
      laws, he sent into the market four hundred and twenty-two
      thousand _modii_, or measures, which were drawn by his order from
      the granaries of Hierapolis, of Chalcis, and even of Egypt. The
      consequences might have been foreseen, and were soon felt. The
      Imperial wheat was purchased by the rich merchants; the
      proprietors of land, or of corn, withheld from the city the
      accustomed supply; and the small quantities that appeared in the
      market were secretly sold at an advanced and illegal price.
      Julian still continued to applaud his own policy, treated the
      complaints of the people as a vain and ungrateful murmur, and
      convinced Antioch that he had inherited the obstinacy, though not
      the cruelty, of his brother Gallus. 16 The remonstrances of the
      municipal senate served only to exasperate his inflexible mind.
      He was persuaded, perhaps with truth, that the senators of
      Antioch who possessed lands, or were concerned in trade, had
      themselves contributed to the calamities of their country; and he
      imputed the disrespectful boldness which they assumed, to the
      sense, not of public duty, but of private interest. The whole
      body, consisting of two hundred of the most noble and wealthy
      citizens, were sent, under a guard, from the palace to the
      prison; and though they were permitted, before the close of
      evening, to return to their respective houses, 17 the emperor
      himself could not obtain the forgiveness which he had so easily
      granted. The same grievances were still the subject of the same
      complaints, which were industriously circulated by the wit and
      levity of the Syrian Greeks. During the licentious days of the
      Saturnalia, the streets of the city resounded with insolent
      songs, which derided the laws, the religion, the personal
      conduct, and even the _beard_, of the emperor; the spirit of
      Antioch was manifested by the connivance of the magistrates, and
      the applause of the multitude. 18 The disciple of Socrates was
      too deeply affected by these popular insults; but the monarch,
      endowed with a quick sensibility, and possessed of absolute
      power, refused his passions the gratification of revenge. A
      tyrant might have proscribed, without distinction, the lives and
      fortunes of the citizens of Antioch; and the unwarlike Syrians
      must have patiently submitted to the lust, the rapaciousness and
      the cruelty, of the faithful legions of Gaul. A milder sentence
      might have deprived the capital of the East of its honors and
      privileges; and the courtiers, perhaps the subjects, of Julian,
      would have applauded an act of justice, which asserted the
      dignity of the supreme magistrate of the republic. 19 But instead
      of abusing, or exerting, the authority of the state, to revenge
      his personal injuries, Julian contented himself with an
      inoffensive mode of retaliation, which it would be in the power
      of few princes to employ. He had been insulted by satires and
      libels; in his turn, he composed, under the title of the _Enemy
      of the Beard_, an ironical confession of his own faults, and a
      severe satire on the licentious and effeminate manners of
      Antioch. This Imperial reply was publicly exposed before the
      gates of the palace; and the Misopogon 20 still remains a
      singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the humanity, and
      the indiscretion of Julian. Though he affected to laugh, he could
      not forgive. 21 His contempt was expressed, and his revenge might
      be gratified, by the nomination of a governor 22 worthy only of
      such subjects; and the emperor, forever renouncing the ungrateful
      city, proclaimed his resolution to pass the ensuing winter at
      Tarsus in Cilicia. 23

      15 (return) [ Julian states three different proportions, of five,
      ten, or fifteen _modii_ of wheat for one piece of gold, according
      to the degrees of plenty and scarcity, (in Misopogon, p. 369.)
      From this fact, and from some collateral examples, I conclude,
      that under the successors of Constantine, the moderate price of
      wheat was about thirty-two shillings the English quarter, which
      is equal to the average price of the sixty-four first years of
      the present century. See Arbuthnot’s Tables of Coins, Weights,
      and Measures, p. 88, 89. Plin. Hist. Natur. xviii. 12. Mém. de
      l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxviii. p. 718-721. Smith’s
      Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, vol.
      i. p 246. This last I am proud to quote as the work of a sage and
      a friend.]

      16 (return) [ Nunquam a proposito declinabat, Galli similis
      fratris, licet incruentus. Ammian. xxii. 14. The ignorance of the
      most enlightened princes may claim some excuse; but we cannot be
      satisfied with Julian’s own defence, (in Misopogon, p. 363, 369,)
      or the elaborate apology of Libanius, (Orat. Parental c. xcvii.
      p. 321.)]

      17 (return) [ Their short and easy confinement is gently touched
      by Libanius, (Orat. Parental. c. xcviii. p. 322, 323.)]

      18 (return) [ Libanius, (ad Antiochenos de Imperatoris ira, c.
      17, 18, 19, in Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p. 221-223,)
      like a skilful advocate, severely censures the folly of the
      people, who suffered for the crime of a few obscure and drunken
      wretches.]

      19 (return) [ Libanius (ad Antiochen. c. vii. p. 213) reminds
      Antioch of the recent chastisement of Cæsarea; and even Julian
      (in Misopogon, p. 355) insinuates how severely Tarentum had
      expiated the insult to the Roman ambassadors.]

      20 (return) [ On the subject of the Misopogon, see Ammianus,
      (xxii. 14,) Libanius, (Orat. Parentalis, c. xcix. p. 323,)
      Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 133) and the Chronicle of
      Antioch, by John Malala, (tom. ii. p. 15, 16.) I have essential
      obligations to the translation and notes of the Abbé de la
      Bleterie, (Vie de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 1-138.)]

      21 (return) [ Ammianus very justly remarks, Coactus dissimulare
      pro tempore ira sufflabatur interna. The elaborate irony of
      Julian at length bursts forth into serious and direct invective.]

      22 (return) [ Ipse autem Antiochiam egressurus, Heliopoliten
      quendam Alexandrum Syriacæ jurisdictioni præfecit, turbulentum et
      sævum; dicebatque non illum meruisse, sed Antiochensibus avaris
      et contumeliosis hujusmodi judicem convenire. Ammian. xxiii. 2.
      Libanius, (Epist. 722, p. 346, 347,) who confesses to Julian
      himself, that he had shared the general discontent, pretends that
      Alexander was a useful, though harsh, reformer of the manners and
      religion of Antioch.]

      23 (return) [ Julian, in Misopogon, p. 364. Ammian. xxiii. 2, and
      Valesius, ad loc. Libanius, in a professed oration, invites him
      to return to his loyal and penitent city of Antioch.]

      Yet Antioch possessed one citizen, whose genius and virtues might
      atone, in the opinion of Julian, for the vice and folly of his
      country. The sophist Libanius was born in the capital of the
      East; he publicly professed the arts of rhetoric and declamation
      at Nice, Nicomedia, Constantinople, Athens, and, during the
      remainder of his life, at Antioch. His school was assiduously
      frequented by the Grecian youth; his disciples, who sometimes
      exceeded the number of eighty, celebrated their incomparable
      master; and the jealousy of his rivals, who persecuted him from
      one city to another, confirmed the favorable opinion which
      Libanius ostentatiously displayed of his superior merit. The
      preceptors of Julian had extorted a rash but solemn assurance,
      that he would never attend the lectures of their adversary: the
      curiosity of the royal youth was checked and inflamed: he
      secretly procured the writings of this dangerous sophist, and
      gradually surpassed, in the perfect imitation of his style, the
      most laborious of his domestic pupils. 24 When Julian ascended
      the throne, he declared his impatience to embrace and reward the
      Syrian sophist, who had preserved, in a degenerate age, the
      Grecian purity of taste, of manners, and of religion. The
      emperor’s prepossession was increased and justified by the
      discreet pride of his favorite. Instead of pressing, with the
      foremost of the crowd, into the palace of Constantinople,
      Libanius calmly expected his arrival at Antioch; withdrew from
      court on the first symptoms of coldness and indifference;
      required a formal invitation for each visit; and taught his
      sovereign an important lesson, that he might command the
      obedience of a subject, but that he must deserve the attachment
      of a friend. The sophists of every age, despising, or affecting
      to despise, the accidental distinctions of birth and fortune, 25
      reserve their esteem for the superior qualities of the mind, with
      which they themselves are so plentifully endowed. Julian might
      disdain the acclamations of a venal court, who adored the
      Imperial purple; but he was deeply flattered by the praise, the
      admonition, the freedom, and the envy of an independent
      philosopher, who refused his favors, loved his person, celebrated
      his fame, and protected his memory. The voluminous writings of
      Libanius still exist; for the most part, they are the vain and
      idle compositions of an orator, who cultivated the science of
      words; the productions of a recluse student, whose mind,
      regardless of his contemporaries, was incessantly fixed on the
      Trojan war and the Athenian commonwealth. Yet the sophist of
      Antioch sometimes descended from this imaginary elevation; he
      entertained a various and elaborate correspondence; 26 he praised
      the virtues of his own times; he boldly arraigned the abuse of
      public and private life; and he eloquently pleaded the cause of
      Antioch against the just resentment of Julian and Theodosius. It
      is the common calamity of old age, 27 to lose whatever might have
      rendered it desirable; but Libanius experienced the peculiar
      misfortune of surviving the religion and the sciences, to which
      he had consecrated his genius. The friend of Julian was an
      indignant spectator of the triumph of Christianity; and his
      bigotry, which darkened the prospect of the visible world, did
      not inspire Libanius with any lively hopes of celestial glory and
      happiness. 28

      24 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. vii. p. 230, 231.]

      25 (return) [ Eunapius reports, that Libanius refused the
      honorary rank of Prætorian præfect, as less illustrious than the
      title of Sophist, (in Vit. Sophist. p. 135.) The critics have
      observed a similar sentiment in one of the epistles (xviii. edit.
      Wolf) of Libanius himself.]

      26 (return) [ Near two thousand of his letters—a mode of
      composition in which Libanius was thought to excel—are still
      extant, and already published. The critics may praise their
      subtle and elegant brevity; yet Dr. Bentley (Dissertation upon
      Phalaris, p. 48) might justly, though quaintly observe, that “you
      feel, by the emptiness and deadness of them, that you converse
      with some dreaming pedant, with his elbow on his desk.”]

      27 (return) [ His birth is assigned to the year 314. He mentions
      the seventy-sixth year of his age, (A. D. 390,) and seems to
      allude to some events of a still later date.]

      28 (return) [ Libanius has composed the vain, prolix, but curious
      narrative of his own life, (tom. ii. p. 1-84, edit. Morell,) of
      which Eunapius (p. 130-135) has left a concise and unfavorable
      account. Among the moderns, Tillemont, (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      iv. p. 571-576,) Fabricius, (Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p.
      376-414,) and Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, tom. iv. p.
      127-163,) have illustrated the character and writings of this
      famous sophist.]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part II.


      The martial impatience of Julian urged him to take the field in
      the beginning of the spring; and he dismissed, with contempt and
      reproach, the senate of Antioch, who accompanied the emperor
      beyond the limits of their own territory, to which he was
      resolved never to return. After a laborious march of two days, 29
      he halted on the third at Beræa, or Aleppo, where he had the
      mortification of finding a senate almost entirely Christian; who
      received with cold and formal demonstrations of respect the
      eloquent sermon of the apostle of paganism. The son of one of the
      most illustrious citizens of Beræa, who had embraced, either from
      interest or conscience, the religion of the emperor, was
      disinherited by his angry parent. The father and the son were
      invited to the Imperial table. Julian, placing himself between
      them, attempted, without success, to inculcate the lesson and
      example of toleration; supported, with affected calmness, the
      indiscreet zeal of the aged Christian, who seemed to forget the
      sentiments of nature, and the duty of a subject; and at length,
      turning towards the afflicted youth, “Since you have lost a
      father,” said he, “for my sake, it is incumbent on me to supply
      his place.” 30 The emperor was received in a manner much more
      agreeable to his wishes at Batnæ, 3011 a small town pleasantly
      seated in a grove of cypresses, about twenty miles from the city
      of Hierapolis. The solemn rites of sacrifice were decently
      prepared by the inhabitants of Batnæ, who seemed attached to the
      worship of their tutelar deities, Apollo and Jupiter; but the
      serious piety of Julian was offended by the tumult of their
      applause; and he too clearly discerned, that the smoke which
      arose from their altars was the incense of flattery, rather than
      of devotion. The ancient and magnificent temple which had
      sanctified, for so many ages, the city of Hierapolis, 31 no
      longer subsisted; and the consecrated wealth, which afforded a
      liberal maintenance to more than three hundred priests, might
      hasten its downfall. Yet Julian enjoyed the satisfaction of
      embracing a philosopher and a friend, whose religious firmness
      had withstood the pressing and repeated solicitations of
      Constantius and Gallus, as often as those princes lodged at his
      house, in their passage through Hierapolis. In the hurry of
      military preparation, and the careless confidence of a familiar
      correspondence, the zeal of Julian appears to have been lively
      and uniform. He had now undertaken an important and difficult
      war; and the anxiety of the event rendered him still more
      attentive to observe and register the most trifling presages,
      from which, according to the rules of divination, any knowledge
      of futurity could be derived. 32 He informed Libanius of his
      progress as far as Hierapolis, by an elegant epistle, 33 which
      displays the facility of his genius, and his tender friendship
      for the sophist of Antioch.

      29 (return) [ From Antioch to Litarbe, on the territory of
      Chalcis, the road, over hills and through morasses, was extremely
      bad; and the loose stones were cemented only with sand, (Julian.
      epist. xxvii.) It is singular enough that the Romans should have
      neglected the great communication between Antioch and the
      Euphrates. See Wesseling Itinerar. p. 190 Bergier, Hist des
      Grands Chemins, tom. ii. p. 100]

      30 (return) [ Julian alludes to this incident, (epist. xxvii.,)
      which is more distinctly related by Theodoret, (l. iii. c. 22.)
      The intolerant spirit of the father is applauded by Tillemont,
      (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 534.) and even by La Bleterie,
      (Vie de Julien, p. 413.)]

      3011 (return) [ This name, of Syriac origin, is found in the
      Arabic, and means a place in a valley where waters meet. Julian
      says, the name of the city is Barbaric, the situation Greek. The
      geographer Abulfeda (tab. Syriac. p. 129, edit. Koehler) speaks
      of it in a manner to justify the praises of Julian.—St. Martin.
      Notes to Le Beau, iii. 56.—M.]

      31 (return) [ See the curious treatise de Deâ Syriâ, inserted
      among the works of Lucian, (tom. iii. p. 451-490, edit. Reitz.)
      The singular appellation of _Ninus vetus_ (Ammian. xiv. 8) might
      induce a suspicion, that Heirapolis had been the royal seat of
      the Assyrians.]

      32 (return) [ Julian (epist. xxviii.) kept a regular account of
      all the fortunate omens; but he suppresses the inauspicious
      signs, which Ammianus (xxiii. 2) has carefully recorded.]

      33 (return) [ Julian. epist. xxvii. p. 399-402.]

      Hierapolis, 3311 situate almost on the banks of the Euphrates, 34
      had been appointed for the general rendezvous of the Roman
      troops, who immediately passed the great river on a bridge of
      boats, which was previously constructed. 35 If the inclinations
      of Julian had been similar to those of his predecessor, he might
      have wasted the active and important season of the year in the
      circus of Samosata or in the churches of Edessa. But as the
      warlike emperor, instead of Constantius, had chosen Alexander for
      his model, he advanced without delay to Carrhæ, 36 a very ancient
      city of Mesopotamia, at the distance of fourscore miles from
      Hierapolis. The temple of the Moon attracted the devotion of
      Julian; but the halt of a few days was principally employed in
      completing the immense preparations of the Persian war. The
      secret of the expedition had hitherto remained in his own breast;
      but as Carrhæ is the point of separation of the two great roads,
      he could no longer conceal whether it was his design to attack
      the dominions of Sapor on the side of the Tigris, or on that of
      the Euphrates. The emperor detached an army of thirty thousand
      men, under the command of his kinsman Procopius, and of
      Sebastian, who had been duke of Egypt. They were ordered to
      direct their march towards Nisibis, and to secure the frontier
      from the desultory incursions of the enemy, before they attempted
      the passage of the Tigris. Their subsequent operations were left
      to the discretion of the generals; but Julian expected, that
      after wasting with fire and sword the fertile districts of Media
      and Adiabene, they might arrive under the walls of Ctesiphon at
      the same time that he himself, advancing with equal steps along
      the banks of the Euphrates, should besiege the capital of the
      Persian monarchy. The success of this well-concerted plan
      depended, in a great measure, on the powerful and ready
      assistance of the king of Armenia, who, without exposing the
      safety of his own dominions, might detach an army of four
      thousand horse, and twenty thousand foot, to the assistance of
      the Romans. 37 But the feeble Arsaces Tiranus, 38 king of
      Armenia, had degenerated still more shamefully than his father
      Chosroes, from the manly virtues of the great Tiridates; and as
      the pusillanimous monarch was averse to any enterprise of danger
      and glory, he could disguise his timid indolence by the more
      decent excuses of religion and gratitude. He expressed a pious
      attachment to the memory of Constantius, from whose hands he had
      received in marriage Olympias, the daughter of the præfect
      Ablavius; and the alliance of a female, who had been educated as
      the destined wife of the emperor Constans, exalted the dignity of
      a Barbarian king. 39 Tiranus professed the Christian religion; he
      reigned over a nation of Christians; and he was restrained, by
      every principle of conscience and interest, from contributing to
      the victory, which would consummate the ruin of the church. The
      alienated mind of Tiranus was exasperated by the indiscretion of
      Julian, who treated the king of Armenia as _his_ slave, and as
      the enemy of the gods. The haughty and threatening style of the
      Imperial mandates 40 awakened the secret indignation of a prince,
      who, in the humiliating state of dependence, was still conscious
      of his royal descent from the Arsacides, the lords of the East,
      and the rivals of the Roman power. 4011

      3311 (return) [ Or Bambyce, now Bambouch; Manbedj Arab., or
      Maboug, Syr. It was twenty-four Roman miles from the
      Euphrates.—M.]

      34 (return) [ I take the earliest opportunity of acknowledging my
      obligations to M. d’Anville, for his recent geography of the
      Euphrates and Tigris, (Paris, 1780, in 4to.,) which particularly
      illustrates the expedition of Julian.]

      35 (return) [ There are three passages within a few miles of each
      other; 1. Zeugma, celebrated by the ancients; 2. Bir, frequented
      by the moderns; and, 3. The bridge of Menbigz, or Hierapolis, at
      the distance of four parasangs from the city. —— Djisr Manbedj is
      the same with the ancient Zeugma. St. Martin, iii. 58—M.]

      36 (return) [ Haran, or Carrhæ, was the ancient residence of the
      Sabæans, and of Abraham. See the Index Geographicus of Schultens,
      (ad calcem Vit. Saladin.,) a work from which I have obtained much
      _Oriental_ knowledge concerning the ancient and modern geography
      of Syria and the adjacent countries. ——On an inedited medal in
      the collection of the late M. Tochon. of the Academy of
      Inscriptions, it is read Xappan. St. Martin. iii 60—M.]

      37 (return) [ See Xenophon. Cyropæd. l. iii. p. 189, edit.
      Hutchinson. Artavasdes might have supplied Marc Antony with
      16,000 horse, armed and disciplined after the Parthian manner,
      (Plutarch, in M. Antonio. tom. v. p. 117.)]

      38 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armeniac. l. iii. c. 11, p.
      242) fixes his accession (A. D. 354) to the 17th year of
      Constantius. ——Arsaces Tiranus, or Diran, had ceased to reign
      twenty-five years before, in 337. The intermediate changes in
      Armenia, and the character of this Arsaces, the son of Diran, are
      traced by M. St. Martin, at considerable length, in his
      supplement to Le Beau, ii. 208-242. As long as his Grecian queen
      Olympias maintained her influence, Arsaces was faithful to the
      Roman and _Christian_ alliance. On the accession of Julian, the
      same influence made his fidelity to waver; but Olympias having
      been poisoned in the sacramental bread by the agency of
      Pharandcem, the former wife of Arsaces, another change took place
      in Armenian politics unfavorable to the Christian interest. The
      patriarch Narses retired from the impious court to a safe
      seclusion. Yet Pharandsem was equally hostile to the Persian
      influence, and Arsaces began to support with vigor the cause of
      Julian. He made an inroad into the Persian dominions with a body
      of Rans and Alans as auxiliaries; wasted Aderbidgan and Sapor,
      who had been defeated near Tauriz, was engaged in making head
      against his troops in Persarmenia, at the time of the death of
      Julian. Such is M. St. Martin’s view, (ii. 276, et sqq.,) which
      rests on the Armenian historians, Faustos of Byzantium, and
      Mezrob the biographer of the Partriarch Narses. In the history of
      Armenia by Father Chamitch, and translated by Avdall, Tiran is
      still king of Armenia, at the time of Julian’s death. F. Chamitch
      follows Moses of Chorene, The authority of Gibbon.—M.]

      39 (return) [ Ammian. xx. 11. Athanasius (tom. i. p. 856) says,
      in general terms, that Constantius gave to his brother’s widow,
      an expression more suitable to a Roman than a Christian.]

      40 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiii. 2) uses a word much too soft for
      the occasion, _monuerat_. Muratori (Fabricius, Bibliothec. Græc.
      tom. vii. p. 86) has published an epistle from Julian to the
      satrap Arsaces; fierce, vulgar, and (though it might deceive
      Sozomen, l. vi. c. 5) most probably spurious. La Bleterie (Hist.
      de Jovien, tom. ii. p. 339) translates and rejects it. Note: St.
      Martin considers it genuine: the Armenian writers mention such a
      letter, iii. 37.—M.]

      4011 (return) [ Arsaces did not abandon the Roman alliance, but
      gave it only feeble support. St. Martin, iii. 41—M.]

      The military dispositions of Julian were skilfully contrived to
      deceive the spies and to divert the attention of Sapor. The
      legions appeared to direct their march towards Nisibis and the
      Tigris. On a sudden they wheeled to the right; traversed the
      level and naked plain of Carrhæ; and reached, on the third day,
      the banks of the Euphrates, where the strong town of Nicephorium,
      or Callinicum, had been founded by the Macedonian kings. From
      thence the emperor pursued his march, above ninety miles, along
      the winding stream of the Euphrates, till, at length, about one
      month after his departure from Antioch, he discovered the towers
      of Circesium, 4012 the extreme limit of the Roman dominions. The
      army of Julian, the most numerous that any of the Cæsars had ever
      led against Persia, consisted of sixty-five thousand effective
      and well-disciplined soldiers. The veteran bands of cavalry and
      infantry, of Romans and Barbarians, had been selected from the
      different provinces; and a just preëminence of loyalty and valor
      was claimed by the hardy Gauls, who guarded the throne and person
      of their beloved prince. A formidable body of Scythian
      auxiliaries had been transported from another climate, and almost
      from another world, to invade a distant country, of whose name
      and situation they were ignorant. The love of rapine and war
      allured to the Imperial standard several tribes of Saracens, or
      roving Arabs, whose service Julian had commanded, while he
      sternly refused the payment of the accustomed subsidies. The
      broad channel of the Euphrates 41 was crowded by a fleet of
      eleven hundred ships, destined to attend the motions, and to
      satisfy the wants, of the Roman army. The military strength of
      the fleet was composed of fifty armed galleys; and these were
      accompanied by an equal number of flat-bottomed boats, which
      might occasionally be connected into the form of temporary
      bridges. The rest of the ships, partly constructed of timber, and
      partly covered with raw hides, were laden with an almost
      inexhaustible supply of arms and engines, of utensils and
      provisions. The vigilant humanity of Julian had embarked a very
      large magazine of vinegar and biscuit for the use of the
      soldiers, but he prohibited the indulgence of wine; and
      rigorously stopped a long string of superfluous camels that
      attempted to follow the rear of the army. The River Chaboras
      falls into the Euphrates at Circesium; 42 and as soon as the
      trumpet gave the signal of march, the Romans passed the little
      stream which separated two mighty and hostile empires. The custom
      of ancient discipline required a military oration; and Julian
      embraced every opportunity of displaying his eloquence. He
      animated the impatient and attentive legions by the example of
      the inflexible courage and glorious triumphs of their ancestors.
      He excited their resentment by a lively picture of the insolence
      of the Persians; and he exhorted them to imitate his firm
      resolution, either to extirpate that perfidious nation, or to
      devote his life in the cause of the republic. The eloquence of
      Julian was enforced by a donative of one hundred and thirty
      pieces of silver to every soldier; and the bridge of the Chaboras
      was instantly cut away, to convince the troops that they must
      place their hopes of safety in the success of their arms. Yet the
      prudence of the emperor induced him to secure a remote frontier,
      perpetually exposed to the inroads of the hostile Arabs. A
      detachment of four thousand men was left at Circesium, which
      completed, to the number of ten thousand, the regular garrison of
      that important fortress. 43

      4012 (return) [ Kirkesia the Carchemish of the Scriptures.—M.]

      41 (return) [ Latissimum flumen Euphraten artabat. Ammian. xxiii.
      3 Somewhat higher, at the fords of Thapsacus, the river is four
      stadia or 800 yards, almost half an English mile, broad.
      (Xenophon, Anabasis, l. i. p. 41, edit. Hutchinson, with Foster’s
      Observations, p. 29, &c., in the 2d volume of Spelman’s
      translation.) If the breadth of the Euphrates at Bir and Zeugma
      is no more than 130 yards, (Voyages de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 335,)
      the enormous difference must chiefly arise from the depth of the
      channel.]

      42 (return) [ Munimentum tutissimum et fabre politum, Abora (the
      Orientals aspirate Chaboras or Chabour) et Euphrates ambiunt
      flumina, velut spatium insulare fingentes. Ammian. xxiii. 5.]

      43 (return) [ The enterprise and armament of Julian are described
      by himself, (Epist. xxvii.,) Ammianus Marcellinus, (xxiii. 3, 4,
      5,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 108, 109, p. 332, 333,) Zosimus,
      (l. iii. p. 160, 161, 162) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. l,) and John
      Malala, (tom. ii. p. 17.)]

      From the moment that the Romans entered the enemy’s country, 44
      the country of an active and artful enemy, the order of march was
      disposed in three columns. 45 The strength of the infantry, and
      consequently of the whole army was placed in the centre, under
      the peculiar command of their master-general Victor. On the
      right, the brave Nevitta led a column of several legions along
      the banks of the Euphrates, and almost always in sight of the
      fleet. The left flank of the army was protected by the column of
      cavalry. Hormisdas and Arinthæus were appointed generals of the
      horse; and the singular adventures of Hormisdas 46 are not
      undeserving of our notice. He was a Persian prince, of the royal
      race of the Sassanides, who, in the troubles of the minority of
      Sapor, had escaped from prison to the hospitable court of the
      great Constantine. Hormisdas at first excited the compassion, and
      at length acquired the esteem, of his new masters; his valor and
      fidelity raised him to the military honors of the Roman service;
      and though a Christian, he might indulge the secret satisfaction
      of convincing his ungrateful country, that an oppressed subject
      may prove the most dangerous enemy. Such was the disposition of
      the three principal columns. The front and flanks of the army
      were covered by Lucilianus with a flying detachment of fifteen
      hundred light-armed soldiers, whose active vigilance observed the
      most distant signs, and conveyed the earliest notice, of any
      hostile approach. Dagalaiphus, and Secundinus duke of Osrhoene,
      conducted the troops of the rear-guard; the baggage securely
      proceeded in the intervals of the columns; and the ranks, from a
      motive either of use or ostentation, were formed in such open
      order, that the whole line of march extended almost ten miles.
      The ordinary post of Julian was at the head of the centre column;
      but as he preferred the duties of a general to the state of a
      monarch, he rapidly moved, with a small escort of light cavalry,
      to the front, the rear, the flanks, wherever his presence could
      animate or protect the march of the Roman army. The country which
      they traversed from the Chaboras, to the cultivated lands of
      Assyria, may be considered as a part of the desert of Arabia, a
      dry and barren waste, which could never be improved by the most
      powerful arts of human industry. Julian marched over the same
      ground which had been trod above seven hundred years before by
      the footsteps of the younger Cyrus, and which is described by one
      of the companions of his expedition, the sage and heroic
      Xenophon. 47 “The country was a plain throughout, as even as the
      sea, and full of wormwood; and if any other kind of shrubs or
      reeds grew there, they had all an aromatic smell, but no trees
      could be seen. Bustards and ostriches, antelopes and wild asses,
      48 appeared to be the only inhabitants of the desert; and the
      fatigues of the march were alleviated by the amusements of the
      chase.” The loose sand of the desert was frequently raised by the
      wind into clouds of dust; and a great number of the soldiers of
      Julian, with their tents, were suddenly thrown to the ground by
      the violence of an unexpected hurricane.

      44 (return) [ Before he enters Persia, Ammianus copiously
      describes (xxiii. p. 396-419, edit. Gronov. in 4to.) the eighteen
      great provinces, (as far as the Seric, or Chinese frontiers,)
      which were subject to the Sassanides.]

      45 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiv. 1) and Zosimus (l. iii. p. 162,
      163) rately expressed the order of march.]

      46 (return) [ The adventures of Hormisdas are related with some
      mixture of fable, (Zosimus, l. ii. p. 100-102; Tillemont, Hist.
      des Empereurs tom. iv. p. 198.) It is almost impossible that he
      should be the brother (frater germanus) of an _eldest_ and
      _posthumous_ child: nor do I recollect that Ammianus ever gives
      him that title. * Note: St. Martin conceives that he was an elder
      brother by another mother who had several children, ii. 24—M.]

      47 (return) [ See the first book of the Anabasis, p. 45, 46. This
      pleasing work is original and authentic. Yet Xenophon’s memory,
      perhaps many years after the expedition, has sometimes betrayed
      him; and the distances which he marks are often larger than
      either a soldier or a geographer will allow.]

      48 (return) [ Mr. Spelman, the English translator of the
      Anabasis, (vol. i. p. 51,) confounds the antelope with the
      roebuck, and the wild ass with the zebra.]

      The sandy plains of Mesopotamia were abandoned to the antelopes
      and wild asses of the desert; but a variety of populous towns and
      villages were pleasantly situated on the banks of the Euphrates,
      and in the islands which are occasionally formed by that river.
      The city of Annah, or Anatho, 49 the actual residence of an
      Arabian emir, is composed of two long streets, which enclose,
      within a natural fortification, a small island in the midst, and
      two fruitful spots on either side, of the Euphrates. The warlike
      inhabitants of Anatho showed a disposition to stop the march of a
      Roman emperor; till they were diverted from such fatal
      presumption by the mild exhortations of Prince Hormisdas, and the
      approaching terrors of the fleet and army. They implored, and
      experienced, the clemency of Julian, who transplanted the people
      to an advantageous settlement, near Chalcis in Syria, and
      admitted Pusæus, the governor, to an honorable rank in his
      service and friendship. But the impregnable fortress of Thilutha
      could scorn the menace of a siege; and the emperor was obliged to
      content himself with an insulting promise, that, when he had
      subdued the interior provinces of Persia, Thilutha would no
      longer refuse to grace the triumph of the emperor. The
      inhabitants of the open towns, unable to resist, and unwilling to
      yield, fled with precipitation; and their houses, filled with
      spoil and provisions, were occupied by the soldiers of Julian,
      who massacred, without remorse and without punishment, some
      defenceless women. During the march, the Surenas, 4911 or Persian
      general, and Malek Rodosaces, the renowned emir of the tribe of
      Gassan, 50 incessantly hovered round the army; every straggler
      was intercepted; every detachment was attacked; and the valiant
      Hormisdas escaped with some difficulty from their hands. But the
      Barbarians were finally repulsed; the country became every day
      less favorable to the operations of cavalry; and when the Romans
      arrived at Macepracta, they perceived the ruins of the wall,
      which had been constructed by the ancient kings of Assyria, to
      secure their dominions from the incursions of the Medes. These
      preliminaries of the expedition of Julian appear to have employed
      about fifteen days; and we may compute near three hundred miles
      from the fortress of Circesium to the wall of Macepracta. 51

      49 (return) [ See Voyages de Tavernier, part i. l. iii. p. 316,
      and more especially Viaggi di Pietro della Valle, tom. i. lett.
      xvii. p. 671, &c. He was ignorant of the old name and condition
      of Annah. Our blind travellers _seldom_ possess any previous
      knowledge of the countries which they visit. Shaw and Tournefort
      deserve an honorable exception.]

      4911 (return) [ This is not a title, but the name of a great
      Persian family. St. Martin, iii. 79.—M.]

      50 (return) [ Famosi nominis latro, says Ammianus; a high
      encomium for an Arab. The tribe of Gassan had settled on the edge
      of Syria, and reigned some time in Damascus, under a dynasty of
      thirty-one kings, or emirs, from the time of Pompey to that of
      the Khalif Omar. D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale, p. 360.
      Pococke, Specimen Hist. Arabicæ, p. 75-78. The name of Rodosaces
      does not appear in the list. * Note: Rodosaces-malek is king. St.
      Martin considers that Gibbon has fallen into an error in bringing
      the tribe of Gassan to the Euphrates. In Ammianus it is Assan. M.
      St. Martin would read Massanitarum, the same with the Mauzanitæ
      of Malala.—M.]

      51 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxiv. 1, 2,) Libanius, (Orat.
      Parental. c. 110, 111, p. 334,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 164-168.) *
      Note: This Syriac or Chaldaic has relation to its position; it
      easily bears the signification of the division of the waters. M.
      St. M. considers it the Missice of Pliny, v. 26. St. Martin, iii.
      83.—M.]

      The fertile province of Assyria, 52 which stretched beyond the
      Tigris, as far as the mountains of Media, 53 extended about four
      hundred miles from the ancient wall of Macepracta, to the
      territory of Basra, where the united streams of the Euphrates and
      Tigris discharge themselves into the Persian Gulf. 54 The whole
      country might have claimed the peculiar name of Mesopotamia; as
      the two rivers, which are never more distant than fifty,
      approach, between Bagdad and Babylon, within twenty-five miles,
      of each other. A multitude of artificial canals, dug without much
      labor in a soft and yielding soil connected the rivers, and
      intersected the plain of Assyria. The uses of these artificial
      canals were various and important. They served to discharge the
      superfluous waters from one river into the other, at the season
      of their respective inundations. Subdividing themselves into
      smaller and smaller branches, they refreshed the dry lands, and
      supplied the deficiency of rain. They facilitated the intercourse
      of peace and commerce; and, as the dams could be speedily broke
      down, they armed the despair of the Assyrians with the means of
      opposing a sudden deluge to the progress of an invading army. To
      the soil and climate of Assyria, nature had denied some of her
      choicest gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree; 5411 but
      the food which supports the life of man, and particularly wheat
      and barley, were produced with inexhaustible fertility; and the
      husbandman, who committed his seed to the earth, was frequently
      rewarded with an increase of two, or even of three, hundred. The
      face of the country was interspersed with groves of innumerable
      palm-trees; 55 and the diligent natives celebrated, either in
      verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the
      trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were
      skilfully applied. Several manufactures, especially those of
      leather and linen, employed the industry of a numerous people,
      and afforded valuable materials for foreign trade; which appears,
      however, to have been conducted by the hands of strangers.
      Babylon had been converted into a royal park; but near the ruins
      of the ancient capital, new cities had successively arisen, and
      the populousness of the country was displayed in the multitude of
      towns and villages, which were built of bricks dried in the sun,
      and strongly cemented with bitumen; the natural and peculiar
      production of the Babylonian soil. While the successors of Cyrus
      reigned over Asia, the province of Syria alone maintained, during
      a third part of the year, the luxurious plenty of the table and
      household of the Great King. Four considerable villages were
      assigned for the subsistence of his Indian dogs; eight hundred
      stallions, and sixteen thousand mares, were constantly kept, at
      the expense of the country, for the royal stables; and as the
      daily tribute, which was paid to the satrap, amounted to one
      English bushe of silver, we may compute the annual revenue of
      Assyria at more than twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling. 56

      52 (return) [ The description of Assyria, is furnished by
      Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, &c.,) who sometimes writes for
      children, and sometimes for philosophers; by Strabo, (l. xvi. p.
      1070-1082,) and by Ammianus, (l.xxiii. c. 6.) The most useful of
      the modern travellers are Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 226-258,)
      Otter, (tom. ii. p. 35-69, and 189-224,) and Niebuhr, (tom. ii.
      p. 172-288.) Yet I much regret that the _Irak Arabi_ of Abulfeda
      has not been translated.]

      53 (return) [ Ammianus remarks, that the primitive Assyria, which
      comprehended Ninus, (Nineveh,) and Arbela, had assumed the more
      recent and peculiar appellation of Adiabene; and he seems to fix
      Teredon, Vologesia, and Apollonia, as the _extreme_ cities of the
      actual province of Assyria.]

      54 (return) [ The two rivers unite at Apamea, or Corna, (one
      hundred miles from the Persian Gulf,) into the broad stream of
      the Pasitigris, or Shutul-Arab. The Euphrates formerly reached
      the sea by a separate channel, which was obstructed and diverted
      by the citizens of Orchoe, about twenty miles to the south-east
      of modern Basra. (D’Anville, in the Mémoires de l’Acad. des
      Inscriptions, tom.xxx. p. 171-191.)]

      5411 (return) [ We are informed by Mr. Gibbon, that nature has
      denied to the soil an climate of Assyria some of her choicest
      gifts, the vine, the olive, and the fig-tree. This might have
      been the case ir the age of Ammianus Marcellinus, but it is not
      so at the present day; and it is a curious fact that the grape,
      the olive, and the fig, are the most common fruits in the
      province, and may be seen in every garden. Macdonald Kinneir,
      Geogr. Mem. on Persia 239—M.]

      55 (return) [ The learned Kæmpfer, as a botanist, an antiquary,
      and a traveller, has exhausted (Amœnitat. Exoticæ, Fasicul. iv.
      p. 660-764) the whole subject of palm-trees.]

      56 (return) [ Assyria yielded to the Persian satrap an _Artaba_
      of silver each day. The well-known proportion of weights and
      measures (see Bishop Hooper’s elaborate Inquiry,) the specific
      gravity of water and silver, and the value of that metal, will
      afford, after a short process, the annual revenue which I have
      stated. Yet the Great King received no more than 1000 Euboic, or
      Tyrian, talents (252,000l.) from Assyria. The comparison of two
      passages in Herodotus, (l. i. c. 192, l. iii. c. 89-96) reveals
      an important difference between the _gross_, and the _net_,
      revenue of Persia; the sums paid by the province, and the gold or
      silver deposited in the royal treasure. The monarch might
      annually save three millions six hundred thousand pounds, of the
      seventeen or eighteen millions raised upon the people.]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part III.


      The fields of Assyria were devoted by Julian to the calamities of
      war; and the philosopher retaliated on a guiltless people the
      acts of rapine and cruelty which had been committed by their
      haughty master in the Roman provinces. The trembling Assyrians
      summoned the rivers to their assistance; and completed, with
      their own hands, the ruin of their country. The roads were
      rendered impracticable; a flood of waters was poured into the
      camp; and, during several days, the troops of Julian were obliged
      to contend with the most discouraging hardships. But every
      obstacle was surmounted by the perseverance of the legionaries,
      who were inured to toil as well as to danger, and who felt
      themselves animated by the spirit of their leader. The damage was
      gradually repaired; the waters were restored to their proper
      channels; whole groves of palm-trees were cut down, and placed
      along the broken parts of the road; and the army passed over the
      broad and deeper canals, on bridges of floating rafts, which were
      supported by the help of bladders. Two cities of Assyria presumed
      to resist the arms of a Roman emperor: and they both paid the
      severe penalty of their rashness. At the distance of fifty miles
      from the royal residence of Ctesiphon, Perisabor, 5711 or Anbar,
      held the second rank in the province; a city, large, populous,
      and well fortified, surrounded with a double wall, almost
      encompassed by a branch of the Euphrates, and defended by the
      valor of a numerous garrison. The exhortations of Hormisdas were
      repulsed with contempt; and the ears of the Persian prince were
      wounded by a just reproach, that, unmindful of his royal birth,
      he conducted an army of strangers against his king and country.
      The Assyrians maintained their loyalty by a skilful, as well as
      vigorous, defence; till the lucky stroke of a battering-ram,
      having opened a large breach, by shattering one of the angles of
      the wall, they hastily retired into the fortifications of the
      interior citadel. The soldiers of Julian rushed impetuously into
      the town, and after the full gratification of every military
      appetite, Perisabor was reduced to ashes; and the engines which
      assaulted the citadel were planted on the ruins of the smoking
      houses. The contest was continued by an incessant and mutual
      discharge of missile weapons; and the superiority which the
      Romans might derive from the mechanical powers of their balistæ
      and catapultæ was counterbalanced by the advantage of the ground
      on the side of the besieged. But as soon as an _Helepolis_ had
      been constructed, which could engage on equal terms with the
      loftiest ramparts, the tremendous aspect of a moving turret, that
      would leave no hope of resistance or mercy, terrified the
      defenders of the citadel into an humble submission; and the place
      was surrendered only two days after Julian first appeared under
      the walls of Perisabor. Two thousand five hundred persons, of
      both sexes, the feeble remnant of a flourishing people, were
      permitted to retire; the plentiful magazines of corn, of arms,
      and of splendid furniture, were partly distributed among the
      troops, and partly reserved for the public service; the useless
      stores were destroyed by fire or thrown into the stream of the
      Euphrates; and the fate of Amida was revenged by the total ruin
      of Perisabor.

      5711 (return) [ Libanius says that it was a great city of
      Assyria, called after the name of the reigning king. The orator
      of Antioch is not mistaken. The Persians and Syrians called it
      Fyrouz Schapour or Fyrouz Schahbour; in Persian, the victory of
      Schahpour. It owed that name to Sapor the First. It was before
      called Anbar St. Martin, iii. 85.—M.]

      The city or rather fortress, of Maogamalcha, which was defended
      by sixteen large towers, a deep ditch, and two strong and solid
      walls of brick and bitumen, appears to have been constructed at
      the distance of eleven miles, as the safeguard of the capital of
      Persia. The emperor, apprehensive of leaving such an important
      fortress in his rear, immediately formed the siege of
      Maogamalcha; and the Roman army was distributed, for that
      purpose, into three divisions. Victor, at the head of the
      cavalry, and of a detachment of heavy-armed foot, was ordered to
      clear the country, as far as the banks of the Tigris, and the
      suburbs of Ctesiphon. The conduct of the attack was assumed by
      Julian himself, who seemed to place his whole dependence in the
      military engines which he erected against the walls; while he
      secretly contrived a more efficacious method of introducing his
      troops into the heart of the city. Under the direction of Nevitta
      and Dagalaiphus, the trenches were opened at a considerable
      distance, and gradually prolonged as far as the edge of the
      ditch. The ditch was speedily filled with earth; and, by the
      incessant labor of the troops, a mine was carried under the
      foundations of the walls, and sustained, at sufficient intervals,
      by props of timber. Three chosen cohorts, advancing in a single
      file, silently explored the dark and dangerous passage; till
      their intrepid leader whispered back the intelligence, that he
      was ready to issue from his confinement into the streets of the
      hostile city. Julian checked their ardor, that he might insure
      their success; and immediately diverted the attention of the
      garrison, by the tumult and clamor of a general assault. The
      Persians, who, from their walls, contemptuously beheld the
      progress of an impotent attack, celebrated with songs of triumph
      the glory of Sapor; and ventured to assure the emperor, that he
      might ascend the starry mansion of Ormusd, before he could hope
      to take the impregnable city of Maogamalcha. The city was already
      taken. History has recorded the name of a private soldier the
      first who ascended from the mine into a deserted tower. The
      passage was widened by his companions, who pressed forwards with
      impatient valor. Fifteen hundred enemies were already in the
      midst of the city. The astonished garrison abandoned the walls,
      and their only hope of safety; the gates were instantly burst
      open; and the revenge of the soldier, unless it were suspended by
      lust or avarice, was satiated by an undistinguishing massacre.
      The governor, who had yielded on a promise of mercy, was burnt
      alive, a few days afterwards, on a charge of having uttered some
      disrespectful words against the honor of Prince Hormisdas. The
      fortifications were razed to the ground; and not a vestige was
      left, that the city of Maogamalcha had ever existed. The
      neighborhood of the capital of Persia was adorned with three
      stately palaces, laboriously enriched with every production that
      could gratify the luxury and pride of an Eastern monarch. The
      pleasant situation of the gardens along the banks of the Tigris,
      was improved, according to the Persian taste, by the symmetry of
      flowers, fountains, and shady walks: and spacious parks were
      enclosed for the reception of the bears, lions, and wild boars,
      which were maintained at a considerable expense for the pleasure
      of the royal chase. The park walls were broken down, the savage
      game was abandoned to the darts of the soldiers, and the palaces
      of Sapor were reduced to ashes, by the command of the Roman
      emperor. Julian, on this occasion, showed himself ignorant, or
      careless, of the laws of civility, which the prudence and
      refinement of polished ages have established between hostile
      princes. Yet these wanton ravages need not excite in our breasts
      any vehement emotions of pity or resentment. A simple, naked
      statue, finished by the hand of a Grecian artist, is of more
      genuine value than all these rude and costly monuments of
      Barbaric labor; and, if we are more deeply affected by the ruin
      of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity
      must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of
      human life. 57

      57 (return) [ The operations of the Assyrian war are
      circumstantially related by Ammianus, (xxiv. 2, 3, 4, 5,)
      Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 112-123, p. 335-347,) Zosimus, (l.
      iii. p. 168-180,) and Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat iv. p. 113, 144.)
      The _military_ criticisms of the saint are devoutly copied by
      Tillemont, his faithful slave.]

      Julian was an object of hatred and terror to the Persian and the
      painters of that nation represented the invader of their country
      under the emblem of a furious lion, who vomited from his mouth a
      consuming fire. 58 To his friends and soldiers the philosophic
      hero appeared in a more amiable light; and his virtues were never
      more conspicuously displayed, than in the last and most active
      period of his life. He practised, without effort, and almost
      without merit, the habitual qualities of temperance and sobriety.
      According to the dictates of that artificial wisdom, which
      assumes an absolute dominion over the mind and body, he sternly
      refused himself the indulgence of the most natural appetites. 59
      In the warm climate of Assyria, which solicited a luxurious
      people to the gratification of every sensual desire, 60 a
      youthful conqueror preserved his chastity pure and inviolate; nor
      was Julian ever tempted, even by a motive of curiosity, to visit
      his female captives of exquisite beauty, 61 who, instead of
      resisting his power, would have disputed with each other the
      honor of his embraces. With the same firmness that he resisted
      the allurements of love, he sustained the hardships of war. When
      the Romans marched through the flat and flooded country, their
      sovereign, on foot, at the head of his legions, shared their
      fatigues and animated their diligence. In every useful labor, the
      hand of Julian was prompt and strenuous; and the Imperial purple
      was wet and dirty as the coarse garment of the meanest soldier.
      The two sieges allowed him some remarkable opportunities of
      signalizing his personal valor, which, in the improved state of
      the military art, can seldom be exerted by a prudent general. The
      emperor stood before the citadel of Perisabor, insensible of his
      extreme danger, and encouraged his troops to burst open the gates
      of iron, till he was almost overwhelmed under a cloud of missile
      weapons and huge stones, that were directed against his person.
      As he examined the exterior fortifications of Maogamalcha, two
      Persians, devoting themselves for their country, suddenly rushed
      upon him with drawn cimeters: the emperor dexterously received
      their blows on his uplifted shield; and, with a steady and
      well-aimed thrust, laid one of his adversaries dead at his feet.
      The esteem of a prince who possesses the virtues which he
      approves, is the noblest recompense of a deserving subject; and
      the authority which Julian derived from his personal merit,
      enabled him to revive and enforce the rigor of ancient
      discipline. He punished with death or ignominy the misbehavior of
      three troops of horse, who, in a skirmish with the Surenas, had
      lost their honor and one of their standards: and he distinguished
      with _obsidional_ 62 crowns the valor of the foremost soldiers,
      who had ascended into the city of Maogamalcha.

      After the siege of Perisabor, the firmness of the emperor was
      exercised by the insolent avarice of the army, who loudly
      complained, that their services were rewarded by a trifling
      donative of one hundred pieces of silver. His just indignation
      was expressed in the grave and manly language of a Roman. “Riches
      are the object of your desires; those riches are in the hands of
      the Persians; and the spoils of this fruitful country are
      proposed as the prize of your valor and discipline. Believe me,”
      added Julian, “the Roman republic, which formerly possessed such
      immense treasures, is now reduced to want and wretchedness once
      our princes have been persuaded, by weak and interested
      ministers, to purchase with gold the tranquillity of the
      Barbarians. The revenue is exhausted; the cities are ruined; the
      provinces are dispeopled. For myself, the only inheritance that I
      have received from my royal ancestors is a soul incapable of
      fear; and as long as I am convinced that every real advantage is
      seated in the mind, I shall not blush to acknowledge an honorable
      poverty, which, in the days of ancient virtue, was considered as
      the glory of Fabricius. That glory, and that virtue, may be your
      own, if you will listen to the voice of Heaven and of your
      leader. But if you will rashly persist, if you are determined to
      renew the shameful and mischievous examples of old seditions,
      proceed. As it becomes an emperor who has filled the first rank
      among men, I am prepared to die, standing; and to despise a
      precarious life, which, every hour, may depend on an accidental
      fever. If I have been found unworthy of the command, there are
      now among you, (I speak it with pride and pleasure,) there are
      many chiefs whose merit and experience are equal to the conduct
      of the most important war. Such has been the temper of my reign,
      that I can retire, without regret, and without apprehension, to
      the obscurity of a private station” 63 The modest resolution of
      Julian was answered by the unanimous applause and cheerful
      obedience of the Romans, who declared their confidence of
      victory, while they fought under the banners of their heroic
      prince. Their courage was kindled by his frequent and familiar
      asseverations, (for such wishes were the oaths of Julian,) “So
      may I reduce the Persians under the yoke!” “Thus may I restore
      the strength and splendor of the republic!” The love of fame was
      the ardent passion of his soul: but it was not before he trampled
      on the ruins of Maogamalcha, that he allowed himself to say, “We
      have now provided some materials for the sophist of Antioch.” 64

      58 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. 13, p.
      162.]

      59 (return) [ The famous examples of Cyrus, Alexander, and
      Scipio, were acts of justice. Julian’s chastity was voluntary,
      and, in his opinion, meritorious.]

      60 (return) [ Sallust (ap. Vet. Scholiast. Juvenal. Satir. i.
      104) observes, that nihil corruptius moribus. The matrons and
      virgins of Babylon freely mingled with the men in licentious
      banquets; and as they felt the intoxication of wine and love,
      they gradually, and almost completely, threw aside the
      encumbrance of dress; ad ultimum ima corporum velamenta
      projiciunt. Q. Curtius, v. 1.]

      61 (return) [ Ex virginibus autem quæ speciosæ sunt captæ, et in
      Perside, ubi fæminarum pulchritudo excellit, nec contrectare
      aliquam votuit nec videre. Ammian. xxiv. 4. The native race of
      Persians is small and ugly; but it has been improved by the
      perpetual mixture of Circassian blood, (Herodot. l. iii. c. 97.
      Buffon, Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. p. 420.)]

      62 (return) [ Obsidionalibus coronis donati. Ammian. xxiv. 4.
      Either Julian or his historian were unskillful antiquaries. He
      should have given mural crowns. The _obsidional_ were the reward
      of a general who had delivered a besieged city, (Aulus Gellius,
      Noct. Attic. v. 6.)]

      63 (return) [ I give this speech as original and genuine.
      Ammianus might hear, could transcribe, and was incapable of
      inventing, it. I have used some slight freedoms, and conclude
      with the most forcibic sentence.]

      64 (return) [ Ammian. xxiv. 3. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 122, p.
      346.]

      The successful valor of Julian had triumphed over all the
      obstacles that opposed his march to the gates of Ctesiphon. But
      the reduction, or even the siege, of the capital of Persia, was
      still at a distance: nor can the military conduct of the emperor
      be clearly apprehended, without a knowledge of the country which
      was the theatre of his bold and skilful operations. 65 Twenty
      miles to the south of Bagdad, and on the eastern bank of the
      Tigris, the curiosity of travellers has observed some ruins of
      the palaces of Ctesiphon, which, in the time of Julian, was a
      great and populous city. The name and glory of the adjacent
      Seleucia were forever extinguished; and the only remaining
      quarter of that Greek colony had resumed, with the Assyrian
      language and manners, the primitive appellation of Coche. Coche
      was situate on the western side of the Tigris; but it was
      naturally considered as a suburb of Ctesiphon, with which we may
      suppose it to have been connected by a permanent bridge of boats.

      The united parts contribute to form the common epithet of Al
      Modain, the cities, which the Orientals have bestowed on the
      winter residence of the Sassinadees; and the whole circumference
      of the Persian capital was strongly fortified by the waters of
      the river, by lofty walls, and by impracticable morasses. Near
      the ruins of Seleucia, the camp of Julian was fixed, and secured,
      by a ditch and rampart, against the sallies of the numerous and
      enterprising garrison of Coche. In this fruitful and pleasant
      country, the Romans were plentifully supplied with water and
      forage: and several forts, which might have embarrassed the
      motions of the army, submitted, after some resistance, to the
      efforts of their valor. The fleet passed from the Euphrates into
      an artificial derivation of that river, which pours a copious and
      navigable stream into the Tigris, at a small distance _below_ the
      great city. If they had followed this royal canal, which bore the
      name of Nahar-Malcha, 66 the intermediate situation of Coche
      would have separated the fleet and army of Julian; and the rash
      attempt of steering against the current of the Tigris, and
      forcing their way through the midst of a hostile capital, must
      have been attended with the total destruction of the Roman navy.
      The prudence of the emperor foresaw the danger, and provided the
      remedy. As he had minutely studied the operations of Trajan in
      the same country, he soon recollected that his warlike
      predecessor had dug a new and navigable canal, which, leaving
      Coche on the right hand, conveyed the waters of the Nahar-Malcha
      into the river Tigris, at some distance _above_ the cities. From
      the information of the peasants, Julian ascertained the vestiges
      of this ancient work, which were almost obliterated by design or
      accident. By the indefatigable labor of the soldiers, a broad and
      deep channel was speedily prepared for the reception of the
      Euphrates. A strong dike was constructed to interrupt the
      ordinary current of the Nahar-Malcha: a flood of waters rushed
      impetuously into their new bed; and the Roman fleet, steering
      their triumphant course into the Tigris, derided the vain and
      ineffectual barriers which the Persians of Ctesiphon had erected
      to oppose their passage.

      65 (return) [ M. d’Anville, (Mém. de l’Académie des Inscriptions,
      tom. xxxviii p. 246-259) has ascertained the true position and
      distance of Babylon, Seleucia, Ctesiphon, Bagdad, &c. The Roman
      traveller, Pietro della Valle, (tom. i. lett. xvii. p. 650-780,)
      seems to be the most intelligent spectator of that famous
      province. He is a gentleman and a scholar, but intolerably vain
      and prolix.]

      66 (return) [ The Royal Canal (_Nahar-Malcha_) might be
      successively restored, altered, divided, &c., (Cellarius,
      Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 453;) and these changes may serve to
      explain the seeming contradictions of antiquity. In the time of
      Julian, it must have fallen into the Euphrates _below_
      Ctesiphon.]

      As it became necessary to transport the Roman army over the
      Tigris, another labor presented itself, of less toil, but of more
      danger, than the preceding expedition. The stream was broad and
      rapid; the ascent steep and difficult; and the intrenchments
      which had been formed on the ridge of the opposite bank, were
      lined with a numerous army of heavy cuirrasiers, dexterous
      archers, and huge elephants; who (according to the extravagant
      hyperbole of Libanius) could trample with the same ease a field
      of corn, or a legion of Romans. 67 In the presence of such an
      enemy, the construction of a bridge was impracticable; and the
      intrepid prince, who instantly seized the only possible
      expedient, concealed his design, till the moment of execution,
      from the knowledge of the Barbarians, of his own troops, and even
      of his generals themselves. Under the specious pretence of
      examining the state of the magazines, fourscore vessels 6711 were
      gradually unladen; and a select detachment, apparently destined
      for some secret expedition, was ordered to stand to their arms on
      the first signal. Julian disguised the silent anxiety of his own
      mind with smiles of confidence and joy; and amused the hostile
      nations with the spectacle of military games, which he
      insultingly celebrated under the walls of Coche. The day was
      consecrated to pleasure; but, as soon as the hour of supper was
      passed, the emperor summoned the generals to his tent, and
      acquainted them that he had fixed that night for the passage of
      the Tigris. They stood in silent and respectful astonishment;
      but, when the venerable Sallust assumed the privilege of his age
      and experience, the rest of the chiefs supported with freedom the
      weight of his prudent remonstrances. 68 Julian contented himself
      with observing, that conquest and safety depended on the attempt;
      that instead of diminishing, the number of their enemies would be
      increased, by successive reenforcements; and that a longer delay
      would neither contract the breadth of the stream, nor level the
      height of the bank. The signal was instantly given, and obeyed;
      the most impatient of the legionaries leaped into five vessels
      that lay nearest to the bank; and as they plied their oars with
      intrepid diligence, they were lost, after a few moments, in the
      darkness of the night. A flame arose on the opposite side; and
      Julian, who too clearly understood that his foremost vessels, in
      attempting to land, had been fired by the enemy, dexterously
      converted their extreme danger into a presage of victory. “Our
      fellow-soldiers,” he eagerly exclaimed, “are already masters of
      the bank; see—they make the appointed signal; let us hasten to
      emulate and assist their courage.” The united and rapid motion of
      a great fleet broke the violence of the current, and they reached
      the eastern shore of the Tigris with sufficient speed to
      extinguish the flames, and rescue their adventurous companions.
      The difficulties of a steep and lofty ascent were increased by
      the weight of armor, and the darkness of the night. A shower of
      stones, darts, and fire, was incessantly discharged on the heads
      of the assailants; who, after an arduous struggle, climbed the
      bank and stood victorious upon the rampart. As soon as they
      possessed a more equal field, Julian, who, with his light
      infantry, had led the attack, 69 darted through the ranks a
      skilful and experienced eye: his bravest soldiers, according to
      the precepts of Homer, 70 were distributed in the front and rear:
      and all the trumpets of the Imperial army sounded to battle. The
      Romans, after sending up a military shout, advanced in measured
      steps to the animating notes of martial music; launched their
      formidable javelins; and rushed forwards with drawn swords, to
      deprive the Barbarians, by a closer onset, of the advantage of
      their missile weapons. The whole engagement lasted above twelve
      hours; till the gradual retreat of the Persians was changed into
      a disorderly flight, of which the shameful example was given by
      the principal leader, and the Surenas himself. They were pursued
      to the gates of Ctesiphon; and the conquerors might have entered
      the dismayed city, 71 if their general, Victor, who was
      dangerously wounded with an arrow, had not conjured them to
      desist from a rash attempt, which must be fatal, if it were not
      successful. On _their_ side, the Romans acknowledged the loss of
      only seventy-five men; while they affirmed, that the Barbarians
      had left on the field of battle two thousand five hundred, or
      even six thousand, of their bravest soldiers. The spoil was such
      as might be expected from the riches and luxury of an Oriental
      camp; large quantities of silver and gold, splendid arms and
      trappings, and beds and tables of massy silver. 7111 The
      victorious emperor distributed, as the rewards of valor, some
      honorable gifts, civic, and mural, and naval crowns; which he,
      and perhaps he alone, esteemed more precious than the wealth of
      Asia. A solemn sacrifice was offered to the god of war, but the
      appearances of the victims threatened the most inauspicious
      events; and Julian soon discovered, by less ambiguous signs, that
      he had now reached the term of his prosperity. 72

      67 (return) [ Rien n’est beau que le vrai; a maxim which should
      be inscribed on the desk of every rhetorician.]

      6711 (return) [ This is a mistake; each vessel (according to
      Zosimus two, according to Ammianus five) had eighty men. Amm.
      xxiv. 6, with Wagner’s note. Gibbon must have read _octogenas_
      for _octogenis_. The five vessels selected for this service were
      remarkably large and strong provision transports. The strength of
      the fleet remained with Julian to carry over the army—M.]

      68 (return) [ Libanius alludes to the most powerful of the
      generals. I have ventured to name _Sallust_. Ammianus says, of
      all the leaders, quod acri metû territ acrimetu territi duces
      concordi precatû precaut fieri prohibere tentarent. * Note: It is
      evident that Gibbon has mistaken the sense of Libanius; his words
      can only apply to a commander of a detachment, not to so eminent
      a person as the Præfect of the East. St. Martin, iii. 313.—M.]

      69 (return) [ Hinc Imperator.... (says Ammianus) ipse cum levis
      armaturæ auxiliis per prima postremaque discurrens, &c. Yet
      Zosimus, his friend, does not allow him to pass the river till
      two days after the battle.]

      70 (return) [ Secundum Homericam dispositionem. A similar
      disposition is ascribed to the wise Nestor, in the fourth book of
      the Iliad; and Homer was never absent from the mind of Julian.]

      71 (return) [ Persas terrore subito miscuerunt, versisque
      agminibus totius gentis, apertas Ctesiphontis portas victor miles
      intrâsset, ni major prædarum occasio fuisset, quam cura victoriæ,
      (Sextus Rufus de Provinciis c. 28.) Their avarice might dispose
      them to hear the advice of Victor.]

      7111 (return) [ The suburbs of Ctesiphon, according to a new
      fragment of Eunapius, were so full of provisions, that the
      soldiers were in danger of suffering from excess. Mai, p. 260.
      Eunapius in Niebuhr. Nov. Byz. Coll. 68. Julian exhibited warlike
      dances and games in his camp to recreate the soldiers Ibid.—M.]

      72 (return) [ The labor of the canal, the passage of the Tigris,
      and the victory, are described by Ammianus, (xxiv. 5, 6,)
      Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 124-128, p. 347-353,) Greg.
      Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 115,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 181-183,) and
      Sextus Rufus, (de Provinciis, c. 28.)]

      On the second day after the battle, the domestic guards, the
      Jovians and Herculians, and the remaining troops, which composed
      near two thirds of the whole army, were securely wafted over the
      Tigris. 73 While the Persians beheld from the walls of Ctesiphon
      the desolation of the adjacent country, Julian cast many an
      anxious look towards the North, in full expectation, that as he
      himself had victoriously penetrated to the capital of Sapor, the
      march and junction of his lieutenants, Sebastian and Procopius,
      would be executed with the same courage and diligence. His
      expectations were disappointed by the treachery of the Armenian
      king, who permitted, and most probably directed, the desertion of
      his auxiliary troops from the camp of the Romans; 74 and by the
      dissensions of the two generals, who were incapable of forming or
      executing any plan for the public service. When the emperor had
      relinquished the hope of this important reenforcement, he
      condescended to hold a council of war, and approved, after a full
      debate, the sentiment of those generals, who dissuaded the siege
      of Ctesiphon, as a fruitless and pernicious undertaking. It is
      not easy for us to conceive, by what arts of fortification a city
      thrice besieged and taken by the predecessors of Julian could be
      rendered impregnable against an army of sixty thousand Romans,
      commanded by a brave and experienced general, and abundantly
      supplied with ships, provisions, battering engines, and military
      stores. But we may rest assured, from the love of glory, and
      contempt of danger, which formed the character of Julian, that he
      was not discouraged by any trivial or imaginary obstacles. 75 At
      the very time when he declined the siege of Ctesiphon, he
      rejected, with obstinacy and disdain, the most flattering offers
      of a negotiation of peace. Sapor, who had been so long accustomed
      to the tardy ostentation of Constantius, was surprised by the
      intrepid diligence of his successor. As far as the confines of
      India and Scythia, the satraps of the distant provinces were
      ordered to assemble their troops, and to march, without delay, to
      the assistance of their monarch. But their preparations were
      dilatory, their motions slow; and before Sapor could lead an army
      into the field, he received the melancholy intelligence of the
      devastation of Assyria, the ruin of his palaces, and the
      slaughter of his bravest troops, who defended the passage of the
      Tigris. The pride of royalty was humbled in the dust; he took his
      repasts on the ground; and the disorder of his hair expressed the
      grief and anxiety of his mind. Perhaps he would not have refused
      to purchase, with one half of his kingdom, the safety of the
      remainder; and he would have gladly subscribed himself, in a
      treaty of peace, the faithful and dependent ally of the Roman
      conqueror. Under the pretence of private business, a minister of
      rank and confidence was secretly despatched to embrace the knees
      of Hormisdas, and to request, in the language of a suppliant,
      that he might be introduced into the presence of the emperor. The
      Sassanian prince, whether he listened to the voice of pride or
      humanity, whether he consulted the sentiments of his birth, or
      the duties of his situation, was equally inclined to promote a
      salutary measure, which would terminate the calamities of Persia,
      and secure the triumph of Rome. He was astonished by the
      inflexible firmness of a hero, who remembered, most unfortunately
      for himself and for his country, that Alexander had uniformly
      rejected the propositions of Darius. But as Julian was sensible,
      that the hope of a safe and honorable peace might cool the ardor
      of his troops, he earnestly requested that Hormisdas would
      privately dismiss the minister of Sapor, and conceal this
      dangerous temptation from the knowledge of the camp. 76

      73 (return) [ The fleet and army were formed in three divisions,
      of which the first only had passed during the night.]

      74 (return) [ Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 15, p.
      246) supplies us with a national tradition, and a spurious
      letter. I have borrowed only the leading circumstance, which is
      consistent with truth, probability, and Libanius, (Orat. Parent.
      c. 131, p. 355.)]

      75 (return) [ Civitas inexpugnabilis, facinus audax et
      importunum. Ammianus, xxiv. 7. His fellow-soldier, Eutropius,
      turns aside from the difficulty, Assyriamque populatus, castra
      apud Ctesiphontem stativa aliquandiu habuit: remeansbue victor,
      &c. x. 16. Zosimus is artful or ignorant, and Socrates
      inaccurate.]

      76 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 130, p. 354, c. 139, p.
      361. Socrates, l. iii. c. 21. The ecclesiastical historian
      imputes the refusal of peace to the advice of Maximus. Such
      advice was unworthy of a philosopher; but the philosopher was
      likewise a magician, who flattered the hopes and passions of his
      master.]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part IV.


      The honor, as well as interest, of Julian, forbade him to consume
      his time under the impregnable walls of Ctesiphon and as often as
      he defied the Barbarians, who defended the city, to meet him on
      the open plain, they prudently replied, that if he desired to
      exercise his valor, he might seek the army of the Great King. He
      felt the insult, and he accepted the advice. Instead of confining
      his servile march to the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, he
      resolved to imitate the adventurous spirit of Alexander, and
      boldly to advance into the inland provinces, till he forced his
      rival to contend with him, perhaps in the plains of Arbela, for
      the empire of Asia. The magnanimity of Julian was applauded and
      betrayed, by the arts of a noble Persian, who, in the cause of
      his country, had generously submitted to act a part full of
      danger, of falsehood, and of shame. 77 With a train of faithful
      followers, he deserted to the Imperial camp; exposed, in a
      specious tale, the injuries which he had sustained; exaggerated
      the cruelty of Sapor, the discontent of the people, and the
      weakness of the monarchy; and confidently offered himself as the
      hostage and guide of the Roman march. The most rational grounds
      of suspicion were urged, without effect, by the wisdom and
      experience of Hormisdas; and the credulous Julian, receiving the
      traitor into his bosom, was persuaded to issue a hasty order,
      which, in the opinion of mankind, appeared to arraign his
      prudence, and to endanger his safety. He destroyed, in a single
      hour, the whole navy, which had been transported above five
      hundred miles, at so great an expense of toil, of treasure, and
      of blood. Twelve, or, at the most, twenty-two small vessels were
      saved, to accompany, on carriages, the march of the army, and to
      form occasional bridges for the passage of the rivers. A supply
      of twenty days’ provisions was reserved for the use of the
      soldiers; and the rest of the magazines, with a fleet of eleven
      hundred vessels, which rode at anchor in the Tigris, were
      abandoned to the flames, by the absolute command of the emperor.
      The Christian bishops, Gregory and Augustin, insult the madness
      of the Apostate, who executed, with his own hands, the sentence
      of divine justice. Their authority, of less weight, perhaps, in a
      military question, is confirmed by the cool judgment of an
      experienced soldier, who was himself spectator of the
      conflagration, and who could not disapprove the reluctant murmurs
      of the troops. 78 Yet there are not wanting some specious, and
      perhaps solid, reasons, which might justify the resolution of
      Julian. The navigation of the Euphrates never ascended above
      Babylon, nor that of the Tigris above Opis. 79 The distance of
      the last-mentioned city from the Roman camp was not very
      considerable: and Julian must soon have renounced the vain and
      impracticable attempt of forcing upwards a great fleet against
      the stream of a rapid river, 80 which in several places was
      embarrassed by natural or artificial cataracts. 81 The power of
      sails and oars was insufficient; it became necessary to tow the
      ships against the current of the river; the strength of twenty
      thousand soldiers was exhausted in this tedious and servile
      labor, and if the Romans continued to march along the banks of
      the Tigris, they could only expect to return home without
      achieving any enterprise worthy of the genius or fortune of their
      leader. If, on the contrary, it was advisable to advance into the
      inland country, the destruction of the fleet and magazines was
      the only measure which could save that valuable prize from the
      hands of the numerous and active troops which might suddenly be
      poured from the gates of Ctesiphon. Had the arms of Julian been
      victorious, we should now admire the conduct, as well as the
      courage, of a hero, who, by depriving his soldiers of the hopes
      of a retreat, left them only the alternative of death or
      conquest. 82

      77 (return) [ The arts of this new Zopyrus (Greg. Nazianzen,
      Orat. iv. p. 115, 116) may derive some credit from the testimony
      of two abbreviators, (Sextus Rufus and Victor,) and the casual
      hints of Libanius (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357) and Ammianus,
      (xxiv. 7.) The course of genuine history is interrupted by a most
      unseasonable chasm in the text of Ammianus.]

      78 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxiv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat.
      Parentalis, c. 132, 133, p. 356, 357,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 183,)
      Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 26) Gregory, (Orat. iv. p. 116,)
      and Augustin, (de Civitate Dei, l. iv. c. 29, l. v. c. 21.) Of
      these Libanius alone attempts a faint apology for his hero; who,
      according to Ammianus, pronounced his own condemnation by a tardy
      and ineffectual attempt to extinguish the flames.]

      79 (return) [ Consult Herodotus, (l. i. c. 194,) Strabo, (l. xvi.
      p. 1074,) and Tavernier, (part i. l. ii. p. 152.)]

      80 (return) [ A celeritate Tigris incipit vocari, ita appellant
      Medi sagittam. Plin. Hist. Natur. vi. 31.]

      81 (return) [ One of these dikes, which produces an artificial
      cascade or cataract, is described by Tavernier (part i. l. ii. p.
      226) and Thevenot, (part ii. l. i. p. 193.) The Persians, or
      Assyrians, labored to interrupt the navigation of the river,
      (Strabo, l. xv. p. 1075. D’Anville, l’Euphrate et le Tigre, p.
      98, 99.)]

      82 (return) [ Recollect the successful and applauded rashness of
      Agathocles and Cortez, who burnt their ships on the coast of
      Africa and Mexico.]

      The cumbersome train of artillery and wagons, which retards the
      operations of a modern army, were in a great measure unknown in
      the camps of the Romans. 83 Yet, in every age, the subsistence of
      sixty thousand men must have been one of the most important cares
      of a prudent general; and that subsistence could only be drawn
      from his own or from the enemy’s country. Had it been possible
      for Julian to maintain a bridge of communication on the Tigris,
      and to preserve the conquered places of Assyria, a desolated
      province could not afford any large or regular supplies, in a
      season of the year when the lands were covered by the inundation
      of the Euphrates, 84 and the unwholesome air was darkened with
      swarms of innumerable insects. 85 The appearance of the hostile
      country was far more inviting. The extensive region that lies
      between the River Tigris and the mountains of Media, was filled
      with villages and towns; and the fertile soil, for the most part,
      was in a very improved state of cultivation. Julian might expect,
      that a conqueror, who possessed the two forcible instruments of
      persuasion, steel and gold, would easily procure a plentiful
      subsistence from the fears or avarice of the natives. But, on the
      approach of the Romans, the rich and smiling prospect was
      instantly blasted. Wherever they moved, the inhabitants deserted
      the open villages, and took shelter in the fortified towns; the
      cattle was driven away; the grass and ripe corn were consumed
      with fire; and, as soon as the flames had subsided which
      interrupted the march of Julian, he beheld the melancholy face of
      a smoking and naked desert. This desperate but effectual method
      of defence can only be executed by the enthusiasm of a people who
      prefer their independence to their property; or by the rigor of
      an arbitrary government, which consults the public safety without
      submitting to their inclinations the liberty of choice. On the
      present occasion the zeal and obedience of the Persians seconded
      the commands of Sapor; and the emperor was soon reduced to the
      scanty stock of provisions, which continually wasted in his
      hands. Before they were entirely consumed, he might still have
      reached the wealthy and unwarlike cities of Ecbatana or Susa, by
      the effort of a rapid and well-directed march; 86 but he was
      deprived of this last resource by his ignorance of the roads, and
      by the perfidy of his guides. The Romans wandered several days in
      the country to the eastward of Bagdad; the Persian deserter, who
      had artfully led them into the snare, escaped from their
      resentment; and his followers, as soon as they were put to the
      torture, confessed the secret of the conspiracy. The visionary
      conquests of Hyrcania and India, which had so long amused, now
      tormented, the mind of Julian. Conscious that his own imprudence
      was the cause of the public distress, he anxiously balanced the
      hopes of safety or success, without obtaining a satisfactory
      answer, either from gods or men. At length, as the only
      practicable measure, he embraced the resolution of directing his
      steps towards the banks of the Tigris, with the design of saving
      the army by a hasty march to the confines of Corduene; a fertile
      and friendly province, which acknowledged the sovereignty of
      Rome. The desponding troops obeyed the signal of the retreat,
      only seventy days after they had passed the Chaboras, with the
      sanguine expectation of subverting the throne of Persia. 87

      83 (return) [ See the judicious reflections of the author of the
      Essai sur la Tactique, tom. ii. p. 287-353, and the learned
      remarks of M. Guichardt Nouveaux Mémoires Militaires, tom. i. p.
      351-382, on the baggage and subsistence of the Roman armies.]

      84 (return) [ The Tigris rises to the south, the Euphrates to the
      north, of the Armenian mountains. The former overflows in March,
      the latter in July. These circumstances are well explained in the
      Geographical Dissertation of Foster, inserted in Spelman’s
      Expedition of Cyras, vol. ii. p. 26.]

      85 (return) [ Ammianus (xxiv. 8) describes, as he had felt, the
      inconveniency of the flood, the heat, and the insects. The lands
      of Assyria, oppressed by the Turks, and ravaged by the Curds or
      Arabs, yield an increase of ten, fifteen, and twenty fold, for
      the seed which is cast into the ground by the wretched and
      unskillful husbandmen. Voyage de Niebuhr, tom. ii. p. 279, 285.]

      86 (return) [ Isidore of Charax (Mansion. Parthic. p. 5, 6, in
      Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. ii.) reckons 129 schæni from
      Seleucia, and Thevenot, (part i. l. i. ii. p. 209-245,) 128 hours
      of march from Bagdad to Ecbatana, or Hamadan. These measures
      cannot exceed an ordinary parasang, or three Roman miles.]

      87 (return) [ The march of Julian from Ctesiphon is
      circumstantially, but not clearly, described by Ammianus, (xxiv.
      7, 8,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 134, p. 357,) and Zosimus, (l.
      iii. p. 183.) The two last seem ignorant that their conqueror was
      retreating; and Libanius absurdly confines him to the banks of
      the Tigris.]

      As long as the Romans seemed to advance into the country, their
      march was observed and insulted from a distance, by several
      bodies of Persian cavalry; who, showing themselves sometimes in
      loose, and sometimes in close order, faintly skirmished with the
      advanced guards. These detachments were, however, supported by a
      much greater force; and the heads of the columns were no sooner
      pointed towards the Tigris than a cloud of dust arose on the
      plain. The Romans, who now aspired only to the permission of a
      safe and speedy retreat, endeavored to persuade themselves, that
      this formidable appearance was occasioned by a troop of wild
      asses, or perhaps by the approach of some friendly Arabs. They
      halted, pitched their tents, fortified their camp, passed the
      whole night in continual alarms; and discovered at the dawn of
      day, that they were surrounded by an army of Persians. This army,
      which might be considered only as the van of the Barbarians, was
      soon followed by the main body of cuirassiers, archers, and
      elephants, commanded by Meranes, a general of rank and
      reputation. He was accompanied by two of the king’s sons, and
      many of the principal satraps; and fame and expectation
      exaggerated the strength of the remaining powers, which slowly
      advanced under the conduct of Sapor himself. As the Romans
      continued their march, their long array, which was forced to bend
      or divide, according to the varieties of the ground, afforded
      frequent and favorable opportunities to their vigilant enemies.
      The Persians repeatedly charged with fury; they were repeatedly
      repulsed with firmness; and the action at Maronga, which almost
      deserved the name of a battle, was marked by a considerable loss
      of satraps and elephants, perhaps of equal value in the eyes of
      their monarch. These splendid advantages were not obtained
      without an adequate slaughter on the side of the Romans: several
      officers of distinction were either killed or wounded; and the
      emperor himself, who, on all occasions of danger, inspired and
      guided the valor of his troops, was obliged to expose his person,
      and exert his abilities. The weight of offensive and defensive
      arms, which still constituted the strength and safety of the
      Romans, disabled them from making any long or effectual pursuit;
      and as the horsemen of the East were trained to dart their
      javelins, and shoot their arrows, at full speed, and in every
      possible direction, 88 the cavalry of Persia was never more
      formidable than in the moment of a rapid and disorderly flight.
      But the most certain and irreparable loss of the Romans was that
      of time. The hardy veterans, accustomed to the cold climate of
      Gaul and Germany, fainted under the sultry heat of an Assyrian
      summer; their vigor was exhausted by the incessant repetition of
      march and combat; and the progress of the army was suspended by
      the precautions of a slow and dangerous retreat, in the presence
      of an active enemy. Every day, every hour, as the supply
      diminished, the value and price of subsistence increased in the
      Roman camp. 89 Julian, who always contented himself with such
      food as a hungry soldier would have disdained, distributed, for
      the use of the troops, the provisions of the Imperial household,
      and whatever could be spared, from the sumpter-horses, of the
      tribunes and generals. But this feeble relief served only to
      aggravate the sense of the public distress; and the Romans began
      to entertain the most gloomy apprehensions that, before they
      could reach the frontiers of the empire, they should all perish,
      either by famine, or by the sword of the Barbarians. 90

      88 (return) [ Chardin, the most judicious of modern travellers,
      describes (tom. ii. p. 57, 58, &c., edit. in 4to.) the education
      and dexterity of the Persian horsemen. Brissonius (de Regno
      Persico, p. 650 651, &c.,) has collected the testimonies of
      antiquity.]

      89 (return) [ In Mark Antony’s retreat, an attic chœnix sold for
      fifty drachmæ, or, in other words, a pound of flour for twelve or
      fourteen shillings barley bread was sold for its weight in
      silver. It is impossible to peruse the interesting narrative of
      Plutarch, (tom. v. p. 102-116,) without perceiving that Mark
      Antony and Julian were pursued by the same enemies, and involved
      in the same distress.]

      90 (return) [ Ammian. xxiv. 8, xxv. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 184,
      185, 186. Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 134, 135, p. 357, 358, 359.
      The sophist of Antioch appears ignorant that the troops were
      hungry.]

      While Julian struggled with the almost insuperable difficulties
      of his situation, the silent hours of the night were still
      devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes
      in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated with
      painful anxiety; nor can it be thought surprising, that the
      Genius of the empire should once more appear before him, covering
      with a funeral veil his head, and his horn of abundance, and
      slowly retiring from the Imperial tent. The monarch started from
      his couch, and stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with
      the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which
      shot athwart the sky, and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced
      that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war; 91
      the council which he summoned, of Tuscan Haruspices, 92
      unanimously pronounced that he should abstain from action; but on
      this occasion, necessity and reason were more prevalent than
      superstition; and the trumpets sounded at the break of day. The
      army marched through a hilly country; and the hills had been
      secretly occupied by the Persians. Julian led the van with the
      skill and attention of a consummate general; he was alarmed by
      the intelligence that his rear was suddenly attacked. The heat of
      the weather had tempted him to lay aside his cuirass; but he
      snatched a shield from one of his attendants, and hastened, with
      a sufficient reenforcement, to the relief of the rear-guard. A
      similar danger recalled the intrepid prince to the defence of the
      front; and, as he galloped through the columns, the centre of the
      left was attacked, and almost overpowered by the furious charge
      of the Persian cavalry and elephants. This huge body was soon
      defeated, by the well-timed evolution of the light infantry, who
      aimed their weapons, with dexterity and effect, against the backs
      of the horsemen, and the legs of the elephants. The Barbarians
      fled; and Julian, who was foremost in every danger, animated the
      pursuit with his voice and gestures. His trembling guards,
      scattered and oppressed by the disorderly throng of friends and
      enemies, reminded their fearless sovereign that he was without
      armor; and conjured him to decline the fall of the impending
      ruin. As they exclaimed, 93 a cloud of darts and arrows was
      discharged from the flying squadrons; and a javelin, after razing
      the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and fixed in the
      inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to draw the deadly
      weapon from his side; but his fingers were cut by the sharpness
      of the steel, and he fell senseless from his horse. His guards
      flew to his relief; and the wounded emperor was gently raised
      from the ground, and conveyed out of the tumult of the battle
      into an adjacent tent. The report of the melancholy event passed
      from rank to rank; but the grief of the Romans inspired them with
      invincible valor, and the desire of revenge. The bloody and
      obstinate conflict was maintained by the two armies, till they
      were separated by the total darkness of the night. The Persians
      derived some honor from the advantage which they obtained against
      the left wing, where Anatolius, master of the offices, was slain,
      and the præfect Sallust very narrowly escaped. But the event of
      the day was adverse to the Barbarians. They abandoned the field;
      their two generals, Meranes and Nohordates, 94 fifty nobles or
      satraps, and a multitude of their bravest soldiers; and the
      success of the Romans, if Julian had survived, might have been
      improved into a decisive and useful victory.

      91 (return) [ Ammian. xxv. 2. Julian had sworn in a passion,
      nunquam se Marti sacra facturum, (xxiv. 6.) Such whimsical
      quarrels were not uncommon between the gods and their insolent
      votaries; and even the prudent Augustus, after his fleet had been
      twice shipwrecked, excluded Neptune from the honors of public
      processions. See Hume’s Philosophical Reflections. Essays, vol.
      ii. p. 418.]

      92 (return) [ They still retained the monopoly of the vain but
      lucrative science, which had been invented in Hetruria; and
      professed to derive their knowledge of signs and omens from the
      ancient books of Tarquitius, a Tuscan sage.]

      93 (return) [ Clambant hinc inde _candidati_ (see the note of
      Valesius) quos terror, ut fugientium molem tanquam ruinam male
      compositi culminis declinaret. Ammian. xxv 3.]

      94 (return) [ Sapor himself declared to the Romans, that it was
      his practice to comfort the families of his deceased satraps, by
      sending them, as a present, the heads of the guards and officers
      who had not fallen by their master’s side. Libanius, de nece
      Julian. ulcis. c. xiii. p. 163.]

      The first words that Julian uttered, after his recovery from the
      fainting fit into which he had been thrown by loss of blood, were
      expressive of his martial spirit. He called for his horse and
      arms, and was impatient to rush into the battle. His remaining
      strength was exhausted by the painful effort; and the surgeons,
      who examined his wound, discovered the symptoms of approaching
      death. He employed the awful moments with the firm temper of a
      hero and a sage; the philosophers who had accompanied him in this
      fatal expedition, compared the tent of Julian with the prison of
      Socrates; and the spectators, whom duty, or friendship, or
      curiosity, had assembled round his couch, listened with
      respectful grief to the funeral oration of their dying emperor.
      95 “Friends and fellow-soldiers, the seasonable period of my
      departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheerfulness
      of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have learned from
      philosophy, how much the soul is more excellent than the body;
      and that the separation of the nobler substance should be the
      subject of joy, rather than of affliction. I have learned from
      religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety;
      96 and I accept, as a favor of the gods, the mortal stroke that
      secures me from the danger of disgracing a character, which has
      hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die without
      remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect
      on the innocence of my private life; and I can affirm with
      confidence, that the supreme authority, that emanation of the
      Divine Power, has been preserved in my hands pure and immaculate.
      Detesting the corrupt and destructive maxims of despotism, I have
      considered the happiness of the people as the end of government.
      Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, and of
      moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of Providence.
      Peace was the object of my counsels, as long as peace was
      consistent with the public welfare; but when the imperious voice
      of my country summoned me to arms, I exposed my person to the
      dangers of war, with the clear foreknowledge (which I had
      acquired from the art of divination) that I was destined to fall
      by the sword. I now offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal
      Being, who has not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a
      tyrant, by the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow
      tortures of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of
      an honorable career, a splendid and glorious departure from this
      world; and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to solicit, or
      to decline, the stroke of fate. This much I have attempted to
      say; but my strength fails me, and I feel the approach of death.
      I shall cautiously refrain from any word that may tend to
      influence your suffrages in the election of an emperor. My choice
      might be imprudent or injudicious; and if it should not be
      ratified by the consent of the army, it might be fatal to the
      person whom I should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen,
      express my hopes, that the Romans may be blessed with the
      government of a virtuous sovereign.” After this discourse, which
      Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of voice, he
      distributed, by a military testament, 97 the remains of his
      private fortune; and making some inquiry why Anatolius was not
      present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, that
      Anatolius was killed; and bewailed, with amiable inconsistency,
      the loss of his friend. At the same time he reproved the
      immoderate grief of the spectators; and conjured them not to
      disgrace, by unmanly tears, the fate of a prince, who in a few
      moments would be united with heaven, and with the stars. 98 The
      spectators were silent; and Julian entered into a metaphysical
      argument with the philosophers Priscus and Maximus, on the nature
      of the soul. The efforts which he made, of mind as well as body,
      most probably hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with
      fresh violence; his respiration was embarrassed by the swelling
      of the veins; he called for a draught of cold water, and, as soon
      as he had drank it, expired without pain, about the hour of
      midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary man, in the
      thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of one year and
      about eight months, from the death of Constantius. In his last
      moments he displayed, perhaps with some ostentation, the love of
      virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passions of his
      life. 99

      95 (return) [ The character and situation of Julian might
      countenance the suspicion that he had previously composed the
      elaborate oration, which Ammianus heard, and has transcribed. The
      version of the Abbé de la Bleterie is faithful and elegant. I
      have followed him in expressing the Platonic idea of emanations,
      which is darkly insinuated in the original.]

      96 (return) [ Herodotus (l. i. c. 31,) has displayed that
      doctrine in an agreeable tale. Yet the Jupiter, (in the 16th book
      of the Iliad,) who laments with tears of blood the death of
      Sarpedon his son, had a very imperfect notion of happiness or
      glory beyond the grave.]

      97 (return) [ The soldiers who made their verbal or nuncupatory
      testaments, upon actual service, (in procinctu,) were exempted
      from the formalities of the Roman law. See Heineccius, (Antiquit.
      Jur. Roman. tom. i. p. 504,) and Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix,
      l. xxvii.)]

      98 (return) [ This union of the human soul with the divine
      æthereal substance of the universe, is the ancient doctrine of
      Pythagoras and Plato: but it seems to exclude any personal or
      conscious immortality. See Warburton’s learned and rational
      observations. Divine Legation, vol ii. p. 199-216.]

      99 (return) [ The whole relation of the death of Julian is given
      by Ammianus, (xxv. 3,) an intelligent spectator. Libanius, who
      turns with horror from the scene, has supplied some
      circumstances, (Orat. Parental. c 136-140, p. 359-362.) The
      calumnies of Gregory, and the legends of more recent saints, may
      now be _silently_ despised. * Note: A very remarkable fragment of
      Eunapius describes, not without spirit, the struggle between the
      terror of the army on account of their perilous situation, and
      their grief for the death of Julian. “Even the vulgar felt that
      they would soon provide a general, but such a general as Julian
      they would never find, even though a god in the form of
      man—Julian, who, with a mind equal to the divinity, triumphed
      over the evil propensities of human nature,—* * who held commerce
      with immaterial beings while yet in the material body—who
      condescended to rule because a ruler was necessary to the welfare
      of mankind.” Mai, Nov. Coll. ii. 261. Eunapius in Niebuhr, 69.]

      The triumph of Christianity, and the calamities of the empire,
      may, in some measure, be ascribed to Julian himself, who had
      neglected to secure the future execution of his designs, by the
      timely and judicious nomination of an associate and successor.
      But the royal race of Constantius Chlorus was reduced to his own
      person; and if he entertained any serious thoughts of investing
      with the purple the most worthy among the Romans, he was diverted
      from his resolution by the difficulty of the choice, the jealousy
      of power, the fear of ingratitude, and the natural presumption of
      health, of youth, and of prosperity. His unexpected death left
      the empire without a master, and without an heir, in a state of
      perplexity and danger, which, in the space of fourscore years,
      had never been experienced, since the election of Diocletian. In
      a government which had almost forgotten the distinction of pure
      and noble blood, the superiority of birth was of little moment;
      the claims of official rank were accidental and precarious; and
      the candidates, who might aspire to ascend the vacant throne
      could be supported only by the consciousness of personal merit,
      or by the hopes of popular favor. But the situation of a famished
      army, encompassed on all sides by a host of Barbarians, shortened
      the moments of grief and deliberation. In this scene of terror
      and distress, the body of the deceased prince, according to his
      own directions, was decently embalmed; and, at the dawn of day,
      the generals convened a military senate, at which the commanders
      of the legions, and the officers both of cavalry and infantry,
      were invited to assist. Three or four hours of the night had not
      passed away without some secret cabals; and when the election of
      an emperor was proposed, the spirit of faction began to agitate
      the assembly. Victor and Arinthæus collected the remains of the
      court of Constantius; the friends of Julian attached themselves
      to the Gallic chiefs, Dagalaiphus and Nevitta; and the most fatal
      consequences might be apprehended from the discord of two
      factions, so opposite in their character and interest, in their
      maxims of government, and perhaps in their religious principles.
      The superior virtues of Sallust could alone reconcile their
      divisions, and unite their suffrages; and the venerable præfect
      would immediately have been declared the successor of Julian, if
      he himself, with sincere and modest firmness, had not alleged his
      age and infirmities, so unequal to the weight of the diadem. The
      generals, who were surprised and perplexed by his refusal, showed
      some disposition to adopt the salutary advice of an inferior
      officer, 100 that they should act as they would have acted in the
      absence of the emperor; that they should exert their abilities to
      extricate the army from the present distress; and, if they were
      fortunate enough to reach the confines of Mesopotamia, they
      should proceed with united and deliberate counsels in the
      election of a lawful sovereign. While they debated, a few voices
      saluted Jovian, who was no more than _first_ 101 of the
      domestics, with the names of Emperor and Augustus. The tumultuary
      acclamation 10111 was instantly repeated by the guards who
      surrounded the tent, and passed, in a few minutes, to the
      extremities of the line. The new prince, astonished with his own
      fortune was hastily invested with the Imperial ornaments, and
      received an oath of fidelity from the generals, whose favor and
      protection he so lately solicited. The strongest recommendation
      of Jovian was the merit of his father, Count Varronian, who
      enjoyed, in honorable retirement, the fruit of his long services.
      In the obscure freedom of a private station, the son indulged his
      taste for wine and women; yet he supported, with credit, the
      character of a Christian 102 and a soldier. Without being
      conspicuous for any of the ambitious qualifications which excite
      the admiration and envy of mankind, the comely person of Jovian,
      his cheerful temper, and familiar wit, had gained the affection
      of his fellow-soldiers; and the generals of both parties
      acquiesced in a popular election, which had not been conducted by
      the arts of their enemies. The pride of this unexpected elevation
      was moderated by the just apprehension, that the same day might
      terminate the life and reign of the new emperor. The pressing
      voice of necessity was obeyed without delay; and the first orders
      issued by Jovian, a few hours after his predecessor had expired,
      were to prosecute a march, which could alone extricate the Romans
      from their actual distress. 103

      100 (return) [ Honoratior aliquis miles; perhaps Ammianus
      himself. The modest and judicious historian describes the scene
      of the election, at which he was undoubtedly present, (xxv. 5.)]

      101 (return) [ The _primus_ or _primicerius_ enjoyed the dignity
      of a senator, and though only a tribune, he ranked with the
      military dukes. Cod. Theodosian. l. vi. tit. xxiv. These
      privileges are perhaps more recent than the time of Jovian.]

      10111 (return) [ The soldiers supposed that the acclamations
      proclaimed the name of Julian, restored, as they fondly thought,
      to health, not that of Jovian. loc.—M.]

      102 (return) [ The ecclesiastical historians, Socrates, (l. iii.
      c. 22,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 3,) and Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 1,)
      ascribe to Jovian the merit of a confessor under the preceding
      reign; and piously suppose that he refused the purple, till the
      whole army unanimously exclaimed that they were Christians.
      Ammianus, calmly pursuing his narrative, overthrows the legend by
      a single sentence. Hostiis pro Joviano extisque inspectis,
      pronuntiatum est, &c., xxv. 6.]

      103 (return) [ Ammianus (xxv. 10) has drawn from the life an
      impartial portrait of Jovian; to which the younger Victor has
      added some remarkable strokes. The Abbé de la Bleterie (Histoire
      de Jovien, tom. i. p. 1-238) has composed an elaborate history of
      his short reign; a work remarkably distinguished by elegance of
      style, critical disquisition, and religious prejudice.]




      Chapter XXIV: The Retreat And Death Of Julian.—Part V.


      The esteem of an enemy is most sincerely expressed by his fears;
      and the degree of fear may be accurately measured by the joy with
      which he celebrates his deliverance. The welcome news of the
      death of Julian, which a deserter revealed to the camp of Sapor,
      inspired the desponding monarch with a sudden confidence of
      victory. He immediately detached the royal cavalry, perhaps the
      ten thousand _Immortals_, 104 to second and support the pursuit;
      and discharged the whole weight of his united forces on the
      rear-guard of the Romans. The rear-guard was thrown into
      disorder; the renowned legions, which derived their titles from
      Diocletian, and his warlike colleague, were broke and trampled
      down by the elephants; and three tribunes lost their lives in
      attempting to stop the flight of their soldiers. The battle was
      at length restored by the persevering valor of the Romans; the
      Persians were repulsed with a great slaughter of men and
      elephants; and the army, after marching and fighting a long
      summer’s day, arrived, in the evening, at Samara, on the banks of
      the Tigris, about one hundred miles above Ctesiphon. 105 On the
      ensuing day, the Barbarians, instead of harassing the march,
      attacked the camp, of Jovian; which had been seated in a deep and
      sequestered valley. From the hills, the archers of Persia
      insulted and annoyed the wearied legionaries; and a body of
      cavalry, which had penetrated with desperate courage through the
      Prætorian gate, was cut in pieces, after a doubtful conflict,
      near the Imperial tent. In the succeeding night, the camp of
      Carche was protected by the lofty dikes of the river; and the
      Roman army, though incessantly exposed to the vexatious pursuit
      of the Saracens, pitched their tents near the city of Dura, 106
      four days after the death of Julian. The Tigris was still on
      their left; their hopes and provisions were almost consumed; and
      the impatient soldiers, who had fondly persuaded themselves that
      the frontiers of the empire were not far distant, requested their
      new sovereign, that they might be permitted to hazard the passage
      of the river. With the assistance of his wisest officers, Jovian
      endeavored to check their rashness; by representing, that if they
      possessed sufficient skill and vigor to stem the torrent of a
      deep and rapid stream, they would only deliver themselves naked
      and defenceless to the Barbarians, who had occupied the opposite
      banks, Yielding at length to their clamorous importunities, he
      consented, with reluctance, that five hundred Gauls and Germans,
      accustomed from their infancy to the waters of the Rhine and
      Danube, should attempt the bold adventure, which might serve
      either as an encouragement, or as a warning, for the rest of the
      army. In the silence of the night, they swam the Tigris,
      surprised an unguarded post of the enemy, and displayed at the
      dawn of day the signal of their resolution and fortune. The
      success of this trial disposed the emperor to listen to the
      promises of his architects, who propose to construct a floating
      bridge of the inflated skins of sheep, oxen, and goats, covered
      with a floor of earth and fascines. 107 Two important days were
      spent in the ineffectual labor; and the Romans, who already
      endured the miseries of famine, cast a look of despair on the
      Tigris, and upon the Barbarians; whose numbers and obstinacy
      increased with the distress of the Imperial army. 108

      104 (return) [ Regius equitatus. It appears, from Irocopius, that
      the Immortals, so famous under Cyrus and his successors, were
      revived, if we may use that improper word, by the Sassanides.
      Brisson de Regno Persico, p. 268, &c.]

      105 (return) [ The obscure villages of the inland country are
      irrecoverably lost; nor can we name the field of battle where
      Julian fell: but M. D’Anville has demonstrated the precise
      situation of Sumere, Carche, and Dura, along the banks of the
      Tigris, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. ii. p. 248 L’Euphrate et le
      Tigre, p. 95, 97.) In the ninth century, Sumere, or Samara,
      became, with a slight change of name, the royal residence of the
      khalifs of the house of Abbas. * Note: Sormanray, called by the
      Arabs Samira, where D’Anville placed Samara, is too much to the
      south; and is a modern town built by Caliph Morasen.
      Serra-man-rai means, in Arabic, it rejoices every one who sees
      it. St. Martin, iii. 133.—M.]

      106 (return) [ Dura was a fortified place in the wars of
      Antiochus against the rebels of Media and Persia, (Polybius, l.
      v. c. 48, 52, p. 548, 552 edit. Casaubon, in 8vo.)]

      107 (return) [ A similar expedient was proposed to the leaders of
      the ten thousand, and wisely rejected. Xenophon, Anabasis, l.
      iii. p. 255, 256, 257. It appears, from our modern travellers,
      that rafts floating on bladders perform the trade and navigation
      of the Tigris.]

      108 (return) [ The first military acts of the reign of Jovian are
      related by Ammianus, (xxv. 6,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 146,
      p. 364,) and Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 189, 190, 191.) Though we may
      distrust the fairness of Libanius, the ocular testimony of
      Eutropius (uno a Persis atque altero prœlio victus, x. 17) must
      incline us to suspect that Ammianus had been too jealous of the
      honor of the Roman arms.]

      In this hopeless condition, the fainting spirits of the Romans
      were revived by the sound of peace. The transient presumption of
      Sapor had vanished: he observed, with serious concern, that, in
      the repetition of doubtful combats, he had lost his most faithful
      and intrepid nobles, his bravest troops, and the greatest part of
      his train of elephants: and the experienced monarch feared to
      provoke the resistance of despair, the vicissitudes of fortune,
      and the unexhausted powers of the Roman empire; which might soon
      advance to elieve, or to revenge, the successor of Julian. The
      Surenas himself, accompanied by another satrap, appeared in the
      camp of Jovian; 109 and declared, that the clemency of his
      sovereign was not averse to signify the conditions on which he
      would consent to spare and to dismiss the Cæsar with the relics
      of his captive army. 10911 The hopes of safety subdued the
      firmness of the Romans; the emperor was compelled, by the advice
      of his council, and the cries of his soldiers, to embrace the
      offer of peace; 10912 and the præfect Sallust was immediately
      sent, with the general Arinthæus, to understand the pleasure of
      the Great King. The crafty Persian delayed, under various
      pretenses, the conclusion of the agreement; started difficulties,
      required explanations, suggested expedients, receded from his
      concessions, increased his demands, and wasted four days in the
      arts of negotiation, till he had consumed the stock of provisions
      which yet remained in the camp of the Romans. Had Jovian been
      capable of executing a bold and prudent measure, he would have
      continued his march, with unremitting diligence; the progress of
      the treaty would have suspended the attacks of the Barbarians;
      and, before the expiration of the fourth day, he might have
      safely reached the fruitful province of Corduene, at the distance
      only of one hundred miles. 110 The irresolute emperor, instead of
      breaking through the toils of the enemy, expected his fate with
      patient resignation; and accepted the humiliating conditions of
      peace, which it was no longer in his power to refuse. The five
      provinces beyond the Tigris, which had been ceded by the
      grandfather of Sapor, were restored to the Persian monarchy. He
      acquired, by a single article, the impregnable city of Nisibis;
      which had sustained, in three successive sieges, the effort of
      his arms. Singara, and the castle of the Moors, one of the
      strongest places of Mesopotamia, were likewise dismembered from
      the empire. It was considered as an indulgence, that the
      inhabitants of those fortresses were permitted to retire with
      their effects; but the conqueror rigorously insisted, that the
      Romans should forever abandon the king and kingdom of Armenia.
      11011 A peace, or rather a long truce, of thirty years, was
      stipulated between the hostile nations; the faith of the treaty
      was ratified by solemn oaths and religious ceremonies; and
      hostages of distinguished rank were reciprocally delivered to
      secure the performance of the conditions. 111

      109 (return) [ Sextus Rufus (de Provinciis, c. 29) embraces a
      poor subterfuge of national vanity. Tanta reverentia nominis
      Romani fuit, ut a Persis _primus_ de pace sermo haberetur. ——He
      is called Junius by John Malala; the same, M. St. Martin
      conjectures, with a satrap of Gordyene named Jovianus, or
      Jovinianus; mentioned in Ammianus Marcellinus, xviii. 6.—M.]

      10911 (return) [ The Persian historians couch the message of
      Shah-pour in these Oriental terms: “I have reassembled my
      numerous army. I am resolved to revenge my subjects, who have
      been plundered, made captives, and slain. It is for this that I
      have bared my arm, and girded my loins. If you consent to pay the
      price of the blood which has been shed, to deliver up the booty
      which has been plundered, and to restore the city of Nisibis,
      which is in Irak, and belongs to our empire, though now in your
      possession, I will sheathe the sword of war; but should you
      refuse these terms, the hoofs of my horse, which are hard as
      steel, shall efface the name of the Romans from the earth; and my
      glorious cimeter, that destroys like fire, shall exterminate the
      people of your empire.” These authorities do not mention the
      death of Julian. Malcolm’s Persia, i. 87.—M.]

      10912 (return) [ The Paschal chronicle, not, as M. St. Martin
      says, supported by John Malala, places the mission of this
      ambassador before the death of Julian. The king of Persia was
      then in Persarmenia, ignorant of the death of Julian; he only
      arrived at the army subsequent to that event. St. Martin adopts
      this view, and finds or extorts support for it, from Libanius and
      Ammianus, iii. 158.—M.]

      110 (return) [ It is presumptuous to controvert the opinion of
      Ammianus, a soldier and a spectator. Yet it is difficult to
      understand _how_ the mountains of Corduene could extend over the
      plains of Assyria, as low as the conflux of the Tigris and the
      great Zab; or _how_ an army of sixty thousand men could march one
      hundred miles in four days. Note: * Yet this appears to be the
      case (in modern maps: ) the march is the difficulty.—M.]

      11011 (return) [ Sapor availed himself, a few years after, of the
      dissolution of the alliance between the Romans and the Armenians.
      See St. M. iii. 163.—M.]

      111 (return) [ The treaty of Dura is recorded with grief or
      indignation by Ammianus, (xxv. 7,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c.
      142, p. 364,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 190, 191,) Gregory Nazianzen,
      (Orat. iv. p. 117, 118, who imputes the distress to Julian, the
      deliverance to Jovian,) and Eutropius, (x. 17.) The
      last-mentioned writer, who was present in military station,
      styles this peace necessarium quidem sed ignoblem.]

      The sophist of Antioch, who saw with indignation the sceptre of
      his hero in the feeble hand of a Christian successor, professes
      to admire the moderation of Sapor, in contenting himself with so
      small a portion of the Roman empire. If he had stretched as far
      as the Euphrates the claims of his ambition, he might have been
      secure, says Libanius, of not meeting with a refusal. If he had
      fixed, as the boundary of Persia, the Orontes, the Cydnus, the
      Sangarius, or even the Thracian Bosphorus, flatterers would not
      have been wanting in the court of Jovian to convince the timid
      monarch, that his remaining provinces would still afford the most
      ample gratifications of power and luxury. 112 Without adopting in
      its full force this malicious insinuation, we must acknowledge,
      that the conclusion of so ignominious a treaty was facilitated by
      the private ambition of Jovian. The obscure domestic, exalted to
      the throne by fortune, rather than by merit, was impatient to
      escape from the hands of the Persians, that he might prevent the
      designs of Procopius, who commanded the army of Mesopotamia, and
      establish his doubtful reign over the legions and provinces which
      were still ignorant of the hasty and tumultuous choice of the
      camp beyond the Tigris. 113 In the neighborhood of the same
      river, at no very considerable distance from the fatal station of
      Dura, 114 the ten thousand Greeks, without generals, or guides,
      or provisions, were abandoned, above twelve hundred miles from
      their native country, to the resentment of a victorious monarch.
      The difference of _their_ conduct and success depended much more
      on their character than on their situation. Instead of tamely
      resigning themselves to the secret deliberations and private
      views of a single person, the united councils of the Greeks were
      inspired by the generous enthusiasm of a popular assembly; where
      the mind of each citizen is filled with the love of glory, the
      pride of freedom, and the contempt of death. Conscious of their
      superiority over the Barbarians in arms and discipline, they
      disdained to yield, they refused to capitulate: every obstacle
      was surmounted by their patience, courage, and military skill;
      and the memorable retreat of the ten thousand exposed and
      insulted the weakness of the Persian monarchy. 115

      112 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 143, p. 364, 365.]

      113 (return) [ Conditionibus..... dispendiosis Romanæ reipublicæ
      impositis.... quibus cupidior regni quam gloriæ Jovianus, imperio
      rudis, adquievit. Sextus Rufus de Provinciis, c. 29. La Bleterie
      has expressed, in a long, direct oration, these specious
      considerations of public and private interest, (Hist. de Jovien,
      tom. i. p. 39, &c.)]

      114 (return) [ The generals were murdered on the bauks of the
      Zabatus, (Ana basis, l. ii. p. 156, l. iii. p. 226,) or great
      Zab, a river of Assyria, 400 feet broad, which falls into the
      Tigris fourteen hours below Mosul. The error of the Greeks
      bestowed on the greater and lesser Zab the names of the _Wolf_,
      (Lycus,) and the _Goat_, (Capros.) They created these animals to
      attend the _Tiger_ of the East.]

      115 (return) [ The _Cyropædia_ is vague and languid; the
      _Anabasis_ circumstance and animated. Such is the eternal
      difference between fiction and truth.]

      As the price of his disgraceful concessions, the emperor might
      perhaps have stipulated, that the camp of the hungry Romans
      should be plentifully supplied; 116 and that they should be
      permitted to pass the Tigris on the bridge which was constructed
      by the hands of the Persians. But, if Jovian presumed to solicit
      those equitable terms, they were sternly refused by the haughty
      tyrant of the East, whose clemency had pardoned the invaders of
      his country. The Saracens sometimes intercepted the stragglers of
      the march; but the generals and troops of Sapor respected the
      cessation of arms; and Jovian was suffered to explore the most
      convenient place for the passage of the river. The small vessels,
      which had been saved from the conflagration of the fleet,
      performed the most essential service. They first conveyed the
      emperor and his favorites; and afterwards transported, in many
      successive voyages, a great part of the army. But, as every man
      was anxious for his personal safety, and apprehensive of being
      left on the hostile shore, the soldiers, who were too impatient
      to wait the slow returns of the boats, boldly ventured themselves
      on light hurdles, or inflated skins; and, drawing after them
      their horses, attempted, with various success, to swim across the
      river. Many of these daring adventurers were swallowed by the
      waves; many others, who were carried along by the violence of the
      stream, fell an easy prey to the avarice or cruelty of the wild
      Arabs: and the loss which the army sustained in the passage of
      the Tigris, was not inferior to the carnage of a day of battle.
      As soon as the Romans were landed on the western bank, they were
      delivered from the hostile pursuit of the Barbarians; but, in a
      laborious march of two hundred miles over the plains of
      Mesopotamia, they endured the last extremities of thirst and
      hunger. They were obliged to traverse the sandy desert, which, in
      the extent of seventy miles, did not afford a single blade of
      sweet grass, nor a single spring of fresh water; and the rest of
      the inhospitable waste was untrod by the footsteps either of
      friends or enemies. Whenever a small measure of flour could be
      discovered in the camp, twenty pounds weight were greedily
      purchased with ten pieces of gold: 117 the beasts of burden were
      slaughtered and devoured; and the desert was strewed with the
      arms and baggage of the Roman soldiers, whose tattered garments
      and meagre countenances displayed their past sufferings and
      actual misery. A small convoy of provisions advanced to meet the
      army as far as the castle of Ur; and the supply was the more
      grateful, since it declared the fidelity of Sebastian and
      Procopius. At Thilsaphata, 118 the emperor most graciously
      received the generals of Mesopotamia; and the remains of a once
      flourishing army at length reposed themselves under the walls of
      Nisibis. The messengers of Jovian had already proclaimed, in the
      language of flattery, his election, his treaty, and his return;
      and the new prince had taken the most effectual measures to
      secure the allegiance of the armies and provinces of Europe, by
      placing the military command in the hands of those officers, who,
      from motives of interest, or inclination, would firmly support
      the cause of their benefactor. 119

      116 (return) [ According to Rufinus, an immediate supply of
      provisions was stipulated by the treaty, and Theodoret affirms,
      that the obligation was faithfully discharged by the Persians.
      Such a fact is probable but undoubtedly false. See Tillemont,
      Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 702.]

      117 (return) [ We may recollect some lines of Lucan, (Pharsal.
      iv. 95,) who describes a similar distress of Cæsar’s army in
      Spain:— ——Sæva fames aderat—Miles eget: toto censu non prodigus
      emit Exiguam Cererem. Proh lucri pallida tabes! Non deest prolato
      jejunus venditor auro. See Guichardt (Nouveaux Mémoires
      Militaires, tom. i. p. 370-382.) His analysis of the two
      campaigns in Spain and Africa is the noblest monument that has
      ever been raised to the fame of Cæsar.]

      118 (return) [ M. d’Anville (see his Maps, and l’Euphrate et le
      Tigre, p. 92, 93) traces their march, and assigns the true
      position of Hatra, Ur, and Thilsaphata, which Ammianus has
      mentioned. ——He does not complain of the Samiel, the deadly hot
      wind, which Thevenot (Voyages, part ii. l. i. p. 192) so much
      dreaded. ——Hatra, now Kadhr. Ur, Kasr or Skervidgi. Thilsaphata
      is unknown—M.]

      119 (return) [ The retreat of Jovian is described by Ammianus,
      (xxv. 9,) Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 143, p. 365,) and Zosimus,
      (l. iii. p. 194.)]

      The friends of Julian had confidently announced the success of
      his expedition. They entertained a fond persuasion that the
      temples of the gods would be enriched with the spoils of the
      East; that Persia would be reduced to the humble state of a
      tributary province, governed by the laws and magistrates of Rome;
      that the Barbarians would adopt the dress, and manners, and
      language of their conquerors; and that the youth of Ecbatana and
      Susa would study the art of rhetoric under Grecian masters. 120
      The progress of the arms of Julian interrupted his communication
      with the empire; and, from the moment that he passed the Tigris,
      his affectionate subjects were ignorant of the fate and fortunes
      of their prince. Their contemplation of fancied triumphs was
      disturbed by the melancholy rumor of his death; and they
      persisted to doubt, after they could no longer deny, the truth of
      that fatal event. 121 The messengers of Jovian promulgated the
      specious tale of a prudent and necessary peace; the voice of
      fame, louder and more sincere, revealed the disgrace of the
      emperor, and the conditions of the ignominious treaty. The minds
      of the people were filled with astonishment and grief, with
      indignation and terror, when they were informed, that the
      unworthy successor of Julian relinquished the five provinces
      which had been acquired by the victory of Galerius; and that he
      shamefully surrendered to the Barbarians the important city of
      Nisibis, the firmest bulwark of the provinces of the East. 122
      The deep and dangerous question, how far the public faith should
      be observed, when it becomes incompatible with the public safety,
      was freely agitated in popular conversation; and some hopes were
      entertained that the emperor would redeem his pusillanimous
      behavior by a splendid act of patriotic perfidy. The inflexible
      spirit of the Roman senate had always disclaimed the unequal
      conditions which were extorted from the distress of their captive
      armies; and, if it were necessary to satisfy the national honor,
      by delivering the guilty general into the hands of the
      Barbarians, the greatest part of the subjects of Jovian would
      have cheerfully acquiesced in the precedent of ancient times. 123

      120 (return) [ Libanius, (Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 366.) Such
      were the natural hopes and wishes of a rhetorician.]

      121 (return) [ The people of Carrhæ, a city devoted to Paganism,
      buried the inauspicious messenger under a pile of stones,
      (Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196.) Libanius, when he received the fatal
      intelligence, cast his eye on his sword; but he recollected that
      Plato had condemned suicide, and that he must live to compose the
      Panegyric of Julian, (Libanius de Vita sua, tom. ii. p. 45, 46.)]

      122 (return) [ Ammianus and Eutropius may be admitted as fair and
      credible witnesses of the public language and opinions. The
      people of Antioch reviled an ignominious peace, which exposed
      them to the Persians, on a naked and defenceless frontier,
      (Excerpt. Valesiana, p. 845, ex Johanne Antiocheno.)]

      123 (return) [ The Abbé de la Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i.
      p. 212-227.) though a severe casuist, has pronounced that Jovian
      was not bound to execute his promise; since he _could not_
      dismember the empire, nor alienate, without their consent, the
      allegiance of his people. I have never found much delight or
      instruction in such political metaphysics.]

      But the emperor, whatever might be the limits of his
      constitutional authority, was the absolute master of the laws and
      arms of the state; and the same motives which had forced him to
      subscribe, now pressed him to execute, the treaty of peace. He
      was impatient to secure an empire at the expense of a few
      provinces; and the respectable names of religion and honor
      concealed the personal fears and ambition of Jovian.
      Notwithstanding the dutiful solicitations of the inhabitants,
      decency, as well as prudence, forbade the emperor to lodge in the
      palace of Nisibis; but the next morning after his arrival,
      Bineses, the ambassador of Persia, entered the place, displayed
      from the citadel the standard of the Great King, and proclaimed,
      in his name, the cruel alternative of exile or servitude. The
      principal citizens of Nisibis, who, till that fatal moment, had
      confided in the protection of their sovereign, threw themselves
      at his feet. They conjured him not to abandon, or, at least, not
      to deliver, a faithful colony to the rage of a Barbarian tyrant,
      exasperated by the three successive defeats which he had
      experienced under the walls of Nisibis. They still possessed arms
      and courage to repel the invaders of their country: they
      requested only the permission of using them in their own defence;
      and, as soon as they had asserted their independence, they should
      implore the favor of being again admitted into the ranks of his
      subjects. Their arguments, their eloquence, their tears, were
      ineffectual. Jovian alleged, with some confusion, the sanctity of
      oaths; and, as the reluctance with which he accepted the present
      of a crown of gold, convinced the citizens of their hopeless
      condition, the advocate Sylvanus was provoked to exclaim, “O
      emperor! may you thus be crowned by all the cities of your
      dominions!” Jovian, who in a few weeks had assumed the habits of
      a prince, 124 was displeased with freedom, and offended with
      truth: and as he reasonably supposed, that the discontent of the
      people might incline them to submit to the Persian government, he
      published an edict, under pain of death, that they should leave
      the city within the term of three days. Ammianus has delineated
      in lively colors the scene of universal despair, which he seems
      to have viewed with an eye of compassion. 125 The martial youth
      deserted, with indignant grief, the walls which they had so
      gloriously defended: the disconsolate mourner dropped a last tear
      over the tomb of a son or husband, which must soon be profaned by
      the rude hand of a Barbarian master; and the aged citizen kissed
      the threshold, and clung to the doors, of the house where he had
      passed the cheerful and careless hours of infancy. The highways
      were crowded with a trembling multitude: the distinctions of
      rank, and sex, and age, were lost in the general calamity. Every
      one strove to bear away some fragment from the wreck of his
      fortunes; and as they could not command the immediate service of
      an adequate number of horses or wagons, they were obliged to
      leave behind them the greatest part of their valuable effects.
      The savage insensibility of Jovian appears to have aggravated the
      hardships of these unhappy fugitives. They were seated, however,
      in a new-built quarter of Amida; and that rising city, with the
      reenforcement of a very considerable colony, soon recovered its
      former splendor, and became the capital of Mesopotamia. 126
      Similar orders were despatched by the emperor for the evacuation
      of Singara and the castle of the Moors; and for the restitution
      of the five provinces beyond the Tigris. Sapor enjoyed the glory
      and the fruits of his victory; and this ignominious peace has
      justly been considered as a memorable æra in the decline and fall
      of the Roman empire. The predecessors of Jovian had sometimes
      relinquished the dominion of distant and unprofitable provinces;
      but, since the foundation of the city, the genius of Rome, the
      god Terminus, who guarded the boundaries of the republic, had
      never retired before the sword of a victorious enemy. 127

      124 (return) [ At Nisibis he performed a _royal_ act. A brave
      officer, his namesake, who had been thought worthy of the purple,
      was dragged from supper, thrown into a well, and stoned to death
      without any form of trial or evidence of guilt. Anomian. xxv. 8.]

      125 (return) [ See xxv. 9, and Zosimus, l. iii. p. 194, 195.]

      126 (return) [ Chron. Paschal. p. 300. The ecclesiastical Notitiæ
      may be consulted.]

      127 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iii. p. 192, 193. Sextus Rufus de
      Provinciis, c. 29. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. iv. c. 29. This
      general position must be applied and interpreted with some
      caution.]

      After Jovian had performed those engagements which the voice of
      his people might have tempted him to violate, he hastened away
      from the scene of his disgrace, and proceeded with his whole
      court to enjoy the luxury of Antioch. 128 Without consulting the
      dictates of religious zeal, he was prompted, by humanity and
      gratitude, to bestow the last honors on the remains of his
      deceased sovereign: 129 and Procopius, who sincerely bewailed the
      loss of his kinsman, was removed from the command of the army,
      under the decent pretence of conducting the funeral. The corpse
      of Julian was transported from Nisibis to Tarsus, in a slow march
      of fifteen days; and, as it passed through the cities of the
      East, was saluted by the hostile factions, with mournful
      lamentations and clamorous insults. The Pagans already placed
      their beloved hero in the rank of those gods whose worship he had
      restored; while the invectives of the Christians pursued the soul
      of the Apostate to hell, and his body to the grave. 130 One party
      lamented the approaching ruin of their altars; the other
      celebrated the marvellous deliverance of their church. The
      Christians applauded, in lofty and ambiguous strains, the stroke
      of divine vengeance, which had been so long suspended over the
      guilty head of Julian. They acknowledge, that the death of the
      tyrant, at the instant he expired beyond the Tigris, was
      _revealed_ to the saints of Egypt, Syria, and Cappadocia; 131 and
      instead of suffering him to fall by the Persian darts, their
      indiscretion ascribed the heroic deed to the obscure hand of some
      mortal or immortal champion of the faith. 132 Such imprudent
      declarations were eagerly adopted by the malice, or credulity, of
      their adversaries; 133 who darkly insinuated, or confidently
      asserted, that the governors of the church had instigated and
      directed the fanaticism of a domestic assassin. 134 Above sixteen
      years after the death of Julian, the charge was solemnly and
      vehemently urged, in a public oration, addressed by Libanius to
      the emperor Theodosius. His suspicions are unsupported by fact or
      argument; and we can only esteem the generous zeal of the sophist
      of Antioch for the cold and neglected ashes of his friend. 135

      128 (return) [ Ammianus, xxv. 9. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 196. He
      might be edax, vino Venerique indulgens. But I agree with La
      Bleterie (tom. i. p. 148-154) in rejecting the foolish report of
      a Bacchanalian riot (ap. Suidam) celebrated at Antioch, by the
      emperor, his _wife_, and a troop of concubines.]

      129 (return) [ The Abbé de la Bleterie (tom. i. p. 156-209)
      handsomely exposes the brutal bigotry of Baronius, who would have
      thrown Julian to the dogs, ne cespititia quidem sepultura
      dignus.]

      130 (return) [ Compare the sophist and the saint, (Libanius,
      Monod. tom. ii. p. 251, and Orat. Parent. c. 145, p. 367, c. 156,
      p. 377, with Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. iv. p. 125-132.) The
      Christian orator faintly mutters some exhortations to modesty and
      forgiveness; but he is well satisfied, that the real sufferings
      of Julian will far exceed the fabulous torments of Ixion or
      Tantalus.]

      131 (return) [ Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 549)
      has collected these visions. Some saint or angel was observed to
      be absent in the night, on a secret expedition, &c.]

      132 (return) [ Sozomen (l. vi. 2) applauds the Greek doctrine of
      _tyrannicide;_ but the whole passage, which a Jesuit might have
      translated, is prudently suppressed by the president Cousin.]

      133 (return) [ Immediately after the death of Julian, an
      uncertain rumor was scattered, telo cecidisse Romano. It was
      carried, by some deserters to the Persian camp; and the Romans
      were reproached as the assassins of the emperor by Sapor and his
      subjects, (Ammian. xxv. 6. Libanius de ulciscenda Juliani nece,
      c. xiii. p. 162, 163.) It was urged, as a decisive proof, that no
      Persian had appeared to claim the promised reward, (Liban. Orat.
      Parent. c. 141, p. 363.) But the flying horseman, who darted the
      fatal javelin, might be ignorant of its effect; or he might be
      slain in the same action. Ammianus neither feels nor inspires a
      suspicion.]

      134 (return) [ This dark and ambiguous expression may point to
      Athanasius, the first, without a rival, of the Christian clergy,
      (Libanius de ulcis. Jul. nece, c. 5, p. 149. La Bleterie, Hist.
      de Jovien, tom. i. p. 179.)]

      135 (return) [ The orator (Fabricius, Bibliot. Græc. tom. vii. p.
      145-179) scatters suspicions, demands an inquiry, and insinuates,
      that proofs might still be obtained. He ascribes the success of
      the Huns to the criminal neglect of revenging Julian’s death.]

      It was an ancient custom in the funerals, as well as in the
      triumphs, of the Romans, that the voice of praise should be
      corrected by that of satire and ridicule; and that, in the midst
      of the splendid pageants, which displayed the glory of the living
      or of the dead, their imperfections should not be concealed from
      the eyes of the world. 136 This custom was practised in the
      funeral of Julian. The comedians, who resented his contempt and
      aversion for the theatre, exhibited, with the applause of a
      Christian audience, the lively and exaggerated representation of
      the faults and follies of the deceased emperor. His various
      character and singular manners afforded an ample scope for
      pleasantry and ridicule. 137 In the exercise of his uncommon
      talents, he often descended below the majesty of his rank.
      Alexander was transformed into Diogenes; the philosopher was
      degraded into a priest. The purity of his virtue was sullied by
      excessive vanity; his superstition disturbed the peace, and
      endangered the safety, of a mighty empire; and his irregular
      sallies were the less entitled to indulgence, as they appeared to
      be the laborious efforts of art, or even of affectation. The
      remains of Julian were interred at Tarsus in Cilicia; but his
      stately tomb, which arose in that city, on the banks of the cold
      and limpid Cydnus, 138 was displeasing to the faithful friends,
      who loved and revered the memory of that extraordinary man. The
      philosopher expressed a very reasonable wish, that the disciple
      of Plato might have reposed amidst the groves of the academy; 139
      while the soldier exclaimed, in bolder accents, that the ashes of
      Julian should have been mingled with those of Cæsar, in the field
      of Mars, and among the ancient monuments of Roman virtue. 140 The
      history of princes does not very frequently renew the examples of
      a similar competition.

      136 (return) [ At the funeral of Vespasian, the comedian who
      personated that frugal emperor, anxiously inquired how much it
      cost. Fourscore thousand pounds, (centies.) Give me the tenth
      part of the sum, and throw my body into the Tiber. Sueton, in
      Vespasian, c. 19, with the notes of Casaubon and Gronovius.]

      137 (return) [ Gregory (Orat. iv. p. 119, 120) compares this
      supposed ignominy and ridicule to the funeral honors of
      Constantius, whose body was chanted over Mount Taurus by a choir
      of angels.]

      138 (return) [ Quintus Curtius, l. iii. c. 4. The luxuriancy of
      his descriptions has been often censured. Yet it was almost the
      duty of the historian to describe a river, whose waters had
      nearly proved fatal to Alexander.]

      139 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. 156, p. 377. Yet he
      acknowledges with gratitude the liberality of the two royal
      brothers in decorating the tomb of Julian, (de ulcis. Jul. nece,
      c. 7, p. 152.)]

      140 (return) [ Cujus suprema et cineres, si qui tunc juste
      consuleret, non Cydnus videre deberet, quamvis gratissimus amnis
      et liquidus: sed ad perpetuandam gloriam recte factorum
      præterlambere Tiberis, intersecans urbem æternam, divorumque
      veterum monumenta præstringens Ammian. xxv. 10.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.—Part I.

     The Government And Death Of Jovian.—Election Of Valentinian, Who
     Associates His Brother Valens, And Makes The Final Division Of The
     Eastern And Western Empires.— Revolt Of Procopius.—Civil And
     Ecclesiastical Administration.—Germany. —Britain.—Africa.—The
     East.— The Danube.—Death Of Valentinian.—His Two Sons, Gratian And
     Valentinian II., Succeed To The Western Empire.


      The death of Julian had left the public affairs of the empire in
      a very doubtful and dangerous situation. The Roman army was saved
      by an inglorious, perhaps a necessary treaty; 1 and the first
      moments of peace were consecrated by the pious Jovian to restore
      the domestic tranquility of the church and state. The
      indiscretion of his predecessor, instead of reconciling, had
      artfully fomented the religious war: and the balance which he
      affected to preserve between the hostile factions, served only to
      perpetuate the contest, by the vicissitudes of hope and fear, by
      the rival claims of ancient possession and actual favor. The
      Christians had forgotten the spirit of the gospel; and the Pagans
      had imbibed the spirit of the church. In private families, the
      sentiments of nature were extinguished by the blind fury of zeal
      and revenge: the majesty of the laws was violated or abused; the
      cities of the East were stained with blood; and the most
      implacable enemies of the Romans were in the bosom of their
      country. Jovian was educated in the profession of Christianity;
      and as he marched from Nisibis to Antioch, the banner of the
      Cross, the Labarum of Constantine, which was again displayed at
      the head of the legions, announced to the people the faith of
      their new emperor. As soon as he ascended the throne, he
      transmitted a circular epistle to all the governors of provinces;
      in which he confessed the divine truth, and secured the legal
      establishment, of the Christian religion. The insidious edicts of
      Julian were abolished; the ecclesiastical immunities were
      restored and enlarged; and Jovian condescended to lament, that
      the distress of the times obliged him to diminish the measure of
      charitable distributions. 2 The Christians were unanimous in the
      loud and sincere applause which they bestowed on the pious
      successor of Julian. But they were still ignorant what creed, or
      what synod, he would choose for the standard of orthodoxy; and
      the peace of the church immediately revived those eager disputes
      which had been suspended during the season of persecution. The
      episcopal leaders of the contending sects, convinced, from
      experience, how much their fate would depend on the earliest
      impressions that were made on the mind of an untutored soldier,
      hastened to the court of Edessa, or Antioch. The highways of the
      East were crowded with Homoousian, and Arian, and Semi-Arian, and
      Eunomian bishops, who struggled to outstrip each other in the
      holy race: the apartments of the palace resounded with their
      clamors; and the ears of the prince were assaulted, and perhaps
      astonished, by the singular mixture of metaphysical argument and
      passionate invective. 3 The moderation of Jovian, who recommended
      concord and charity, and referred the disputants to the sentence
      of a future council, was interpreted as a symptom of
      indifference: but his attachment to the Nicene creed was at
      length discovered and declared, by the reverence which he
      expressed for the _celestial_ 4 virtues of the great Athanasius.
      The intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of seventy, had
      issued from his retreat on the first intelligence of the tyrant’s
      death. The acclamations of the people seated him once more on the
      archiepiscopal throne; and he wisely accepted, or anticipated,
      the invitation of Jovian. The venerable figure of Athanasius, his
      calm courage, and insinuating eloquence, sustained the reputation
      which he had already acquired in the courts of four successive
      princes. 5 As soon as he had gained the confidence, and secured
      the faith, of the Christian emperor, he returned in triumph to
      his diocese, and continued, with mature counsels and undiminished
      vigor, to direct, ten years longer, 6 the ecclesiastical
      government of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Catholic church. Before
      his departure from Antioch, he assured Jovian that his orthodox
      devotion would be rewarded with a long and peaceful reign.
      Athanasius, had reason to hope, that he should be allowed either
      the merit of a successful prediction, or the excuse of a grateful
      though ineffectual prayer. 7

      1 (return) [ The medals of Jovian adorn him with victories,
      laurel crowns, and prostrate captives. Ducange, Famil. Byzantin.
      p. 52. Flattery is a foolish suicide; she destroys herself with
      her own hands.]

      2 (return) [ Jovian restored to the church a forcible and
      comprehensive expression, (Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 5, with
      Godefroy’s Dissertations, p. 329. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 3.) The new
      law which condemned the rape or marriage of nuns (Cod. Theod. l.
      ix. tit. xxv. leg. 2) is exaggerated by Sozomen; who supposes,
      that an amorous glance, the adultery of the heart, was punished
      with death by the evangelic legislator.]

      3 (return) [ Compare Socrates, l. iii. c. 25, and Philostorgius,
      l. viii. c. 6, with Godefroy’s Dissertations, p. 330.]

      4 (return) [ The word _celestial_ faintly expresses the impious
      and extravagant flattery of the emperor to the archbishop. (See
      the original epistle in Athanasius, tom. ii. p. 33.) Gregory
      Nazianzen (Orat. xxi. p. 392) celebrates the friendship of Jovian
      and Athanasius. The primate’s journey was advised by the Egyptian
      monks, (Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 221.)]

      5 (return) [ Athanasius, at the court of Antioch, is agreeably
      represented by La Bleterie, (Hist. de Jovien, tom. i. p.
      121-148;) he translates the singular and original conferences of
      the emperor, the primate of Egypt, and the Arian deputies. The
      Abbé is not satisfied with the coarse pleasantry of Jovian; but
      his partiality for Athanasius assumes, in _his_ eyes, the
      character of justice.]

      6 (return) [ The true area of his death is perplexed with some
      difficulties, (Tillemont, Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 719-723.)
      But the date (A. D. 373, May 2) which seems the most consistent
      with history and reason, is ratified by his authentic life,
      (Maffei Osservazioni Letterarie, tom. iii. p. 81.)]

      7 (return) [ See the observations of Valesius and Jortin (Remarks
      on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 38) on the original letter
      of Athanasius; which is preserved by Theodoret, (l. iv. c. 3.) In
      some Mss. this indiscreet promise is omitted; perhaps by the
      Catholics, jealous of the prophetic fame of their leader.]

      The slightest force, when it is applied to assist and guide the
      natural descent of its object, operates with irresistible weight;
      and Jovian had the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions
      which were supported by the spirit of the times, and the zeal and
      numbers of the most powerful sect. 8 Under his reign,
      Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory; and as soon as
      the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the genius of
      Paganism, which had been fondly raised and cherished by the arts
      of Julian, sunk irrecoverably in the. In many cities, the temples
      were shut or deserted: the philosophers who had abused their
      transient favor, thought it prudent to shave their beards, and
      disguise their profession; and the Christians rejoiced, that they
      were now in a condition to forgive, or to revenge, the injuries
      which they had suffered under the preceding reign. 9 The
      consternation of the Pagan world was dispelled by a wise and
      gracious edict of toleration; in which Jovian explicitly
      declared, that although he should severely punish the
      sacrilegious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise, with
      freedom and safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship. The
      memory of this law has been preserved by the orator Themistius,
      who was deputed by the senate of Constantinople to express their
      royal devotion for the new emperor. Themistius expatiates on the
      clemency of the Divine Nature, the facility of human error, the
      rights of conscience, and the independence of the mind; and, with
      some eloquence, inculcates the principles of philosophical
      toleration; whose aid Superstition herself, in the hour of her
      distress, is not ashamed to implore. He justly observes, that in
      the recent changes, both religions had been alternately disgraced
      by the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those
      votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass, without a
      reason, and without a blush, from the church to the temple, and
      from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the Christians.
      10

      8 (return) [ Athanasius (apud Theodoret, l. iv. c. 3) magnifies
      the number of the orthodox, who composed the whole world. This
      assertion was verified in the space of thirty and forty years.]

      9 (return) [ Socrates, l. iii. c. 24. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat.
      iv. p. 131) and Libanius (Orat. Parentalis, c. 148, p. 369)
      expresses the _living_ sentiments of their respective factions.]

      10 (return) [ Themistius, Orat. v. p. 63-71, edit. Harduin,
      Paris, 1684. The Abbé de la Bleterie judiciously remarks, (Hist.
      de Jovien, tom. i. p. 199,) that Sozomen has forgot the general
      toleration; and Themistius the establishment of the Catholic
      religion. Each of them turned away from the object which he
      disliked, and wished to suppress the part of the edict the least
      honorable, in his opinion, to the emperor.]

      In the space of seven months, the Roman troops, who were now
      returned to Antioch, had performed a march of fifteen hundred
      miles; in which they had endured all the hardships of war, of
      famine, and of climate. Notwithstanding their services, their
      fatigues, and the approach of winter, the timid and impatient
      Jovian allowed only, to the men and horses, a respite of six
      weeks. The emperor could not sustain the indiscreet and malicious
      raillery of the people of Antioch. 11 He was impatient to possess
      the palace of Constantinople; and to prevent the ambition of some
      competitor, who might occupy the vacant allegiance of Europe. But
      he soon received the grateful intelligence, that his authority
      was acknowledged from the Thracian Bosphorus to the Atlantic
      Ocean. By the first letters which he despatched from the camp of
      Mesopotamia, he had delegated the military command of Gaul and
      Illyricum to Malarich, a brave and faithful officer of the nation
      of the Franks; and to his father-in-law, Count Lucillian, who had
      formerly distinguished his courage and conduct in the defence of
      Nisibis. Malarich had declined an office to which he thought
      himself unequal; and Lucillian was massacred at Rheims, in an
      accidental mutiny of the Batavian cohorts. 12 But the moderation
      of Jovinus, master-general of the cavalry, who forgave the
      intention of his disgrace, soon appeased the tumult, and
      confirmed the uncertain minds of the soldiers. The oath of
      fidelity was administered and taken, with loyal acclamations; and
      the deputies of the Western armies 13 saluted their new sovereign
      as he descended from Mount Taurus to the city of Tyana in
      Cappadocia. From Tyana he continued his hasty march to Ancyra,
      capital of the province of Galatia; where Jovian assumed, with
      his infant son, the name and ensigns of the consulship. 14
      Dadastana, 15 an obscure town, almost at an equal distance
      between Ancyra and Nice, was marked for the fatal term of his
      journey and life. After indulging himself with a plentiful,
      perhaps an intemperate, supper, he retired to rest; and the next
      morning the emperor Jovian was found dead in his bed. The cause
      of this sudden death was variously understood. By some it was
      ascribed to the consequences of an indigestion, occasioned either
      by the quantity of the wine, or the quality of the mushrooms,
      which he had swallowed in the evening. According to others, he
      was suffocated in his sleep by the vapor of charcoal, which
      extracted from the walls of the apartment the unwholesome
      moisture of the fresh plaster. 16 But the want of a regular
      inquiry into the death of a prince, whose reign and person were
      soon forgotten, appears to have been the only circumstance which
      countenanced the malicious whispers of poison and domestic guilt.
      17 The body of Jovian was sent to Constantinople, to be interred
      with his predecessors, and the sad procession was met on the road
      by his wife Charito, the daughter of Count Lucillian; who still
      wept the recent death of her father, and was hastening to dry her
      tears in the embraces of an Imperial husband. Her disappointment
      and grief were imbittered by the anxiety of maternal tenderness.
      Six weeks before the death of Jovian, his infant son had been
      placed in the curule chair, adorned with the title of
      _Nobilissimus_, and the vain ensigns of the consulship.
      Unconscious of his fortune, the royal youth, who, from his
      grandfather, assumed the name of Varronian, was reminded only by
      the jealousy of the government, that he was the son of an
      emperor. Sixteen years afterwards he was still alive, but he had
      already been deprived of an eye; and his afflicted mother
      expected every hour, that the innocent victim would be torn from
      her arms, to appease, with his blood, the suspicions of the
      reigning prince. 18

      11 (return) [ Johan. Antiochen. in Excerpt. Valesian. p. 845. The
      libels of Antioch may be admitted on very slight evidence.]

      12 (return) [ Compare Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) who omits the name of
      the Batarians, with Zosimus, (l. iii. p. 197,) who removes the
      scene of action from Rheims to Sirmium.]

      13 (return) [ Quos capita scholarum ordo castrensis appellat.
      Ammian. xxv. 10, and Vales. ad locum.]

      14 (return) [ Cugus vagitus, pertinaciter reluctantis, ne in
      curuli sella veheretur ex more, id quod mox accidit protendebat.
      Augustus and his successors respectfully solicited a dispensation
      of age for the sons or nephews whom they raised to the
      consulship. But the curule chair of the first Brutus had never
      been dishonored by an infant.]

      15 (return) [ The Itinerary of Antoninus fixes Dadastana 125
      Roman miles from Nice; 117 from Ancyra, (Wesseling, Itinerar. p.
      142.) The pilgrim of Bourdeaux, by omitting some stages, reduces
      the whole space from 242 to 181 miles. Wesseling, p. 574. * Note:
      Dadastana is supposed to be Castabat.—M.]

      16 (return) [ See Ammianus, (xxv. 10,) Eutropius, (x. 18.) who
      might likewise be present, Jerom, (tom. i. p. 26, ad Heliodorum.)
      Orosius, (vii. 31,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 6,) Zosimus, (l. iii. p.
      197, 198,) and Zonaras, (tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 28, 29.) We cannot
      expect a perfect agreement, and we shall not discuss minute
      differences.]

      17 (return) [ Ammianus, unmindful of his usual candor and good
      sense, compares the death of the harmless Jovian to that of the
      second Africanus, who had excited the fears and resentment of the
      popular faction.]

      18 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 336, 344, edit. Montfaucon.
      The Christian orator attempts to comfort a widow by the examples
      of illustrious misfortunes; and observes, that of nine emperors
      (including the Cæsar Gallus) who had reigned in his time, only
      two (Constantine and Constantius) died a natural death. Such
      vague consolations have never wiped away a single tear.]

      After the death of Jovian, the throne of the Roman world remained
      ten days, 19 without a master. The ministers and generals still
      continued to meet in council; to exercise their respective
      functions; to maintain the public order; and peaceably to conduct
      the army to the city of Nice in Bithynia, which was chosen for
      the place of the election. 20 In a solemn assembly of the civil
      and military powers of the empire, the diadem was again
      unanimously offered to the præfect Sallust. He enjoyed the glory
      of a second refusal: and when the virtues of the father were
      alleged in favor of his son, the præfect, with the firmness of a
      disinterested patriot, declared to the electors, that the feeble
      age of the one, and the unexperienced youth of the other, were
      equally incapable of the laborious duties of government. Several
      candidates were proposed; and, after weighing the objections of
      character or situation, they were successively rejected; but, as
      soon as the name of Valentinian was pronounced, the merit of that
      officer united the suffrages of the whole assembly, and obtained
      the sincere approbation of Sallust himself. Valentinian 21 was
      the son of Count Gratian, a native of Cibalis, in Pannonia, who
      from an obscure condition had raised himself, by matchless
      strength and dexterity, to the military commands of Africa and
      Britain; from which he retired with an ample fortune and
      suspicious integrity. The rank and services of Gratian
      contributed, however, to smooth the first steps of the promotion
      of his son; and afforded him an early opportunity of displaying
      those solid and useful qualifications, which raised his character
      above the ordinary level of his fellow-soldiers. The person of
      Valentinian was tall, graceful, and majestic. His manly
      countenance, deeply marked with the impression of sense and
      spirit, inspired his friends with awe, and his enemies with fear;
      and to second the efforts of his undaunted courage, the son of
      Gratian had inherited the advantages of a strong and healthy
      constitution. By the habits of chastity and temperance, which
      restrain the appetites and invigorate the faculties, Valentinian
      preserved his own and the public esteem. The avocations of a
      military life had diverted his youth from the elegant pursuits of
      literature; 2111 he was ignorant of the Greek language, and the
      arts of rhetoric; but as the mind of the orator was never
      disconcerted by timid perplexity, he was able, as often as the
      occasion prompted him, to deliver his decided sentiments with
      bold and ready elocution. The laws of martial discipline were the
      only laws that he had studied; and he was soon distinguished by
      the laborious diligence, and inflexible severity, with which he
      discharged and enforced the duties of the camp. In the time of
      Julian he provoked the danger of disgrace, by the contempt which
      he publicly expressed for the reigning religion; 22 and it should
      seem, from his subsequent conduct, that the indiscreet and
      unseasonable freedom of Valentinian was the effect of military
      spirit, rather than of Christian zeal. He was pardoned, however,
      and still employed by a prince who esteemed his merit; 23 and in
      the various events of the Persian war, he improved the reputation
      which he had already acquired on the banks of the Rhine. The
      celerity and success with which he executed an important
      commission, recommended him to the favor of Jovian; and to the
      honorable command of the second _school_, or company, of
      Targetiers, of the domestic guards. In the march from Antioch, he
      had reached his quarters at Ancyra, when he was unexpectedly
      summoned, without guilt and without intrigue, to assume, in the
      forty-third year of his age, the absolute government of the Roman
      empire.

      19 (return) [ Ten days appear scarcely sufficient for the march
      and election. But it may be observed, 1. That the generals might
      command the expeditious use of the public posts for themselves,
      their attendants, and messengers. 2. That the troops, for the
      ease of the cities, marched in many divisions; and that the head
      of the column might arrive at Nice, when the rear halted at
      Ancyra.]

      20 (return) [ Ammianus, xxvi. 1. Zosimus, l. iii. p. 198.
      Philostorgius, l. viii. c. 8, and Godefroy, Dissertat. p. 334.
      Philostorgius, who appears to have obtained some curious and
      authentic intelligence, ascribes the choice of Valentinian to the
      præfect Sallust, the master-general Arintheus, Dagalaiphus count
      of the domestics, and the patrician Datianus, whose pressing
      recommendations from Ancyra had a weighty influence in the
      election.]

      21 (return) [ Ammianus (xxx. 7, 9) and the younger Victor have
      furnished the portrait of Valentinian, which naturally precedes
      and illustrates the history of his reign. * Note: Symmachus, in a
      fragment of an oration published by M. Mai, describes Valentinian
      as born among the snows of Illyria, and habituated to military
      labor amid the heat and dust of Libya: genitus in frigoribus,
      educatus is solibus Sym. Orat. Frag. edit. Niebuhr, p. 5.—M.]

      2111 (return) [ According to Ammianus, he wrote elegantly, and
      was skilled in painting and modelling. Scribens decore,
      venusteque pingens et fingens. xxx. 7.—M.]

      22 (return) [ At Antioch, where he was obliged to attend the
      emperor to the table, he struck a priest, who had presumed to
      purify him with lustral water, (Sozomen, l. vi. c. 6. Theodoret,
      l. iii. c. 15.) Such public defiance might become Valentinian;
      but it could leave no room for the unworthy delation of the
      philosopher Maximus, which supposes some more private offence,
      (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 200, 201.)]

      23 (return) [ Socrates, l. iv. A previous exile to Melitene, or
      Thebais (the first might be possible,) is interposed by Sozomen
      (l. vi. c. 6) and Philostorgius, (l. vii. c. 7, with Godefroy’s
      Dissertations, p. 293.)]

      The invitation of the ministers and generals at Nice was of
      little moment, unless it were confirmed by the voice of the army.

      The aged Sallust, who had long observed the irregular
      fluctuations of popular assemblies, proposed, under pain of
      death, that none of those persons, whose rank in the service
      might excite a party in their favor, should appear in public on
      the day of the inauguration. Yet such was the prevalence of
      ancient superstition, that a whole day was voluntarily added to
      this dangerous interval, because it happened to be the
      intercalation of the Bissextile. 24 At length, when the hour was
      supposed to be propitious, Valentinian showed himself from a
      lofty tribunal; the judicious choice was applauded; and the new
      prince was solemnly invested with the diadem and the purple,
      amidst the acclamation of the troops, who were disposed in
      martial order round the tribunal. But when he stretched forth his
      hand to address the armed multitude, a busy whisper was
      accidentally started in the ranks, and insensibly swelled into a
      loud and imperious clamor, that he should name, without delay, a
      colleague in the empire. The intrepid calmness of Valentinian
      obtained silence, and commanded respect; and he thus addressed
      the assembly: “A few minutes since it was in _your_ power,
      fellow-soldiers, to have left me in the obscurity of a private
      station. Judging, from the testimony of my past life, that I
      deserved to reign, you have placed me on the throne. It is now
      _my_ duty to consult the safety and interest of the republic. The
      weight of the universe is undoubtedly too great for the hands of
      a feeble mortal. I am conscious of the limits of my abilities,
      and the uncertainty of my life; and far from declining, I am
      anxious to solicit, the assistance of a worthy colleague. But,
      where discord may be fatal, the choice of a faithful friend
      requires mature and serious deliberation. That deliberation shall
      be _my_ care. Let _your_ conduct be dutiful and consistent.
      Retire to your quarters; refresh your minds and bodies; and
      expect the accustomed donative on the accession of a new
      emperor.” 25 The astonished troops, with a mixture of pride, of
      satisfaction, and of terror, confessed the voice of their master.

      Their angry clamors subsided into silent reverence; and
      Valentinian, encompassed with the eagles of the legions, and the
      various banners of the cavalry and infantry, was conducted, in
      warlike pomp, to the palace of Nice. As he was sensible, however,
      of the importance of preventing some rash declaration of the
      soldiers, he consulted the assembly of the chiefs; and their real
      sentiments were concisely expressed by the generous freedom of
      Dagalaiphus. “Most excellent prince,” said that officer, “if you
      consider only your family, you have a brother; if you love the
      republic, look round for the most deserving of the Romans.” 26
      The emperor, who suppressed his displeasure, without altering his
      intention, slowly proceeded from Nice to Nicomedia and
      Constantinople. In one of the suburbs of that capital, 27 thirty
      days after his own elevation, he bestowed the title of Augustus
      on his brother Valens; 2711 and as the boldest patriots were
      convinced, that their opposition, without being serviceable to
      their country, would be fatal to themselves, the declaration of
      his absolute will was received with silent submission. Valens was
      now in the thirty-sixth year of his age; but his abilities had
      never been exercised in any employment, military or civil; and
      his character had not inspired the world with any sanguine
      expectations. He possessed, however, one quality, which
      recommended him to Valentinian, and preserved the domestic peace
      of the empire; devout and grateful attachment to his benefactor,
      whose superiority of genius, as well as of authority, Valens
      humbly and cheerfully acknowledged in every action of his life.
      28

      24 (return) [ Ammianus, in a long, because unseasonable,
      digression, (xxvi. l, and Valesius, ad locum,) rashly supposes
      that he understands an astronomical question, of which his
      readers are ignorant. It is treated with more judgment and
      propriety by Censorinus (de Die Natali, c. 20) and Macrobius,
      (Saturnal. i. c. 12-16.) The appellation of _Bissextile_, which
      marks the inauspicious year, (Augustin. ad Januarium, Epist.
      119,) is derived from the _repetition_ of the _sixth_ day of the
      calends of March.]

      25 (return) [ Valentinian’s first speech is in Ammianus, (xxvi.
      2;) concise and sententious in Philostorgius, (l. viii. c. 8.)]

      26 (return) [ Si tuos amas, Imperator optime, habes fratrem; si
      Rempublicam quære quem vestias. Ammian. xxvi. 4. In the division
      of the empire, Valentinian retained that sincere counsellor for
      himself, (c.6.)]

      27 (return) [ In suburbano, Ammian. xxvi. 4. The famous
      _Hebdomon_, or field of Mars, was distant from Constantinople
      either seven stadia, or seven miles. See Valesius, and his
      brother, ad loc., and Ducange, Const. l. ii. p. 140, 141, 172,
      173.]

      2711 (return) [ Symmachus praises the liberality of Valentinian
      in raising his brother at once to the rank of Augustus, not
      training him through the slow and probationary degree of Cæsar.
      Exigui animi vices munerum partiuntur, liberalitas desideriis
      nihil reliquit. Symm. Orat. p. 7. edit. Niebuhr, 1816, reprinted
      from Mai.—M.]

      28 (return) [ Participem quidem legitimum potestatis; sed in
      modum apparitoris morigerum, ut progrediens aperiet textus.
      Ammian. xxvi. 4.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.—Part II.


      Before Valentinian divided the provinces, he reformed the
      administration of the empire. All ranks of subjects, who had been
      injured or oppressed under the reign of Julian, were invited to
      support their public accusations. The silence of mankind attested
      the spotless integrity of the præfect Sallust; 29 and his own
      pressing solicitations, that he might be permitted to retire from
      the business of the state, were rejected by Valentinian with the
      most honorable expressions of friendship and esteem. But among
      the favorites of the late emperor, there were many who had abused
      his credulity or superstition; and who could no longer hope to be
      protected either by favor or justice. 30 The greater part of the
      ministers of the palace, and the governors of the provinces, were
      removed from their respective stations; yet the eminent merit of
      some officers was distinguished from the obnoxious crowd; and,
      notwithstanding the opposite clamors of zeal and resentment, the
      whole proceedings of this delicate inquiry appear to have been
      conducted with a reasonable share of wisdom and moderation. 31
      The festivity of a new reign received a short and suspicious
      interruption from the sudden illness of the two princes; but as
      soon as their health was restored, they left Constantinople in
      the beginning of the spring. In the castle, or palace, of
      Mediana, only three miles from Naissus, they executed the solemn
      and final division of the Roman empire. 32 Valentinian bestowed
      on his brother the rich præfecture of the _East_, from the Lower
      Danube to the confines of Persia; whilst he reserved for his
      immediate government the warlike 3211 præfectures of _Illyricum,
      Italy_, and _Gaul_, from the extremity of Greece to the
      Caledonian rampart, and from the rampart of Caledonia to the foot
      of Mount Atlas. The provincial administration remained on its
      former basis; but a double supply of generals and magistrates was
      required for two councils, and two courts: the division was made
      with a just regard to their peculiar merit and situation, and
      seven master-generals were soon created, either of the cavalry or
      infantry. When this important business had been amicably
      transacted, Valentinian and Valens embraced for the last time.
      The emperor of the West established his temporary residence at
      Milan; and the emperor of the East returned to Constantinople, to
      assume the dominion of fifty provinces, of whose language he was
      totally ignorant. 33

      29 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evidence of Zonaras, Suidas,
      and the Paschal Chronicle, M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. v. p. 671) _wishes_ to disbelieve those stories, si
      avantageuses à un payen.]

      30 (return) [ Eunapius celebrates and exaggerates the sufferings
      of Maximus. (p. 82, 83;) yet he allows that the sophist or
      magician, the guilty favorite of Julian, and the personal enemy
      of Valentinian, was dismissed on the payment of a small fine.]

      31 (return) [ The loose assertions of a general disgrace
      (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 201), are detected and refuted by Tillemont,
      (tom. v. p. 21.)]

      32 (return) [ Ammianus, xxvi. 5.]

      3211 (return) [ Ipse supra impacati Rhen semibarbaras ripas
      raptim vexilla constituens * * Princeps creatus ad difficilem
      militiam revertisti. Symm. Orat. 81.—M.]

      33 (return) [ Ammianus says, in general terms, subagrestis
      ingenii, nec bellicis nec liberalibus studiis eruditus. Ammian.
      xxxi. 14. The orator Themistius, with the genuine impertinence of
      a Greek, wishes for the first time to speak the Latin language,
      the dialect of his sovereign. Orat. vi. p. 71.]

      The tranquility of the East was soon disturbed by rebellion; and
      the throne of Valens was threatened by the daring attempts of a
      rival whose affinity to the emperor Julian 34 was his sole merit,
      and had been his only crime. Procopius had been hastily promoted
      from the obscure station of a tribune, and a notary, to the joint
      command of the army of Mesopotamia; the public opinion already
      named him as the successor of a prince who was destitute of
      natural heirs; and a vain rumor was propagated by his friends, or
      his enemies, that Julian, before the altar of the Moon at Carrhæ,
      had privately invested Procopius with the Imperial purple. 35 He
      endeavored, by his dutiful and submissive behavior, to disarm the
      jealousy of Jovian; resigned, without a contest, his military
      command; and retired, with his wife and family, to cultivate the
      ample patrimony which he possessed in the province of Cappadocia.
      These useful and innocent occupations were interrupted by the
      appearance of an officer with a band of soldiers, who, in the
      name of his new sovereigns, Valentinian and Valens, was
      despatched to conduct the unfortunate Procopius either to a
      perpetual prison or an ignominious death. His presence of mind
      procured him a longer respite, and a more splendid fate. Without
      presuming to dispute the royal mandate, he requested the
      indulgence of a few moments to embrace his weeping family; and
      while the vigilance of his guards was relaxed by a plentiful
      entertainment, he dexterously escaped to the sea-coast of the
      Euxine, from whence he passed over to the country of Bosphorus.
      In that sequestered region he remained many months, exposed to
      the hardships of exile, of solitude, and of want; his melancholy
      temper brooding over his misfortunes, and his mind agitated by
      the just apprehension, that, if any accident should discover his
      name, the faithless Barbarians would violate, without much
      scruple, the laws of hospitality. In a moment of impatience and
      despair, Procopius embarked in a merchant vessel, which made sail
      for Constantinople; and boldly aspired to the rank of a
      sovereign, because he was not allowed to enjoy the security of a
      subject. At first he lurked in the villages of Bithynia,
      continually changing his habitation and his disguise. 36 By
      degrees he ventured into the capital, trusted his life and
      fortune to the fidelity of two friends, a senator and a eunuch,
      and conceived some hopes of success, from the intelligence which
      he obtained of the actual state of public affairs. The body of
      the people was infected with a spirit of discontent: they
      regretted the justice and the abilities of Sallust, who had been
      imprudently dismissed from the præfecture of the East. They
      despised the character of Valens, which was rude without vigor,
      and feeble without mildness. They dreaded the influence of his
      father-in-law, the patrician Petronius, a cruel and rapacious
      minister, who rigorously exacted all the arrears of tribute that
      might remain unpaid since the reign of the emperor Aurelian. The
      circumstances were propitious to the designs of a usurper. The
      hostile measures of the Persians required the presence of Valens
      in Syria: from the Danube to the Euphrates the troops were in
      motion; and the capital was occasionally filled with the soldiers
      who passed or repassed the Thracian Bosphorus. Two cohorts of
      Gaul were persuaded to listen to the secret proposals of the
      conspirators; which were recommended by the promise of a liberal
      donative; and, as they still revered the memory of Julian, they
      easily consented to support the hereditary claim of his
      proscribed kinsman. At the dawn of day they were drawn up near
      the baths of Anastasia; and Procopius, clothed in a purple
      garment, more suitable to a player than to a monarch, appeared,
      as if he rose from the dead, in the midst of Constantinople. The
      soldiers, who were prepared for his reception, saluted their
      trembling prince with shouts of joy and vows of fidelity. Their
      numbers were soon increased by a band of sturdy peasants,
      collected from the adjacent country; and Procopius, shielded by
      the arms of his adherents, was successively conducted to the
      tribunal, the senate, and the palace. During the first moments of
      his tumultuous reign, he was astonished and terrified by the
      gloomy silence of the people; who were either ignorant of the
      cause, or apprehensive of the event. But his military strength
      was superior to any actual resistance: the malcontents flocked to
      the standard of rebellion; the poor were excited by the hopes,
      and the rich were intimidated by the fear, of a general pillage;
      and the obstinate credulity of the multitude was once more
      deceived by the promised advantages of a revolution. The
      magistrates were seized; the prisons and arsenals broke open; the
      gates, and the entrance of the harbor, were diligently occupied;
      and, in a few hours, Procopius became the absolute, though
      precarious, master of the Imperial city. 3611 The usurper
      improved this unexpected success with some degree of courage and
      dexterity. He artfully propagated the rumors and opinions the
      most favorable to his interest; while he deluded the populace by
      giving audience to the frequent, but imaginary, ambassadors of
      distant nations. The large bodies of troops stationed in the
      cities of Thrace and the fortresses of the Lower Danube, were
      gradually involved in the guilt of rebellion: and the Gothic
      princes consented to supply the sovereign of Constantinople with
      the formidable strength of several thousand auxiliaries. His
      generals passed the Bosphorus, and subdued, without an effort,
      the unarmed, but wealthy provinces of Bithynia and Asia. After an
      honorable defence, the city and island of Cyzicus yielded to his
      power; the renowned legions of the Jovians and Herculeans
      embraced the cause of the usurper, whom they were ordered to
      crush; and, as the veterans were continually augmented with new
      levies, he soon appeared at the head of an army, whose valor, as
      well as numbers, were not unequal to the greatness of the
      contest. The son of Hormisdas, 37 a youth of spirit and ability,
      condescended to draw his sword against the lawful emperor of the
      East; and the Persian prince was immediately invested with the
      ancient and extraordinary powers of a Roman Proconsul. The
      alliance of Faustina, the widow of the emperor Constantius, who
      intrusted herself and her daughter to the hands of the usurper,
      added dignity and reputation to his cause. The princess
      Constantia, who was then about five years of age, accompanied, in
      a litter, the march of the army. She was shown to the multitude
      in the arms of her adopted father; and, as often as she passed
      through the ranks, the tenderness of the soldiers was inflamed
      into martial fury: 38 they recollected the glories of the house
      of Constantine, and they declared, with loyal acclamation, that
      they would shed the last drop of their blood in the defence of
      the royal infant. 39

      34 (return) [ The uncertain degree of alliance, or consanguinity,
      is expressed by the words, cognatus, consobrinus, (see Valesius
      ad Ammian. xxiii. 3.) The mother of Procopius might be a sister
      of Basilina and Count Julian, the mother and uncle of the
      Apostate. Ducange, Fam. Byzantin. p. 49.]

      35 (return) [ Ammian. xxiii. 3, xxvi. 6. He mentions the report
      with much hesitation: susurravit obscurior fama; nemo enim dicti
      auctor exstitit verus. It serves, however, to remark, that
      Procopius was a Pagan. Yet his religion does not appear to have
      promoted, or obstructed, his pretensions.]

      36 (return) [ One of his retreats was a country-house of
      Eunomius, the heretic. The master was absent, innocent, ignorant;
      yet he narrowly escaped a sentence of death, and was banished
      into the remote parts of Mauritania, (Philostorg. l. ix. c. 5, 8,
      and Godefroy’s Dissert. p. 369-378.)]

      3611 (return) [ It may be suspected, from a fragment of Eunapius,
      that the heathen and philosophic party espoused the cause of
      Procopius. Heraclius, the Cynic, a man who had been honored by a
      philosophic controversy with Julian, striking the ground with his
      staff, incited him to courage with the line of Homer Eunapius.
      Mai, p. 207 or in Niebuhr’s edition, p. 73.—M.]

      37 (return) [ Hormisdæ maturo juveni Hormisdæ regalis illius
      filio, potestatem Proconsulis detulit; et civilia, more veterum,
      et bella, recturo. Ammian. xxvi. 8. The Persian prince escaped
      with honor and safety, and was afterwards (A. D. 380) restored to
      the same extraordinary office of proconsul of Bithynia,
      (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 204) I am ignorant
      whether the race of Sassan was propagated. I find (A. D. 514) a
      pope Hormisdas; but he was a native of Frusino, in Italy, (Pagi
      Brev. Pontific. tom. i. p. 247)]

      38 (return) [ The infant rebel was afterwards the wife of the
      emperor Gratian but she died young, and childless. See Ducange,
      Fam. Byzantin. p. 48, 59.]

      39 (return) [ Sequimini culminis summi prosapiam, was the
      language of Procopius, who affected to despise the obscure birth,
      and fortuitous election of the upstart Pannonian. Ammian. xxvi.
      7.]

      In the mean while Valentinian was alarmed and perplexed by the
      doubtful intelligence of the revolt of the East. 3911 The
      difficulties of a German war forced him to confine his immediate
      care to the safety of his own dominions; and, as every channel of
      communication was stopped or corrupted, he listened, with
      doubtful anxiety, to the rumors which were industriously spread,
      that the defeat and death of Valens had left Procopius sole
      master of the Eastern provinces. Valens was not dead: but on the
      news of the rebellion, which he received at Cæsarea, he basely
      despaired of his life and fortune; proposed to negotiate with the
      usurper, and discovered his secret inclination to abdicate the
      Imperial purple. The timid monarch was saved from disgrace and
      ruin by the firmness of his ministers, and their abilities soon
      decided in his favor the event of the civil war. In a season of
      tranquillity, Sallust had resigned without a murmur; but as soon
      as the public safety was attacked, he ambitiously solicited the
      preëminence of toil and danger; and the restoration of that
      virtuous minister to the præfecture of the East, was the first
      step which indicated the repentance of Valens, and satisfied the
      minds of the people. The reign of Procopius was apparently
      supported by powerful armies and obedient provinces. But many of
      the principal officers, military as well as civil, had been
      urged, either by motives of duty or interest, to withdraw
      themselves from the guilty scene; or to watch the moment of
      betraying, and deserting, the cause of the usurper. Lupicinus
      advanced by hasty marches, to bring the legions of Syria to the
      aid of Valens. Arintheus, who, in strength, beauty, and valor,
      excelled all the heroes of the age, attacked with a small troop a
      superior body of the rebels. When he beheld the faces of the
      soldiers who had served under his banner, he commanded them, with
      a loud voice, to seize and deliver up their pretended leader; and
      such was the ascendant of his genius, that this extraordinary
      order was instantly obeyed. 40 Arbetio, a respectable veteran of
      the great Constantine, who had been distinguished by the honors
      of the consulship, was persuaded to leave his retirement, and
      once more to conduct an army into the field. In the heat of
      action, calmly taking off his helmet, he showed his gray hairs
      and venerable countenance: saluted the soldiers of Procopius by
      the endearing names of children and companions, and exhorted them
      no longer to support the desperate cause of a contemptible
      tyrant; but to follow their old commander, who had so often led
      them to honor and victory. In the two engagements of Thyatira 41
      and Nacolia, the unfortunate Procopius was deserted by his
      troops, who were seduced by the instructions and example of their
      perfidious officers. After wandering some time among the woods
      and mountains of Phyrgia, he was betrayed by his desponding
      followers, conducted to the Imperial camp, and immediately
      beheaded. He suffered the ordinary fate of an unsuccessful
      usurper; but the acts of cruelty which were exercised by the
      conqueror, under the forms of legal justice, excited the pity and
      indignation of mankind. 42

      3911 (return) [ Symmachus describes his embarrassment. “The
      Germans are the common enemies of the state, Procopius the
      private foe of the Emperor; his first care must be victory, his
      second revenge.” Symm. Orat. p. 11.—M.]

      40 (return) [ Et dedignatus hominem superare certamine
      despicabilem, auctoritatis et celsi fiducia corporis ipsis
      hostibus jussit, suum vincire rectorem: atque ita turmarum,
      antesignanus umbratilis comprensus suorum manibus. The strength
      and beauty of Arintheus, the new Hercules, are celebrated by St.
      Basil, who supposed that God had created him as an inimitable
      model of the human species. The painters and sculptors could not
      express his figure: the historians appeared fabulous when they
      related his exploits, (Ammian. xxvi. and Vales. ad loc.)]

      41 (return) [ The same field of battle is placed by Ammianus in
      Lycia, and by Zosimus at Thyatira, which are at the distance of
      150 miles from each other. But Thyatira alluitur _Lyco_, (Plin.
      Hist. Natur. v. 31, Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. tom. ii. p. 79;)
      and the transcribers might easily convert an obscure river into a
      well-known province. * Note: Ammianus and Zosimus place the last
      battle at Nacolia in _Phrygia;_ Ammianus altogether omits the
      former battle near Thyatira. Procopius was on his march (iter
      tendebat) towards Lycia. See Wagner’s note, in c.—M.]

      42 (return) [ The adventures, usurpation, and fall of Procopius,
      are related, in a regular series, by Ammianus, (xxvi. 6, 7, 8, 9,
      10,) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 203-210.) They often illustrate, and
      seldom contradict, each other. Themistius (Orat. vii. p. 91, 92)
      adds some base panegyric; and Euna pius (p. 83, 84) some
      malicious satire. ——Symmachus joins with Themistius in praising
      the clemency of Valens dic victoriæ moderatus est, quasi contra
      se nemo pugnavit. Symm. Orat. p. 12.—M.]

      Such indeed are the common and natural fruits of despotism and
      rebellion. But the inquisition into the crime of magic, 4211
      which, under the reign of the two brothers, was so rigorously
      prosecuted both at Rome and Antioch, was interpreted as the fatal
      symptom, either of the displeasure of Heaven, or of the depravity
      of mankind. 43 Let us not hesitate to indulge a liberal pride,
      that, in the present age, the enlightened part of Europe has
      abolished 44 a cruel and odious prejudice, which reigned in every
      climate of the globe, and adhered to every system of religious
      opinions. 45 The nations, and the sects, of the Roman world,
      admitted with equal credulity, and similar abhorrence, the
      reality of that infernal art, 46 which was able to control the
      eternal order of the planets, and the voluntary operations of the
      human mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and
      incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites; which could
      extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the soul,
      blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluctant dæmons
      the secrets of futurity. They believed, with the wildest
      inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion of the air, of
      earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest motives of
      malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itinerant sorcerers,
      who passed their obscure lives in penury and contempt. 47 The
      arts of magic were equally condemned by the public opinion, and
      by the laws of Rome; but as they tended to gratify the most
      imperious passions of the heart of man, they were continually
      proscribed, and continually practised. 48 An imaginary cause was
      capable of producing the most serious and mischievous effects.
      The dark predictions of the death of an emperor, or the success
      of a conspiracy, were calculated only to stimulate the hopes of
      ambition, and to dissolve the ties of fidelity; and the
      intentional guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes of
      treason and sacrilege. 49 Such vain terrors disturbed the peace
      of society, and the happiness of individuals; and the harmless
      flame which insensibly melted a waxen image, might derive a
      powerful and pernicious energy from the affrighted fancy of the
      person whom it was maliciously designed to represent. 50 From the
      infusion of those herbs, which were supposed to possess a
      supernatural influence, it was an easy step to the use of more
      substantial poison; and the folly of mankind sometimes became the
      instrument, and the mask, of the most atrocious crimes. As soon
      as the zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers of
      Valens and Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to
      another charge, too frequently mingled in the scenes of domestic
      guilt; a charge of a softer and less malignant nature, for which
      the pious, though excessive, rigor of Constantine had recently
      decreed the punishment of death. 51 This deadly and incoherent
      mixture of treason and magic, of poison and adultery, afforded
      infinite gradations of guilt and innocence, of excuse and
      aggravation, which in these proceedings appear to have been
      confounded by the angry or corrupt passions of the judges. They
      easily discovered that the degree of their industry and
      discernment was estimated, by the Imperial court, according to
      the number of executions that were furnished from the respective
      tribunals. It was not without extreme reluctance that they
      pronounced a sentence of acquittal; but they eagerly admitted
      such evidence as was stained with perjury, or procured by
      torture, to prove the most improbable charges against the most
      respectable characters. The progress of the inquiry continually
      opened new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious
      informer, whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity;
      but the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended
      accomplices, were seldom permitted to receive the price of his
      infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, and the
      aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of Rome and
      Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, expired in
      ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, who were appointed
      to guard the prisons, declared, with a murmur of pity and
      indignation, that their numbers were insufficient to oppose the
      flight, or resistance, of the multitude of captives. The
      wealthiest families were ruined by fines and confiscations; the
      most innocent citizens trembled for their safety; and we may form
      some notion of the magnitude of the evil, from the extravagant
      assertion of an ancient writer, that, in the obnoxious provinces,
      the prisoners, the exiles, and the fugitives, formed the greatest
      part of the inhabitants. 52

      4211 (return) [ This infamous inquisition into sorcery and
      witchcraft has been of greater influence on human affairs than is
      commonly supposed. The persecutions against philosophers and
      their libraries was carried on with so much fury, that from this
      time (A. D. 374) the names of the Gentile philosophers became
      almost extinct; and the Christian philosophy and religion,
      particularly in the East, established their ascendency. I am
      surprised that Gibbon has not made this observation. Heyne, Note
      on Zosimus, l. iv. 14, p. 637. Besides vast heaps of manuscripts
      publicly destroyed throughout the East, men of letters burned
      their whole libraries, lest some fatal volume should expose them
      to the malice of the informers and the extreme penalty of the
      law. Amm. Marc. xxix. 11.—M.]

      43 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. ix. p. 158,
      159. The sophist deplores the public frenzy, but he does not
      (after their deaths) impeach the justice of the emperors.]

      44 (return) [ The French and English lawyers, of the present age,
      allow the _theory_, and deny the _practice_, of witchcraft,
      (Denisart, Recueil de Decisions de Jurisprudence, au mot
      _Sorciers_, tom. iv. p. 553. Blackstone’s Commentaries, vol. iv.
      p. 60.) As private reason always prevents, or outstrips, public
      wisdom, the president Montesquieu (Esprit des Loix, l. xii. c. 5,
      6) rejects the _existence_ of magic.]

      45 (return) [ See Œuvres de Bayle, tom. iii. p. 567-589. The
      sceptic of Rotterdam exhibits, according to his custom, a strange
      medley of loose knowledge and lively wit.]

      46 (return) [ The Pagans distinguished between good and bad
      magic, the Theurgic and the Goetic, (Hist. de l’Académie, &c.,
      tom. vii. p. 25.) But they could not have defended this obscure
      distinction against the acute logic of Bayle. In the Jewish and
      Christian system, _all_ dæmons are infernal spirits; and _all_
      commerce with them is idolatry, apostasy &c., which deserves
      death and damnation.]

      47 (return) [ The Canidia of Horace (Carm. l. v. Od. 5, with
      Dacier’s and Sanadon’s illustrations) is a vulgar witch. The
      Erictho of Lucan (Pharsal. vi. 430-830) is tedious, disgusting,
      but sometimes sublime. She chides the delay of the Furies, and
      threatens, with tremendous obscurity, to pronounce their real
      names; to reveal the true infernal countenance of Hecate; to
      invoke the secret powers that lie below hell, &c.]

      48 (return) [ Genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus
      fallax, quod in civitate nostrâ et vetabitur semper et
      retinebitur. Tacit. Hist. i. 22. See Augustin. de Civitate Dei,
      l. viii. c. 19, and the Theodosian Code l. ix. tit. xvi., with
      Godefroy’s Commentary.]

      49 (return) [ The persecution of Antioch was occasioned by a
      criminal consultation. The twenty-four letters of the alphabet
      were arranged round a magic tripod: and a dancing ring, which had
      been placed in the centre, pointed to the four first letters in
      the name of the future emperor, O. E. O Triangle. Theodorus
      (perhaps with many others, who owned the fatal syllables) was
      executed. Theodosius succeeded. Lardner (Heathen Testimonies,
      vol. iv. p. 353-372) has copiously and fairly examined this dark
      transaction of the reign of Valens.]

      50 (return) [

  Limus ut hic durescit, et hæc ut cera liquescit Uno eodemque
  igni—Virgil. Bucolic. viii. 80.
  Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea figit. —Ovid. in Epist. Hypsil.
  ad Jason 91.

      Such vain incantations could affect the mind, and increase the
      disease of Germanicus. Tacit. Annal. ii. 69.]

      51 (return) [ See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman. tom. ii.
      p. 353, &c. Cod. Theodosian. l. ix. tit. 7, with Godefroy’s
      Commentary.]

      52 (return) [ The cruel persecution of Rome and Antioch is
      described, and most probably exaggerated, by Ammianus (xxvii. 1.
      xxix. 1, 2) and Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 216-218.) The philosopher
      Maximus, with some justice, was involved in the charge of magic,
      (Eunapius in Vit. Sophist. p. 88, 89;) and young Chrysostom, who
      had accidentally found one of the proscribed books, gave himself
      up for lost, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 340.)]

      When Tacitus describes the deaths of the innocent and illustrious
      Romans, who were sacrificed to the cruelty of the first Cæsars,
      the art of the historian, or the merit of the sufferers, excites
      in our breast the most lively sensations of terror, of
      admiration, and of pity. The coarse and undistinguishing pencil
      of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and
      disgusting accuracy. But as our attention is no longer engaged by
      the contrast of freedom and servitude, of recent greatness and of
      actual misery, we should turn with horror from the frequent
      executions, which disgraced, both at Rome and Antioch, the reign
      of the two brothers. 53 Valens was of a timid, 54 and Valentinian
      of a choleric, disposition. 55 An anxious regard to his personal
      safety was the ruling principle of the administration of Valens.
      In the condition of a subject, he had kissed, with trembling awe,
      the hand of the oppressor; and when he ascended the throne, he
      reasonably expected, that the same fears, which had subdued his
      own mind, would secure the patient submission of his people. The
      favorites of Valens obtained, by the privilege of rapine and
      confiscation, the wealth which his economy would have refused. 56
      They urged, with persuasive eloquence, _that_, in all cases of
      treason, suspicion is equivalent to proof; _that_ the power
      supposes the intention, of mischief; _that_ the intention is not
      less criminal than the act; and _that_ a subject no longer
      deserves to live, if his life may threaten the safety, or disturb
      the repose, of his sovereign. The judgment of Valentinian was
      sometimes deceived, and his confidence abused; but he would have
      silenced the informers with a contemptuous smile, had they
      presumed to alarm his fortitude by the sound of danger. They
      praised his inflexible love of justice; and, in the pursuit of
      justice, the emperor was easily tempted to consider clemency as a
      weakness, and passion as a virtue. As long as he wrestled with
      his equals, in the bold competition of an active and ambitious
      life, Valentinian was seldom injured, and never insulted, with
      impunity: if his prudence was arraigned, his spirit was
      applauded; and the proudest and most powerful generals were
      apprehensive of provoking the resentment of a fearless soldier.
      After he became master of the world, he unfortunately forgot,
      that where no resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted;
      and instead of consulting the dictates of reason and magnanimity,
      he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a time when
      they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the defenceless
      objects of his displeasure. In the government of his household,
      or of his empire, slight, or even imaginary, offences—a hasty
      word, a casual omission, an involuntary delay—were chastised by a
      sentence of immediate death. The expressions which issued the
      most readily from the mouth of the emperor of the West were,
      “Strike off his head;” “Burn him alive;” “Let him be beaten with
      clubs till he expires;” 57 and his most favored ministers soon
      understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute, or suspend, the
      execution of his sanguinary commands, they might involve
      themselves in the guilt and punishment of disobedience. The
      repeated gratification of this savage justice hardened the mind
      of Valentinian against pity and remorse; and the sallies of
      passion were confirmed by the habits of cruelty. 58 He could
      behold with calm satisfaction the convulsive agonies of torture
      and death; he reserved his friendship for those faithful servants
      whose temper was the most congenial to his own. The merit of
      Maximin, who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was
      rewarded with the royal approbation, and the præfecture of Gaul.

      Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by the appellations
      of _Innocence_, and _Mica Aurea_, could alone deserve to share
      the favor of Maximin. The cages of those trusty guards were
      always placed near the bed-chamber of Valentinian, who frequently
      amused his eyes with the grateful spectacle of seeing them tear
      and devour the bleeding limbs of the malefactors who were
      abandoned to their rage. Their diet and exercises were carefully
      inspected by the Roman emperor; and when _Innocence_ had earned
      her discharge, by a long course of meritorious service, the
      faithful animal was again restored to the freedom of her native
      woods. 59

      53 (return) [ Consult the six last books of Ammianus, and more
      particularly the portraits of the two royal brothers, (xxx. 8, 9,
      xxxi. 14.) Tillemont has collected (tom. v. p. 12-18, p. 127-133)
      from all antiquity their virtues and vices.]

      54 (return) [ The younger Victor asserts, that he was valde
      timidus: yet he behaved, as almost every man would do, with
      decent resolution at the _head_ of an army. The same historian
      attempts to prove that his anger was harmless. Ammianus observes,
      with more candor and judgment, incidentia crimina ad contemptam
      vel læsam principis amplitudinem trahens, in sanguinem sæviebat.]

      55 (return) [ Cum esset ad acerbitatem naturæ calore propensior.
      .. pœnas perignes augebat et gladios. Ammian. xxx. 8. See xxvii.
      7]

      56 (return) [ I have transferred the reproach of avarice from
      Valens to his servant. Avarice more properly belongs to ministers
      than to kings; in whom that passion is commonly extinguished by
      absolute possession.]

      57 (return) [ He sometimes expressed a sentence of death with a
      tone of pleasantry: “Abi, Comes, et muta ei caput, qui sibi
      mutari provinciam cupit.” A boy, who had slipped too hastily a
      Spartan bound; an armorer, who had made a polished cuirass that
      wanted some grains of the legitimate weight, &c., were the
      victims of his fury.]

      58 (return) [ The innocents of Milan were an agent and three
      apparitors, whom Valentinian condemned for signifying a legal
      summons. Ammianus (xxvii. 7) strangely supposes, that all who had
      been unjustly executed were worshipped as martyrs by the
      Christians. His impartial silence does not allow us to believe,
      that the great chamberlain Rhodanus was burnt alive for an act of
      oppression, (Chron. Paschal. p. 392.) * Note: Ammianus does not
      say that they were worshipped as _martyrs_. Quorum memoriam apud
      Mediolanum colentes nunc usque Christiani loculos ubi sepulti
      sunt, _ad innocentes_ appellant. Wagner’s note in loco. Yet if
      the next paragraph refers to that transaction, which is not quite
      clear. Gibbon is right.—M.]

      59 (return) [ Ut bene meritam in sylvas jussit abire _Innoxiam_.
      Ammian. xxix. and Valesius ad locum.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.—Part III.


      But in the calmer moments of reflection, when the mind of Valens
      was not agitated by fear, or that of Valentinian by rage, the
      tyrant resumed the sentiments, or at least the conduct, of the
      father of his country. The dispassionate judgment of the Western
      emperor could clearly perceive, and accurately pursue, his own
      and the public interest; and the sovereign of the East, who
      imitated with equal docility the various examples which he
      received from his elder brother, was sometimes guided by the
      wisdom and virtue of the præfect Sallust. Both princes invariably
      retained, in the purple, the chaste and temperate simplicity
      which had adorned their private life; and, under their reign, the
      pleasures of the court never cost the people a blush or a sigh.
      They gradually reformed many of the abuses of the times of
      Constantius; judiciously adopted and improved the designs of
      Julian and his successor; and displayed a style and spirit of
      legislation which might inspire posterity with the most favorable
      opinion of their character and government. It is not from the
      master of _Innocence_, that we should expect the tender regard
      for the welfare of his subjects, which prompted Valentinian to
      condemn the exposition of new-born infants; 60 and to establish
      fourteen skilful physicians, with stipends and privileges, in the
      fourteen quarters of Rome. The good sense of an illiterate
      soldier founded a useful and liberal institution for the
      education of youth, and the support of declining science. 61 It
      was his intention, that the arts of rhetoric and grammar should
      be taught in the Greek and Latin languages, in the metropolis of
      every province; and as the size and dignity of the school was
      usually proportioned to the importance of the city, the academies
      of Rome and Constantinople claimed a just and singular
      preëminence. The fragments of the literary edicts of Valentinian
      imperfectly represent the school of Constantinople, which was
      gradually improved by subsequent regulations. That school
      consisted of thirty-one professors in different branches of
      learning. One philosopher, and two lawyers; five sophists, and
      ten grammarians for the Greek, and three orators, and ten
      grammarians for the Latin tongue; besides seven scribes, or, as
      they were then styled, antiquarians, whose laborious pens
      supplied the public library with fair and correct copies of the
      classic writers. The rule of conduct, which was prescribed to the
      students, is the more curious, as it affords the first outlines
      of the form and discipline of a modern university. It was
      required, that they should bring proper certificates from the
      magistrates of their native province. Their names, professions,
      and places of abode, were regularly entered in a public register.

      60 (return) [ See the Code of Justinian, l. viii. tit. lii. leg.
      2. Unusquisque sabolem suam nutriat. Quod si exponendam putaverit
      animadversioni quæ constituta est subjacebit. For the present I
      shall not interfere in the dispute between Noodt and Binkershoek;
      how far, or how long this unnatural practice had been condemned
      or abolished by law philosophy, and the more civilized state of
      society.]

      61 (return) [ These salutary institutions are explained in the
      Theodosian Code, l. xiii. tit. iii. _De Professoribus et
      Medicis_, and l. xiv. tit. ix. _De Studiis liberalibus Urbis
      Romæ_. Besides our usual guide, (Godefroy,) we may consult
      Giannone, (Istoria di Napoli, tom. i. p. 105-111,) who has
      treated the interesting subject with the zeal and curiosity of a
      man of latters who studies his domestic history.]

      The studious youth were severely prohibited from wasting their
      time in feasts, or in the theatre; and the term of their
      education was limited to the age of twenty. The præfect of the
      city was empowered to chastise the idle and refractory by stripes
      or expulsion; and he was directed to make an annual report to the
      master of the offices, that the knowledge and abilities of the
      scholars might be usefully applied to the public service. The
      institutions of Valentinian contributed to secure the benefits of
      peace and plenty; and the cities were guarded by the
      establishment of the _Defensors;_ 62 freely elected as the
      tribunes and advocates of the people, to support their rights,
      and to expose their grievances, before the tribunals of the civil
      magistrates, or even at the foot of the Imperial throne. The
      finances were diligently administered by two princes, who had
      been so long accustomed to the rigid economy of a private
      fortune; but in the receipt and application of the revenue, a
      discerning eye might observe some difference between the
      government of the East and of the West. Valens was persuaded,
      that royal liberality can be supplied only by public oppression,
      and his ambition never aspired to secure, by their actual
      distress, the future strength and prosperity of his people.
      Instead of increasing the weight of taxes, which, in the space of
      forty years, had been gradually doubled, he reduced, in the first
      years of his reign, one fourth of the tribute of the East. 63
      Valentinian appears to have been less attentive and less anxious
      to relieve the burdens of his people. He might reform the abuses
      of the fiscal administration; but he exacted, without scruple, a
      very large share of the private property; as he was convinced,
      that the revenues, which supported the luxury of individuals,
      would be much more advantageously employed for the defence and
      improvement of the state. The subjects of the East, who enjoyed
      the present benefit, applauded the indulgence of their prince.
      The solid but less splendid, merit of Valentinian was felt and
      acknowledged by the subsequent generation. 64

      62 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. i. tit. xi. with Godefroy’s
      _Paratitlon_, which diligently gleans from the rest of the code.]

      63 (return) [ Three lines of Ammianus (xxxi. 14) countenance a
      whole oration of Themistius, (viii. p. 101-120,) full of
      adulation, pedantry, and common-place morality. The eloquent M.
      Thomas (tom. i. p. 366-396) has amused himself with celebrating
      the virtues and genius of Themistius, who was not unworthy of the
      age in which he lived.]

      64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 202. Ammian. xxx. 9. His
      reformation of costly abuses might entitle him to the praise of,
      in provinciales admodum parcus, tributorum ubique molliens
      sarcinas. By some his frugality was styled avarice, (Jerom.
      Chron. p. 186)]

      But the most honorable circumstance of the character of
      Valentinian, is the firm and temperate impartiality which he
      uniformly preserved in an age of religious contention. His strong
      sense, unenlightened, but uncorrupted, by study, declined, with
      respectful indifference, the subtle questions of theological
      debate. The government of the _Earth_ claimed his vigilance, and
      satisfied his ambition; and while he remembered that he was the
      disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was the sovereign
      of the clergy. Under the reign of an apostate, he had signalized
      his zeal for the honor of Christianity: he allowed to his
      subjects the privilege which he had assumed for himself; and they
      might accept, with gratitude and confidence, the general
      toleration which was granted by a prince addicted to passion, but
      incapable of fear or of disguise. 65 The Pagans, the Jews, and
      all the various sects which acknowledged the divine authority of
      Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power or
      popular insult; nor was any mode of worship prohibited by
      Valentinian, except those secret and criminal practices, which
      abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of vice and
      disorder. The art of magic, as it was more cruelly punished, was
      more strictly proscribed: but the emperor admitted a formal
      distinction to protect the ancient methods of divination, which
      were approved by the senate, and exercised by the Tuscan
      haruspices. He had condemned, with the consent of the most
      rational Pagans, the license of nocturnal sacrifices; but he
      immediately admitted the petition of Prætextatus, proconsul of
      Achaia, who represented, that the life of the Greeks would become
      dreary and comfortless, if they were deprived of the invaluable
      blessing of the Eleusinian mysteries. Philosophy alone can boast,
      (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philosophy,) that
      her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the human mind the
      latent and deadly principle of fanaticism. But this truce of
      twelve years, which was enforced by the wise and vigorous
      government of Valentinian, by suspending the repetition of mutual
      injuries, contributed to soften the manners, and abate the
      prejudices, of the religious factions.

      65 (return) [ Testes sunt leges a me in exordio Imperii mei datæ;
      quibus unicuique quod animo imbibisset colendi libera facultas
      tributa est. Cod. Theodos. l. ix. tit. xvi. leg. 9. To this
      declaration of Valentinian, we may add the various testimonies of
      Ammianus, (xxx. 9,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 204,) and Sozomen, (l.
      vi. c. 7, 21.) Baronius would naturally blame such rational
      toleration, (Annal. Eccles A. D. 370, No. 129-132, A. D. 376, No.
      3, 4.) ——Comme il s’était prescrit pour règle de ne point se
      mêler de disputes de religion, son histoire est presque
      entièrement dégagée des affaires ecclésiastiques. Le Beau. iii.
      214.—M.]

      The friend of toleration was unfortunately placed at a distance
      from the scene of the fiercest controversies. As soon as the
      Christians of the West had extricated themselves from the snares
      of the creed of Rimini, they happily relapsed into the slumber of
      orthodoxy; and the small remains of the Arian party, that still
      subsisted at Sirmium or Milan, might be considered rather as
      objects of contempt than of resentment. But in the provinces of
      the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the
      strength and numbers of the hostile factions were more equally
      balanced; and this equality, instead of recommending the counsels
      of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of religious war.
      The monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives;
      and their invectives were sometimes followed by blows. Athanasius
      still reigned at Alexandria; the thrones of Constantinople and
      Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and every episcopal
      vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The Homoousians
      were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macelonian, or
      Semi-Arian, bishops; but their secret reluctance to embrace the
      divinity of the Holy Ghost, clouded the splendor of the triumph;
      and the declaration of Valens, who, in the first years of his
      reign, had imitated the impartial conduct of his brother, was an
      important victory on the side of Arianism. The two brothers had
      passed their private life in the condition of catechumens; but
      the piety of Valens prompted him to solicit the sacrament of
      baptism, before he exposed his person to the dangers of a Gothic
      war. He naturally addressed himself to Eudoxus, 66 6611 bishop of
      the Imperial city; and if the ignorant monarch was instructed by
      that Arian pastor in the principles of heterodox theology, his
      misfortune, rather than his guilt, was the inevitable consequence
      of his erroneous choice. Whatever had been the determination of
      the emperor, he must have offended a numerous party of his
      Christian subjects; as the leaders both of the Homoousians and of
      the Arians believed, that, if they were not suffered to reign,
      they were most cruelly injured and oppressed. After he had taken
      this decisive step, it was extremely difficult for him to
      preserve either the virtue, or the reputation of impartiality. He
      never aspired, like Constantius, to the fame of a profound
      theologian; but as he had received with simplicity and respect
      the tenets of Euxodus, Valens resigned his conscience to the
      direction of his ecclesiastical guides, and promoted, by the
      influence of his authority, the reunion of the _Athanasian
      heretics_ to the body of the Catholic church. At first, he pitied
      their blindness; by degrees he was provoked at their obstinacy;
      and he insensibly hated those sectaries to whom he was an object
      of hatred. 67 The feeble mind of Valens was always swayed by the
      persons with whom he familiarly conversed; and the exile or
      imprisonment of a private citizen are the favors the most readily
      granted in a despotic court. Such punishments were frequently
      inflicted on the leaders of the Homoousian party; and the
      misfortune of fourscore ecclesiastics of Constantinople, who,
      perhaps accidentally, were burned on shipboard, was imputed to
      the cruel and premeditated malice of the emperor, and his Arian
      ministers. In every contest, the Catholics (if we may anticipate
      that name) were obliged to pay the penalty of their own faults,
      and of those of their adversaries. In every election, the claims
      of the Arian candidate obtained the preference; and if they were
      opposed by the majority of the people, he was usually supported
      by the authority of the civil magistrate, or even by the terrors
      of a military force. The enemies of Athanasius attempted to
      disturb the last years of his venerable age; and his temporary
      retreat to his father’s sepulchre has been celebrated as a fifth
      exile. But the zeal of a great people, who instantly flew to
      arms, intimidated the præfect: and the archbishop was permitted
      to end his life in peace and in glory, after a reign of
      forty-seven years. The death of Athanasius was the signal of the
      persecution of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, who
      forcibly seated the worthless Lucius on the archiepiscopal
      throne, purchased the favor of the reigning party, by the blood
      and sufferings of their Christian brethren. The free toleration
      of the heathen and Jewish worship was bitterly lamented, as a
      circumstance which aggravated the misery of the Catholics, and
      the guilt of the impious tyrant of the East. 68

      66 (return) [ Eudoxus was of a mild and timid disposition. When
      he baptized Valens, (A. D. 367,) he must have been extremely old;
      since he had studied theology fifty-five years before, under
      Lucian, a learned and pious martyr. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 14-16,
      l. iv. c. 4, with Godefroy, p 82, 206, and Tillemont, Mém.
      Eccles. tom. v. p. 471-480, &c.]

      6611 (return) [ Through the influence of his wife say the
      ecclesiastical writers.—M.]

      67 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxv. p. 432) insults the
      persecuting spirit of the Arians, as an infallible symptom of
      error and heresy.]

      68 (return) [ This sketch of the ecclesiastical government of
      Valens is drawn from Socrates, (l. iv.,) Sozomen, (l. vi.,)
      Theodoret, (l. iv.,) and the immense compilations of Tillemont,
      (particularly tom. vi. viii. and ix.)]

      The triumph of the orthodox party has left a deep stain of
      persecution on the memory of Valens; and the character of a
      prince who derived his virtues, as well as his vices, from a
      feeble understanding and a pusillanimous temper, scarcely
      deserves the labor of an apology. Yet candor may discover some
      reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical ministers of Valens
      often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions, of their
      master; and that the real measure of facts has been very
      liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy
      credulity of his antagonists. 69 1. The silence of Valentinian
      may suggest a probable argument that the partial severities,
      which were exercised in the name and provinces of his colleague,
      amounted only to some obscure and inconsiderable deviations from
      the established system of religious toleration: and the judicious
      historian, who has praised the equal temper of the elder brother,
      has not thought himself obliged to contrast the tranquillity of
      the West with the cruel persecution of the East. 70 2. Whatever
      credit may be allowed to vague and distant reports, the
      character, or at least the behavior, of Valens, may be most
      distinctly seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent
      Basil, archbishop of Cæsarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in the
      management of the Trinitarian cause. 71 The circumstantial
      narrative has been composed by the friends and admirers of Basil;
      and as soon as we have stripped away a thick coat of rhetoric and
      miracle, we shall be astonished by the unexpected mildness of the
      Arian tyrant, who admired the firmness of his character, or was
      apprehensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the
      province of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, with
      inflexible pride, 72 the truth of his opinions, and the dignity
      of his rank, was left in the free possession of his conscience
      and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted at the solemn
      service of the cathedral; and, instead of a sentence of
      banishment, subscribed the donation of a valuable estate for the
      use of a hospital, which Basil had lately founded in the
      neighborhood of Cæsarea. 73 3. I am not able to discover, that
      any law (such as Theodosius afterwards enacted against the
      Arians) was published by Valens against the Athanasian sectaries;
      and the edict which excited the most violent clamors, may not
      appear so extremely reprehensible. The emperor had observed, that
      several of his subjects, gratifying their lazy disposition under
      the pretence of religion, had associated themselves with the
      monks of Egypt; and he directed the count of the East to drag
      them from their solitude; and to compel these deserters of
      society to accept the fair alternative of renouncing their
      temporal possessions, or of discharging the public duties of men
      and citizens. 74 The ministers of Valens seem to have extended
      the sense of this penal statute, since they claimed a right of
      enlisting the young and ablebodied monks in the Imperial armies.
      A detachment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three
      thousand men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of
      Nitria, 75 which was peopled by five thousand monks. The soldiers
      were conducted by Arian priests; and it is reported, that a
      considerable slaughter was made in the monasteries which
      disobeyed the commands of their sovereign. 76

      69 (return) [ Dr. Jortin (Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol.
      iv. p. 78) has already conceived and intimated the same
      suspicion.]

      70 (return) [ This reflection is so obvious and forcible, that
      Orosius (l. vii. c. 32, 33,) delays the persecution till after
      the death of Valentinian. Socrates, on the other hand, supposes,
      (l. iii. c. 32,) that it was appeased by a philosophical oration,
      which Themistius pronounced in the year 374, (Orat. xii. p. 154,
      in Latin only.) Such contradictions diminish the evidence, and
      reduce the term, of the persecution of Valens.]

      71 (return) [ Tillemont, whom I follow and abridge, has extracted
      (Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 153-167) the most authentic
      circumstances from the Panegyrics of the two Gregories; the
      brother, and the friend, of Basil. The letters of Basil himself
      (Dupin, Bibliothèque, Ecclesiastique, tom. ii. p. 155-180) do not
      present the image of a very lively persecution.]

      72 (return) [ Basilius Cæsariensis episcopus Cappadociæ clarus
      habetur... qui multa continentiæ et ingenii bona uno superbiæ
      malo perdidit. This irreverent passage is perfectly in the style
      and character of St. Jerom. It does not appear in Scaliger’s
      edition of his Chronicle; but Isaac Vossius found it in some old
      Mss. which had not been reformed by the monks.]

      73 (return) [ This noble and charitable foundation (almost a new
      city) surpassed in merit, if not in greatness, the pyramids, or
      the walls of Babylon. It was principally intended for the
      reception of lepers, (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. xx. p. 439.)]

      74 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xii. tit. i. leg. 63. Godefroy
      (tom. iv. p. 409-413) performs the duty of a commentator and
      advocate. Tillemont (Mém. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 808) _supposes_ a
      second law to excuse his orthodox friends, who had misrepresented
      the edict of Valens, and suppressed the liberty of choice.]

      75 (return) [ See D’Anville, Description de l’Egypte, p. 74.
      Hereafter I shall consider the monastic institutions.]

      76 (return) [ Socrates, l. iv. c. 24, 25. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33.
      Jerom. in Chron. p. 189, and tom. ii. p. 212. The monks of Egypt
      performed many miracles, which prove the truth of their faith.
      Right, says Jortin, (Remarks, vol iv. p. 79,) but what proves the
      truth of those miracles.]

      The strict regulations which have been framed by the wisdom of
      modern legislators to restrain the wealth and avarice of the
      clergy, may be originally deduced from the example of the emperor
      Valentinian. His edict, 77 addressed to Damasus, bishop of Rome,
      was publicly read in the churches of the city. He admonished the
      ecclesiastics and monks not to frequent the houses of widows and
      virgins; and menaced their disobedience with the animadversion of
      the civil judge. The director was no longer permitted to receive
      any gift, or legacy, or inheritance, from the liberality of his
      spiritual-daughter: every testament contrary to this edict was
      declared null and void; and the illegal donation was confiscated
      for the use of the treasury. By a subsequent regulation, it
      should seem, that the same provisions were extended to nuns and
      bishops; and that all persons of the ecclesiastical order were
      rendered incapable of receiving any testamentary gifts, and
      strictly confined to the natural and legal rights of inheritance.
      As the guardian of domestic happiness and virtue, Valentinian
      applied this severe remedy to the growing evil. In the capital of
      the empire, the females of noble and opulent houses possessed a
      very ample share of independent property: and many of those
      devout females had embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not
      only with the cold assent of the understanding, but with the
      warmth of affection, and perhaps with the eagerness of fashion.
      They sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury; and renounced,
      for the praise of chastity, the soft endearments of conjugal
      society. Some ecclesiastic, of real or apparent sanctity, was
      chosen to direct their timorous conscience, and to amuse the
      vacant tenderness of their heart: and the unbounded confidence,
      which they hastily bestowed, was often abused by knaves and
      enthusiasts; who hastened from the extremities of the East, to
      enjoy, on a splendid theatre, the privileges of the monastic
      profession. By their contempt of the world, they insensibly
      acquired its most desirable advantages; the lively attachment,
      perhaps of a young and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of an
      opulent household, and the respectful homage of the slaves, the
      freedmen, and the clients of a senatorial family. The immense
      fortunes of the Roman ladies were gradually consumed in lavish
      alms and expensive pilgrimages; and the artful monk, who had
      assigned himself the first, or possibly the sole place, in the
      testament of his spiritual daughter, still presumed to declare,
      with the smooth face of hypocrisy, that _he_ was only the
      instrument of charity, and the steward of the poor. The
      lucrative, but disgraceful, trade, 78 which was exercised by the
      clergy to defraud the expectations of the natural heirs, had
      provoked the indignation of a superstitious age: and two of the
      most respectable of the Latin fathers very honestly confess, that
      the ignominious edict of Valentinian was just and necessary; and
      that the Christian priests had deserved to lose a privilege,
      which was still enjoyed by comedians, charioteers, and the
      ministers of idols. But the wisdom and authority of the
      legislator are seldom victorious in a contest with the vigilant
      dexterity of private interest; and Jerom, or Ambrose, might
      patiently acquiesce in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary
      law. If the ecclesiastics were checked in the pursuit of personal
      emolument, they would exert a more laudable industry to increase
      the wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with the
      specious names of piety and patriotism. 79

      77 (return) [ Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 20. Godefroy,
      (tom. vi. p. 49,) after the example of Baronius, impartially
      collects all that the fathers have said on the subject of this
      important law; whose spirit was long afterwards revived by the
      emperor Frederic II., Edward I. of England, and other Christian
      princes who reigned after the twelfth century.]

      78 (return) [ The expressions which I have used are temperate and
      feeble, if compared with the vehement invectives of Jerom, (tom.
      i. p. 13, 45, 144, &c.) In _his_ turn he was reproached with the
      guilt which he imputed to his brother monks; and the
      _Sceleratus_, the _Versipellis_, was publicly accused as the
      lover of the widow Paula, (tom. ii. p. 363.) He undoubtedly
      possessed the affection, both of the mother and the daughter; but
      he declares that he never abused his influence to any selfish or
      sensual purpose.]

      79 (return) [ Pudet dicere, sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurigæ,
      et scorta, hæreditates capiunt: solis _clericis_ ac _monachis_
      hac lege prohibetur. Et non prohibetur a persecutoribus, sed a
      principibus Christianis. Nec de lege queror; sed doleo cur
      _meruerimus_ hanc legem. Jerom (tom. i. p. 13) discreetly
      insinuates the secret policy of his patron Damasus.]

      Damasus, bishop of Rome, who was constrained to stigmatize the
      avarice of his clergy by the publication of the law of
      Valentinian, had the good sense, or the good fortune, to engage
      in his service the zeal and abilities of the learned Jerom; and
      the grateful saint has celebrated the merit and purity of a very
      ambiguous character. 80 But the splendid vices of the church of
      Rome, under the reign of Valentinian and Damasus, have been
      curiously observed by the historian Ammianus, who delivers his
      impartial sense in these expressive words: “The præfecture of
      Juventius was accompanied with peace and plenty, but the
      tranquillity of his government was soon disturbed by a bloody
      sedition of the distracted people. The ardor of Damasus and
      Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the ordinary
      measure of human ambition. They contended with the rage of party;
      the quarrel was maintained by the wounds and death of their
      followers; and the præfect, unable to resist or appease the
      tumult, was constrained, by superior violence, to retire into the
      suburbs. Damasus prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on
      the side of his faction; one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies
      81 were found in the _Basilica_ of Sicininus, 82 where the
      Christians hold their religious assemblies; and it was long
      before the angry minds of the people resumed their accustomed
      tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the capital, I am
      not astonished that so valuable a prize should inflame the
      desires of ambitious men, and produce the fiercest and most
      obstinate contests. The successful candidate is secure, that he
      will be enriched by the offerings of matrons; 83 that, as soon as
      his dress is composed with becoming care and elegance, he may
      proceed, in his chariot, through the streets of Rome; 84 and that
      the sumptuousness of the Imperial table will not equal the
      profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste, and at
      the expense, of the Roman pontiffs. How much more rationally
      (continues the honest Pagan) would those pontiffs consult their
      true happiness, if, instead of alleging the greatness of the city
      as an excuse for their manners, they would imitate the exemplary
      life of some provincial bishops, whose temperance and sobriety,
      whose mean apparel and downcast looks, recommend their pure and
      modest virtue to the Deity and his true worshippers!” 85 The
      schism of Damasus and Ursinus was extinguished by the exile of
      the latter; and the wisdom of the præfect Prætextatus 86 restored
      the tranquillity of the city. Prætextatus was a philosophic
      Pagan, a man of learning, of taste, and politeness; who disguised
      a reproach in the form of a jest, when he assured Damasus, that
      if he could obtain the bishopric of Rome, he himself would
      immediately embrace the Christian religion. 87 This lively
      picture of the wealth and luxury of the popes in the fourth
      century becomes the more curious, as it represents the
      intermediate degree between the humble poverty of the apostolic
      fishermen, and the royal state of a temporal prince, whose
      dominions extend from the confines of Naples to the banks of the
      Po.

      80 (return) [ Three words of Jerom, _sanctæ memoriæ Damasus_
      (tom. ii. p. 109,) wash away all his stains, and blind the devout
      eyes of Tillemont. (Mem Eccles. tom. viii. p. 386-424.)]

      81 (return) [ Jerom himself is forced to allow, crudelissimæ
      interfectiones diversi sexûs perpetratæ, (in Chron. p. 186.) But
      an original _libel_, or petition of two presbyters of the adverse
      party, has unaccountably escaped. They affirm that the doors of
      the Basilica were burnt, and that the roof was untiled; that
      Damasus marched at the head of his own clergy, grave-diggers,
      charioteers, and hired gladiators; that none of _his_ party were
      killed, but that one hundred and sixty dead bodies were found.
      This petition is published by the P. Sirmond, in the first volume
      of his work.]

      82 (return) [ The _Basilica_ of Sicininus, or Liberius, is
      probably the church of Sancta Maria Maggiore, on the Esquiline
      hill. Baronius, A. D. 367 No. 3; and Donatus, Roma Antiqua et
      Nova, l. iv. c. 3, p. 462.]

      83 (return) [ The enemies of Damasus styled him _Auriscalpius
      Matronarum_ the ladies’ ear-scratcher.]

      84 (return) [ Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. xxxii. p. 526) describes
      the pride and luxury of the prelates who reigned in the Imperial
      cities; their gilt car, fiery steeds, numerous train, &c. The
      crowd gave way as to a wild beast.]

      85 (return) [ Ammian. xxvii. 3. Perpetuo Numini, _verisque_ ejus
      cultoribus. The incomparable pliancy of a polytheist!]

      86 (return) [ Ammianus, who makes a fair report of his præfecture
      (xxvii. 9) styles him præclaræ indolis, gravitatisque senator,
      (xxii. 7, and Vales. ad loc.) A curious inscription (Grutor MCII.
      No. 2) records, in two columns, his religious and civil honors.
      In one line he was Pontiff of the Sun, and of Vesta, Augur,
      Quindecemvir, Hierophant, &c., &c. In the other, 1. Quæstor
      candidatus, more probably titular. 2. Prætor. 3. Corrector of
      Tuscany and Umbria. 4. Consular of Lusitania. 5. Proconsul of
      Achaia. 6. Præfect of Rome. 7. Prætorian præfect of Italy. 8. Of
      Illyricum. 9. Consul elect; but he died before the beginning of
      the year 385. See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom v. p. 241,
      736.]

      87 (return) [ Facite me Romanæ urbis episcopum; et ero protinus
      Christianus (Jerom, tom. ii. p. 165.) It is more than probable
      that Damasus would not have purchased his conversion at such a
      price.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.—Part IV.


      When the suffrage of the generals and of the army committed the
      sceptre of the Roman empire to the hands of Valentinian, his
      reputation in arms, his military skill and experience, and his
      rigid attachment to the forms, as well as spirit, of ancient
      discipline, were the principal motives of their judicious choice.

      The eagerness of the troops, who pressed him to nominate his
      colleague, was justified by the dangerous situation of public
      affairs; and Valentinian himself was conscious, that the
      abilities of the most active mind were unequal to the defence of
      the distant frontiers of an invaded monarchy. As soon as the
      death of Julian had relieved the Barbarians from the terror of
      his name, the most sanguine hopes of rapine and conquest excited
      the nations of the East, of the North, and of the South. Their
      inroads were often vexatious, and sometimes formidable; but,
      during the twelve years of the reign of Valentinian, his firmness
      and vigilance protected his own dominions; and his powerful
      genius seemed to inspire and direct the feeble counsels of his
      brother. Perhaps the method of annals would more forcibly express
      the urgent and divided cares of the two emperors; but the
      attention of the reader, likewise, would be distracted by a
      tedious and desultory narrative. A separate view of the five
      great theatres of war; I. Germany; II. Britain; III. Africa; IV.
      The East; and, V. The Danube; will impress a more distinct image
      of the military state of the empire under the reigns of
      Valentinian and Valens.

      I. The ambassadors of the Alemanni had been offended by the harsh
      and haughty behavior of Ursacius, master of the offices; 88 who
      by an act of unseasonable parsimony, had diminished the value, as
      well as the quantity, of the presents to which they were
      entitled, either from custom or treaty, on the accession of a new
      emperor. They expressed, and they communicated to their
      countrymen, their strong sense of the national affront. The
      irascible minds of the chiefs were exasperated by the suspicion
      of contempt; and the martial youth crowded to their standard.
      Before Valentinian could pass the Alps, the villages of Gaul were
      in flames; before his general Degalaiphus could encounter the
      Alemanni, they had secured the captives and the spoil in the
      forests of Germany. In the beginning of the ensuing year, the
      military force of the whole nation, in deep and solid columns,
      broke through the barrier of the Rhine, during the severity of a
      northern winter. Two Roman counts were defeated and mortally
      wounded; and the standard of the Heruli and Batavians fell into
      the hands of the conquerors, who displayed, with insulting shouts
      and menaces, the trophy of their victory. The standard was
      recovered; but the Batavians had not redeemed the shame of their
      disgrace and flight in the eyes of their severe judge. It was the
      opinion of Valentinian, that his soldiers must learn to fear
      their commander, before they could cease to fear the enemy. The
      troops were solemnly assembled; and the trembling Batavians were
      enclosed within the circle of the Imperial army. Valentinian then
      ascended his tribunal; and, as if he disdained to punish
      cowardice with death, he inflicted a stain of indelible ignominy
      on the officers, whose misconduct and pusillanimity were found to
      be the first occasion of the defeat. The Batavians were degraded
      from their rank, stripped of their arms, and condemned to be sold
      for slaves to the highest bidder. At this tremendous sentence,
      the troops fell prostrate on the ground, deprecated the
      indignation of their sovereign, and protested, that, if he would
      indulge them in another trial, they would approve themselves not
      unworthy of the name of Romans, and of his soldiers. Valentinian,
      with affected reluctance, yielded to their entreaties; the
      Batavians resumed their arms, and with their arms, the invincible
      resolution of wiping away their disgrace in the blood of the
      Alemanni. 89 The principal command was declined by Dagalaiphus;
      and that experienced general, who had represented, perhaps with
      too much prudence, the extreme difficulties of the undertaking,
      had the mortification, before the end of the campaign, of seeing
      his rival Jovinus convert those difficulties into a decisive
      advantage over the scattered forces of the Barbarians. At the
      head of a well-disciplined army of cavalry, infantry, and light
      troops, Jovinus advanced, with cautious and rapid steps, to
      Scarponna, 90 9011 in the territory of Metz, where he surprised a
      large division of the Alemanni, before they had time to run to
      their arms; and flushed his soldiers with the confidence of an
      easy and bloodless victory. Another division, or rather army, of
      the enemy, after the cruel and wanton devastation of the adjacent
      country, reposed themselves on the shady banks of the Moselle.
      Jovinus, who had viewed the ground with the eye of a general,
      made a silent approach through a deep and woody vale, till he
      could distinctly perceive the indolent security of the Germans.
      Some were bathing their huge limbs in the river; others were
      combing their long and flaxen hair; others again were swallowing
      large draughts of rich and delicious wine. On a sudden they heard
      the sound of the Roman trumpet; they saw the enemy in their camp.
      Astonishment produced disorder; disorder was followed by flight
      and dismay; and the confused multitude of the bravest warriors
      was pierced by the swords and javelins of the legionaries and
      auxiliaries. The fugitives escaped to the third, and most
      considerable, camp, in the Catalonian plains, near Châlons in
      Champagne: the straggling detachments were hastily recalled to
      their standard; and the Barbarian chiefs, alarmed and admonished
      by the fate of their companions, prepared to encounter, in a
      decisive battle, the victorious forces of the lieutenant of
      Valentinian. The bloody and obstinate conflict lasted a whole
      summer’s day, with equal valor, and with alternate success. The
      Romans at length prevailed, with the loss of about twelve hundred
      men. Six thousand of the Alemanni were slain, four thousand were
      wounded; and the brave Jovinus, after chasing the flying remnant
      of their host as far as the banks of the Rhine, returned to
      Paris, to receive the applause of his sovereign, and the ensigns
      of the consulship for the ensuing year. 91 The triumph of the
      Romans was indeed sullied by their treatment of the captive king,
      whom they hung on a gibbet, without the knowledge of their
      indignant general. This disgraceful act of cruelty, which might
      be imputed to the fury of the troops, was followed by the
      deliberate murder of Withicab, the son of Vadomair; a German
      prince, of a weak and sickly constitution, but of a daring and
      formidable spirit. The domestic assassin was instigated and
      protected by the Romans; 92 and the violation of the laws of
      humanity and justice betrayed their secret apprehension of the
      weakness of the declining empire. The use of the dagger is seldom
      adopted in public councils, as long as they retain any confidence
      in the power of the sword.

      88 (return) [ Ammian, xxvi. 5. Valesius adds a long and good note
      on the master of the offices.]

      89 (return) [ Ammian. xxvii. 1. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 208. The
      disgrace of the Batavians is suppressed by the contemporary
      soldier, from a regard for military honor, which could not affect
      a Greek rhetorician of the succeeding age.]

      90 (return) [ See D’Anville, Notice de l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 587.
      The name of the Moselle, which is not specified by Ammianus, is
      clearly understood by Mascou, (Hist. of the Ancient Germans, vii.
      2)]

      9011 (return) [ Charpeigne on the Moselle. Mannert—M.]

      91 (return) [ The battles are described by Ammianus, (xxvii. 2,)
      and by Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 209,) who supposes Valentinian to have
      been present.]

      92 (return) [ Studio solicitante nostrorum, occubuit. Ammian
      xxvii. 10.]

      While the Alemanni appeared to be humbled by their recent
      calamities, the pride of Valentinian was mortified by the
      unexpected surprisal of Moguntiacum, or Mentz, the principal city
      of the Upper Germany. In the unsuspicious moment of a Christian
      festival, 9211 Rando, a bold and artful chieftain, who had long
      meditated his attempt, suddenly passed the Rhine; entered the
      defenceless town, and retired with a multitude of captives of
      either sex. Valentinian resolved to execute severe vengeance on
      the whole body of the nation. Count Sebastian, with the bands of
      Italy and Illyricum, was ordered to invade their country, most
      probably on the side of Rhætia. The emperor in person,
      accompanied by his son Gratian, passed the Rhine at the head of a
      formidable army, which was supported on both flanks by Jovinus
      and Severus, the two masters-general of the cavalry and infantry
      of the West. The Alemanni, unable to prevent the devastation of
      their villages, fixed their camp on a lofty, and almost
      inaccessible, mountain, in the modern duchy of Wirtemberg, and
      resolutely expected the approach of the Romans. The life of
      Valentinian was exposed to imminent danger by the intrepid
      curiosity with which he persisted to explore some secret and
      unguarded path. A troop of Barbarians suddenly rose from their
      ambuscade: and the emperor, who vigorously spurred his horse down
      a steep and slippery descent, was obliged to leave behind him his
      armor-bearer, and his helmet, magnificently enriched with gold
      and precious stones. At the signal of the general assault, the
      Roman troops encompassed and ascended the mountain of Solicinium
      on three different sides. 9212 Every step which they gained,
      increased their ardor, and abated the resistance of the enemy:
      and after their united forces had occupied the summit of the
      hill, they impetuously urged the Barbarians down the northern
      descent, where Count Sebastian was posted to intercept their
      retreat. After this signal victory, Valentinian returned to his
      winter quarters at Treves; where he indulged the public joy by
      the exhibition of splendid and triumphal games. 93 But the wise
      monarch, instead of aspiring to the conquest of Germany, confined
      his attention to the important and laborious defence of the
      Gallic frontier, against an enemy whose strength was renewed by a
      stream of daring volunteers, which incessantly flowed from the
      most distant tribes of the North. 94 The banks of the Rhine 9411
      from its source to the straits of the ocean, were closely planted
      with strong castles and convenient towers; new works, and new
      arms, were invented by the ingenuity of a prince who was skilled
      in the mechanical arts; and his numerous levies of Roman and
      Barbarian youth were severely trained in all the exercises of
      war. The progress of the work, which was sometimes opposed by
      modest representations, and sometimes by hostile attempts,
      secured the tranquillity of Gaul during the nine subsequent years
      of the administration of Valentinian. 95

      9211 (return) [ Probably Easter. Wagner.—M.]

      9212 (return) [ Mannert is unable to fix the position of
      Solicinium. Haefelin (in Comm Acad Elect. Palat. v. 14)
      conjectures Schwetzingen, near Heidelberg. See Wagner’s note. St.
      Martin, Sultz in Wirtemberg, near the sources of the Neckar St.
      Martin, iii. 339.—M.]

      93 (return) [ The expedition of Valentinian is related by
      Ammianus, (xxvii. 10;) and celebrated by Ausonius, (Mosell. 421,
      &c.,) who foolishly supposes, that the Romans were ignorant of
      the sources of the Danube.]

      94 (return) [ Immanis enim natio, jam inde ab incunabulis primis
      varietate casuum imminuta; ita sæpius adolescit, ut fuisse longis
      sæculis æstimetur intacta. Ammianus, xxviii. 5. The Count de Buat
      (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vi. p. 370) ascribes the
      fecundity of the Alemanni to their easy adoption of strangers.
      ——Note: “This explanation,” says Mr. Malthus, “only removes the
      difficulty a little farther off. It makes the earth rest upon the
      tortoise, but does not tell us on what the tortoise rests. We may
      still ask what northern reservoir supplied this incessant stream
      of daring adventurers. Montesquieu’s solution of the problem
      will, I think, hardly be admitted, (Grandeur et Décadence des
      Romains, c. 16, p. 187.) * * * The whole difficulty, however, is
      at once removed, if we apply to the German nations, at that time,
      a fact which is so generally known to have occurred in America,
      and suppose that, when not checked by wars and famine, they
      increased at a rate that would double their numbers in
      twenty-five or thirty years. The propriety, and even the
      necessity, of applying this rate of increase to the inhabitants
      of ancient Germany, will strikingly appear from that most
      valuable picture of their manners which has been left us by
      Tacitus, (Tac. de Mor. Germ. 16 to 20.) * * * With these manners,
      and a habit of enterprise and emigration, which would naturally
      remove all fears about providing for a family, it is difficult to
      conceive a society with a stronger principle of increase in it,
      and we see at once that prolific source of armies and colonies
      against which the force of the Roman empire so long struggled
      with difficulty, and under which it ultimately sunk. It is not
      probable that, for two periods together, or even for one, the
      population within the confines of Germany ever doubled itself in
      twenty-five years. Their perpetual wars, the rude state of
      agriculture, and particularly the very strange custom adopted by
      most of the tribes of marking their barriers by extensive
      deserts, would prevent any very great actual increase of numbers.
      At no one period could the country be called well peopled, though
      it was often redundant in population. * * * Instead of clearing
      their forests, draining their swamps, and rendering their soil
      fit to support an extended population, they found it more
      congenial to their martial habits and impatient dispositions to
      go in quest of food, of plunder, or of glory, into other
      countries.” Malthus on Population, i. p. 128.—G.]

      9411 (return) [ The course of the Neckar was likewise strongly
      guarded. The hyperbolical eulogy of Symmachus asserts that the
      Neckar first became known to the Romans by the conquests and
      fortifications of Valentinian. Nunc primum victoriis tuis
      externus fluvius publicatur. Gaudeat servitute, captivus
      innotuit. Symm. Orat. p. 22.—M.]

      95 (return) [ Ammian. xxviii. 2. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 214. The
      younger Victor mentions the mechanical genius of Valentinian,
      nova arma meditari fingere terra seu limo simulacra.]

      That prudent emperor, who diligently practised the wise maxims of
      Diocletian, was studious to foment and excite the intestine
      divisions of the tribes of Germany. About the middle of the
      fourth century, the countries, perhaps of Lusace and Thuringia,
      on either side of the Elbe, were occupied by the vague dominion
      of the Burgundians; a warlike and numerous people, 9511 of the
      Vandal race, 96 whose obscure name insensibly swelled into a
      powerful kingdom, and has finally settled on a flourishing
      province. The most remarkable circumstance in the ancient manners
      of the Burgundians appears to have been the difference of their
      civil and ecclesiastical constitution. The appellation of
      _Hendinos_ was given to the king or general, and the title of
      _Sinistus_ to the high priest, of the nation. The person of the
      priest was sacred, and his dignity perpetual; but the temporal
      government was held by a very precarious tenure. If the events of
      war accuses the courage or conduct of the king, he was
      immediately deposed; and the injustice of his subjects made him
      responsible for the fertility of the earth, and the regularity of
      the seasons, which seemed to fall more properly within the
      sacerdotal department. 97 The disputed possession of some
      salt-pits 98 engaged the Alemanni and the Burgundians in frequent
      contests: the latter were easily tempted, by the secret
      solicitations and liberal offers of the emperor; and their
      fabulous descent from the Roman soldiers, who had formerly been
      left to garrison the fortresses of Drusus, was admitted with
      mutual credulity, as it was conducive to mutual interest. 99 An
      army of fourscore thousand Burgundians soon appeared on the banks
      of the Rhine; and impatiently required the support and subsidies
      which Valentinian had promised: but they were amused with excuses
      and delays, till at length, after a fruitless expectation, they
      were compelled to retire. The arms and fortifications of the
      Gallic frontier checked the fury of their just resentment; and
      their massacre of the captives served to imbitter the hereditary
      feud of the Burgundians and the Alemanni. The inconstancy of a
      wise prince may, perhaps, be explained by some alteration of
      circumstances; and perhaps it was the original design of
      Valentinian to intimidate, rather than to destroy; as the balance
      of power would have been equally overturned by the extirpation of
      either of the German nations. Among the princes of the Alemanni,
      Macrianus, who, with a Roman name, had assumed the arts of a
      soldier and a statesman, deserved his hatred and esteem. The
      emperor himself, with a light and unencumbered band, condescended
      to pass the Rhine, marched fifty miles into the country, and
      would infallibly have seized the object of his pursuit, if his
      judicious measures had not been defeated by the impatience of the
      troops. Macrianus was afterwards admitted to the honor of a
      personal conference with the emperor; and the favors which he
      received, fixed him, till the hour of his death, a steady and
      sincere friend of the republic. 100

      9511 (return) [ According to the general opinion, the Burgundians
      formed a Gothic o Vandalic tribe, who, from the banks of the
      Lower Vistula, made incursions, on one side towards Transylvania,
      on the other towards the centre of Germany. All that remains of
      the Burgundian language is Gothic. * * * Nothing in their customs
      indicates a different origin. Malte Brun, Geog. tom. i. p. 396.
      (edit. 1831.)—M.]

      96 (return) [ Bellicosos et pubis immensæ viribus affluentes; et
      ideo metuendos finitimis universis. Ammian. xxviii. 5.]

      97 (return) [ I am always apt to suspect historians and
      travellers of improving extraordinary facts into general laws.
      Ammianus ascribes a similar custom to Egypt; and the Chinese have
      imputed it to the Ta-tsin, or Roman empire, (De Guignes, Hist.
      des Huns, tom. ii. part. 79.)]

      98 (return) [ Salinarum finiumque causa Alemannis sæpe jurgabant.
      Ammian xxviii. 5. Possibly they disputed the possession of the
      _Sala_, a river which produced salt, and which had been the
      object of ancient contention. Tacit. Annal. xiii. 57, and Lipsius
      ad loc.]

      99 (return) [ Jam inde temporibus priscis sobolem se esse Romanam
      Burgundii sciunt: and the vague tradition gradually assumed a
      more regular form, (Oros. l. vii. c. 32.) It is annihilated by
      the decisive authority of Pliny, who composed the History of
      Drusus, and served in Germany, (Plin. Secund. Epist. iii. 5,)
      within sixty years after the death of that hero. _Germanorum
      genera_ quinque; Vindili, quorum pars _Burgundiones_, &c., (Hist.
      Natur. iv. 28.)]

      100 (return) [ The wars and negotiations relative to the
      Burgundians and Alemanni, are distinctly related by Ammianus
      Marcellinus, (xxviii. 5, xxix 4, xxx. 3.) Orosius, (l. vii. c.
      32,) and the Chronicles of Jerom and Cassiodorus, fix some dates,
      and add some circumstances.]

      The land was covered by the fortifications of Valentinian; but
      the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain was exposed to the depredations
      of the Saxons. That celebrated name, in which we have a dear and
      domestic interest, escaped the notice of Tacitus; and in the maps
      of Ptolemy, it faintly marks the narrow neck of the Cimbric
      peninsula, and three small islands towards the mouth of the Elbe.
      101 This contracted territory, the present duchy of Sleswig, or
      perhaps of Holstein, was incapable of pouring forth the
      inexhaustible swarms of Saxons who reigned over the ocean, who
      filled the British island with their language, their laws, and
      their colonies; and who so long defended the liberty of the North
      against the arms of Charlemagne. 102 The solution of this
      difficulty is easily derived from the similar manners, and loose
      constitution, of the tribes of Germany; which were blended with
      each other by the slightest accidents of war or friendship. The
      situation of the native Saxons disposed them to embrace the
      hazardous professions of fishermen and pirates; and the success
      of their first adventures would naturally excite the emulation of
      their bravest countrymen, who were impatient of the gloomy
      solitude of their woods and mountains. Every tide might float
      down the Elbe whole fleets of canoes, filled with hardy and
      intrepid associates, who aspired to behold the unbounded prospect
      of the ocean, and to taste the wealth and luxury of unknown
      worlds. It should seem probable, however, that the most numerous
      auxiliaries of the Saxons were furnished by the nations who dwelt
      along the shores of the Baltic. They possessed arms and ships,
      the art of navigation, and the habits of naval war; but the
      difficulty of issuing through the northern columns of Hercules
      103 (which, during several months of the year, are obstructed
      with ice) confined their skill and courage within the limits of a
      spacious lake. The rumor of the successful armaments which sailed
      from the mouth of the Elbe, would soon provoke them to cross the
      narrow isthmus of Sleswig, and to launch their vessels on the
      great sea. The various troops of pirates and adventurers, who
      fought under the same standard, were insensibly united in a
      permanent society, at first of rapine, and afterwards of
      government. A military confederation was gradually moulded into a
      national body, by the gentle operation of marriage and
      consanguinity; and the adjacent tribes, who solicited the
      alliance, accepted the name and laws, of the Saxons. If the fact
      were not established by the most unquestionable evidence, we
      should appear to abuse the credulity of our readers, by the
      description of the vessels in which the Saxon pirates ventured to
      sport in the waves of the German Ocean, the British Channel, and
      the Bay of Biscay. The keel of their large flat-bottomed boats
      were framed of light timber, but the sides and upper works
      consisted only of wicker, with a covering of strong hides. 104 In
      the course of their slow and distant navigations, they must
      always have been exposed to the danger, and very frequently to
      the misfortune, of shipwreck; and the naval annals of the Saxons
      were undoubtedly filled with the accounts of the losses which
      they sustained on the coasts of Britain and Gaul. But the daring
      spirit of the pirates braved the perils both of the sea and of
      the shore: their skill was confirmed by the habits of enterprise;
      the meanest of their mariners was alike capable of handling an
      oar, of rearing a sail, or of conducting a vessel, and the Saxons
      rejoiced in the appearance of a tempest, which concealed their
      design, and dispersed the fleets of the enemy. 105 After they had
      acquired an accurate knowledge of the maritime provinces of the
      West, they extended the scene of their depredations, and the most
      sequestered places had no reason to presume on their security.
      The Saxon boats drew so little water that they could easily
      proceed fourscore or a hundred miles up the great rivers; their
      weight was so inconsiderable, that they were transported on
      wagons from one river to another; and the pirates who had entered
      the mouth of the Seine, or of the Rhine, might descend, with the
      rapid stream of the Rhone, into the Mediterranean. Under the
      reign of Valentinian, the maritime provinces of Gaul were
      afflicted by the Saxons: a military count was stationed for the
      defence of the sea-coast, or Armorican limit; and that officer,
      who found his strength, or his abilities, unequal to the task,
      implored the assistance of Severus, master-general of the
      infantry. The Saxons, surrounded and outnumbered, were forced to
      relinquish their spoil, and to yield a select band of their tall
      and robust youth to serve in the Imperial armies. They stipulated
      only a safe and honorable retreat; and the condition was readily
      granted by the Roman general, who meditated an act of perfidy,
      106 imprudent as it was inhuman, while a Saxon remained alive,
      and in arms, to revenge the fate of their countrymen. The
      premature eagerness of the infantry, who were secretly posted in
      a deep valley, betrayed the ambuscade; and they would perhaps
      have fallen the victims of their own treachery, if a large body
      of cuirassiers, alarmed by the noise of the combat, had not
      hastily advanced to extricate their companions, and to overwhelm
      the undaunted valor of the Saxons. Some of the prisoners were
      saved from the edge of the sword, to shed their blood in the
      amphitheatre; and the orator Symmachus complains, that
      twenty-nine of those desperate savages, by strangling themselves
      with their own hands, had disappointed the amusement of the
      public. Yet the polite and philosophic citizens of Rome were
      impressed with the deepest horror, when they were informed, that
      the Saxons consecrated to the gods the tithe of their _human_
      spoil; and that they ascertained by lot the objects of the
      barbarous sacrifice. 107

      101 (return) [ At the northern extremity of the peninsula, (the
      Cimbric promontory of Pliny, iv. 27,) Ptolemy fixes the remnant
      of the _Cimbri_. He fills the interval between the _Saxons_ and
      the Cimbri with six obscure tribes, who were united, as early as
      the sixth century, under the national appellation of _Danes_. See
      Cluver. German. Antiq. l. iii. c. 21, 22, 23.]

      102 (return) [ M. D’Anville (Establissement des Etats de
      l’Europe, &c., p. 19-26) has marked the extensive limits of the
      Saxony of Charlemagne.]

      103 (return) [ The fleet of Drusus had failed in their attempt to
      pass, or even to approach, the _Sound_, (styled, from an obvious
      resemblance, the columns of Hercules,) and the naval enterprise
      was never resumed, (Tacit. de Moribus German. c. 34.) The
      knowledge which the Romans acquired of the naval powers of the
      Baltic, (c. 44, 45) was obtained by their land journeys in search
      of amber.]

      104 (return) [ Quin et Aremoricus piratam _Saxona_ tractus
      Sperabat; cui pelle salum sulcare Britannum
      Ludus; et assuto glaucum mare findere lembo.
      Sidon. in Panegyr. Avit. 369.

      The genius of Cæsar imitated, for a particular service, these
      rude, but light vessels, which were likewise used by the natives
      of Britain. (Comment. de Bell. Civil. i. 51, and Guichardt,
      Nouveaux Mémoires Militaires, tom. ii. p. 41, 42.) The British
      vessels would now astonish the genius of Cæsar.]

      105 (return) [ The best original account of the Saxon pirates may
      be found in Sidonius Apollinaris, (l. viii. epist. 6, p. 223,
      edit. Sirmond,) and the best commentary in the Abbé du Bos,
      (Hist. Critique de la Monarchie Françoise, &c. tom. i. l. i. c.
      16, p. 148-155. See likewise p. 77, 78.)]

      106 (return) [ Ammian. (xxviii. 5) justifies this breach of faith
      to pirates and robbers; and Orosius (l. vii. c. 32) more clearly
      expresses their real guilt; virtute atque agilitate terribeles.]

      107 (return) [ Symmachus (l. ii. epist. 46) still presumes to
      mention the sacred name of Socrates and philosophy. Sidonius,
      bishop of Clermont, might condemn, (l. viii. epist. 6,) with
      _less_ inconsistency, the human sacrifices of the Saxons.]

      II. The fabulous colonies of Egyptians and Trojans, of
      Scandinavians and Spaniards, which flattered the pride, and
      amused the credulity, of our rude ancestors, have insensibly
      vanished in the light of science and philosophy. 108 The present
      age is satisfied with the simple and rational opinion, that the
      islands of Great Britain and Ireland were gradually peopled from
      the adjacent continent of Gaul. From the coast of Kent, to the
      extremity of Caithness and Ulster, the memory of a Celtic origin
      was distinctly preserved, in the perpetual resemblance of
      language, of religion, and of manners; and the peculiar
      characters of the British tribes might be naturally ascribed to
      the influence of accidental and local circumstances. 109 The
      Roman Province was reduced to the state of civilized and peaceful
      servitude; the rights of savage freedom were contracted to the
      narrow limits of Caledonia. The inhabitants of that northern
      region were divided, as early as the reign of Constantine,
      between the two great tribes of the Scots and of the Picts, 110
      who have since experienced a very different fortune. The power,
      and almost the memory, of the Picts have been extinguished by
      their successful rivals; and the Scots, after maintaining for
      ages the dignity of an independent kingdom, have multiplied, by
      an equal and voluntary union, the honors of the English name. The
      hand of nature had contributed to mark the ancient distinctions
      of the Scots and Picts. The former were the men of the hills, and
      the latter those of the plain. The eastern coast of Caledonia may
      be considered as a level and fertile country, which, even in a
      rude state of tillage, was capable of producing a considerable
      quantity of corn; and the epithet of _cruitnich_, or
      wheat-eaters, expressed the contempt or envy of the carnivorous
      highlander. The cultivation of the earth might introduce a more
      accurate separation of property, and the habits of a sedentary
      life; but the love of arms and rapine was still the ruling
      passion of the Picts; and their warriors, who stripped themselves
      for a day of battle, were distinguished, in the eyes of the
      Romans, by the strange fashion of painting their naked bodies
      with gaudy colors and fantastic figures. The western part of
      Caledonia irregularly rises into wild and barren hills, which
      scarcely repay the toil of the husbandman, and are most
      profitably used for the pasture of cattle. The highlanders were
      condemned to the occupations of shepherds and hunters; and, as
      they seldom were fixed to any permanent habitation, they acquired
      the expressive name of Scots, which, in the Celtic tongue, is
      said to be equivalent to that of _wanderers_, or _vagrants_. The
      inhabitants of a barren land were urged to seek a fresh supply of
      food in the waters. The deep lakes and bays which intersect their
      country, are plentifully supplied with fish; and they gradually
      ventured to cast their nets in the waves of the ocean. The
      vicinity of the Hebrides, so profusely scattered along the
      western coast of Scotland, tempted their curiosity, and improved
      their skill; and they acquired, by slow degrees, the art, or
      rather the habit, of managing their boats in a tempestuous sea,
      and of steering their nocturnal course by the light of the
      well-known stars. The two bold headlands of Caledonia almost
      touch the shores of a spacious island, which obtained, from its
      luxuriant vegetation, the epithet of _Green;_ and has preserved,
      with a slight alteration, the name of Erin, or Ierne, or Ireland.
      It is _probable_, that in some remote period of antiquity, the
      fertile plains of Ulster received a colony of hungry Scots; and
      that the strangers of the North, who had dared to encounter the
      arms of the legions, spread their conquests over the savage and
      unwarlike natives of a solitary island. It is _certain_, that, in
      the declining age of the Roman empire, Caledonia, Ireland, and
      the Isle of Man, were inhabited by the Scots, and that the
      kindred tribes, who were often associated in military enterprise,
      were deeply affected by the various accidents of their mutual
      fortunes. They long cherished the lively tradition of their
      common name and origin; and the missionaries of the Isle of
      Saints, who diffused the light of Christianity over North
      Britain, established the vain opinion, that their Irish
      countrymen were the natural, as well as spiritual, fathers of the
      Scottish race. The loose and obscure tradition has been preserved
      by the venerable Bede, who scattered some rays of light over the
      darkness of the eighth century. On this slight foundation, a huge
      superstructure of fable was gradually reared, by the bards and
      the monks; two orders of men, who equally abused the privilege of
      fiction. The Scottish nation, with mistaken pride, adopted their
      Irish genealogy; and the annals of a long line of imaginary kings
      have been adorned by the fancy of Boethius, and the classic
      elegance of Buchanan. 111

      108 (return) [ In the beginning of the last century, the learned
      Camden was obliged to undermine, with respectful scepticism, the
      romance of _Brutus_, the Trojan; who is now buried in silent
      oblivion with _Scota_, the daughter of Pharaoh, and her numerous
      progeny. Yet I am informed, that some champions of the _Milesian
      colony_ may still be found among the original natives of Ireland.
      A people dissatisfied with their present condition, grasp at any
      visions of their past or future glory.]

      109 (return) [ Tacitus, or rather his father-in-law, Agricola,
      might remark the German or Spanish complexion of some British
      tribes. But it was their sober, deliberate opinion: “In universum
      tamen æstimanti Gallos cicinum solum occupâsse credibile est.
      Eorum sacra deprehendas.... ermo haud multum diversus,” (in Vit.
      Agricol. c. xi.) Cæsar had observed their common religion,
      (Comment. de Bello Gallico, vi. 13;) and in his time the
      emigration from the Belgic Gaul was a recent, or at least an
      historical event, (v. 10.) Camden, the British Strabo, has
      modestly ascertained our genuine antiquities, (Britannia, vol. i.
      Introduction, p. ii.—xxxi.)]

      110 (return) [ In the dark and doubtful paths of Caledonian
      antiquity, I have chosen for my guides two learned and ingenious
      Highlanders, whom their birth and education had peculiarly
      qualified for that office. See Critical Dissertations on the
      Origin and Antiquities, &c., of the Caledonians, by Dr. John
      Macpherson, London 1768, in 4to.; and Introduction to the History
      of Great Britain and Ireland, by James Macpherson, Esq., London
      1773, in 4to., third edit. Dr. Macpherson was a minister in the
      Isle of Sky: and it is a circumstance honorable for the present
      age, that a work, replete with erudition and criticism, should
      have been composed in the most remote of the Hebrides.]

      111 (return) [ The Irish descent of the Scots has been revived in
      the last moments of its decay, and strenuously supported, by the
      Rev. Mr. Whitaker, (Hist. of Manchester, vol. i. p. 430, 431; and
      Genuine History of the Britons asserted, &c., p. 154-293) Yet he
      acknowledges, 1. _That_ the Scots of Ammianus Marcellinus (A.D.
      340) were already settled in Caledonia; and that the Roman
      authors do not afford any hints of their emigration from another
      country. 2. _That_ all the accounts of such emigrations, which
      have been asserted or received, by Irish bards, Scotch
      historians, or English antiquaries, (Buchanan, Camden, Usher,
      Stillingfleet, &c.,) are totally fabulous. 3. _That_ three of the
      Irish tribes, which are mentioned by Ptolemy, (A.D. 150,) were of
      Caledonian extraction. 4. _That_ a younger branch of Caledonian
      princes, of the house of Fingal, acquired and possessed the
      monarchy of Ireland. After these concessions, the remaining
      difference between Mr. Whitaker and his adversaries is minute and
      obscure. The _genuine history_, which he produces, of a Fergus,
      the cousin of Ossian, who was transplanted (A.D. 320) from
      Ireland to Caledonia, is built on a conjectural supplement to the
      Erse poetry, and the feeble evidence of Richard of Cirencester, a
      monk of the fourteenth century. The lively spirit of the learned
      and ingenious antiquarian has tempted him to forget the nature of
      a question, which he so _vehemently_ debates, and so _absolutely_
      decides. * Note: This controversy has not slumbered since the
      days of Gibbon. We have strenuous advocates of the Phœnician
      origin of the Irish, and each of the old theories, with several
      new ones, maintains its partisans. It would require several pages
      fairly to bring down the dispute to our own days, and perhaps we
      should be no nearer to any satisfactory theory than Gibbon
      was.—M.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.—Part V.


      Six years after the death of Constantine, the destructive inroads
      of the Scots and Picts required the presence of his youngest son,
      who reigned in the Western empire. Constans visited his British
      dominions: but we may form some estimate of the importance of his
      achievements, by the language of panegyric, which celebrates only
      his triumph over the elements or, in other words, the good
      fortune of a safe and easy passage from the port of Boulogne to
      the harbor of Sandwich. 112 The calamities which the afflicted
      provincials continued to experience, from foreign war and
      domestic tyranny, were aggravated by the feeble and corrupt
      administration of the eunuchs of Constantius; and the transient
      relief which they might obtain from the virtues of Julian, was
      soon lost by the absence and death of their benefactor. The sums
      of gold and silver, which had been painfully collected, or
      liberally transmitted, for the payment of the troops, were
      intercepted by the avarice of the commanders; discharges, or, at
      least, exemptions, from the military service, were publicly sold;
      the distress of the soldiers, who were injuriously deprived of
      their legal and scanty subsistence, provoked them to frequent
      desertion; the nerves of discipline were relaxed, and the
      highways were infested with robbers. 113 The oppression of the
      good, and the impunity of the wicked, equally contributed to
      diffuse through the island a spirit of discontent and revolt; and
      every ambitious subject, every desperate exile, might entertain a
      reasonable hope of subverting the weak and distracted government
      of Britain. The hostile tribes of the North, who detested the
      pride and power of the King of the World, suspended their
      domestic feuds; and the Barbarians of the land and sea, the
      Scots, the Picts, and the Saxons, spread themselves with rapid
      and irresistible fury, from the wall of Antoninus to the shores
      of Kent. Every production of art and nature, every object of
      convenience and luxury, which they were incapable of creating by
      labor or procuring by trade, was accumulated in the rich and
      fruitful province of Britain. 114 A philosopher may deplore the
      eternal discords of the human race, but he will confess, that the
      desire of spoil is a more rational provocation than the vanity of
      conquest. From the age of Constantine to the Plantagenets, this
      rapacious spirit continued to instigate the poor and hardy
      Caledonians; but the same people, whose generous humanity seems
      to inspire the songs of Ossian, was disgraced by a savage
      ignorance of the virtues of peace, and of the laws of war. Their
      southern neighbors have felt, and perhaps exaggerated, the cruel
      depredations of the Scots and Picts; 115 and a valiant tribe of
      Caledonia, the Attacotti, 116 the enemies, and afterwards the
      soldiers, of Valentinian, are accused, by an eye-witness, of
      delighting in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the
      woods for prey, it is said, that they attacked the shepherd
      rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most
      delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, which they
      prepared for their horrid repasts. 117 If, in the neighborhood of
      the commercial and literary town of Glasgow, a race of cannibals
      has really existed, we may contemplate, in the period of the
      Scottish history, the opposite extremes of savage and civilized
      life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas;
      and to encourage the pleasing hope, that New Zealand may produce,
      in some future age, the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere.

      112 (return) [ Hyeme tumentes ac sævientes undas calcâstis Oceani
      sub remis vestris;... insperatam imperatoris faciem Britannus
      expavit. Julius Fermicus Maternus de Errore Profan. Relig. p.
      464. edit. Gronov. ad calcem Minuc. Fæl. See Tillemont, (Hist.
      des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 336.)]

      113 (return) [ Libanius, Orat. Parent. c. xxxix. p. 264. This
      curious passage has escaped the diligence of our British
      antiquaries.]

      114 (return) [ The Caledonians praised and coveted the gold, the
      steeds, the lights, &c., of the _stranger_. See Dr. Blair’s
      Dissertation on Ossian, vol ii. p. 343; and Mr. Macpherson’s
      Introduction, p. 242-286.]

      115 (return) [ Lord Lyttelton has circumstantially related,
      (History of Henry II. vol. i. p. 182,) and Sir David Dalrymple
      has slightly mentioned, (Annals of Scotland, vol. i. p. 69,) a
      barbarous inroad of the Scots, at a time (A.D. 1137) when law,
      religion, and society must have softened their primitive
      manners.]

      116 (return) [ Attacotti bellicosa hominum natio. Ammian. xxvii.
      8. Camden (Introduct. p. clii.) has restored their true name in
      the text of Jerom. The bands of Attacotti, which Jerom had seen
      in Gaul, were afterwards stationed in Italy and Illyricum,
      (Notitia, S. viii. xxxix. xl.)]

      117 (return) [ Cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia viderim
      Attacottos (or Scotos) gentem Britannicam humanis vesci carnibus;
      et cum per silvas porcorum greges, et armentorum percudumque
      reperiant, pastorum _nates_ et feminarum _papillas_ solere
      abscindere; et has solas ciborum delicias arbitrari. Such is the
      evidence of Jerom, (tom. ii. p. 75,) whose veracity I find no
      reason to question. * Note: See Dr. Parr’s works, iii. 93, where
      he questions the propriety of Gibbon’s translation of this
      passage. The learned doctor approves of the version proposed by a
      Mr. Gaches, who would make out that it was the delicate parts of
      the swine and the cattle, which were eaten by these ancestors of
      the Scotch nation. I confess that even to acquit them of this
      charge. I cannot agree to the new version, which, in my opinion,
      is directly contrary both to the meaning of the words, and the
      general sense of the passage. But I would suggest, did Jerom, as
      a boy, accompany these savages in any of their hunting
      expeditions? If he did not, how could he be an eye-witness of
      this practice? The Attacotti in Gaul must have been in the
      service of Rome. Were they permitted to indulge these cannibal
      propensities at the expense, not of the flocks, but of the
      shepherds of the provinces? These sanguinary trophies of plunder
      would scarce’y have been publicly exhibited in a Roman city or a
      Roman camp. I must leave the hereditary pride of our northern
      neighbors at issue with the veracity of St. Jerom.—M.]

      Every messenger who escaped across the British Channel, conveyed
      the most melancholy and alarming tidings to the ears of
      Valentinian; and the emperor was soon informed that the two
      military commanders of the province had been surprised and cut
      off by the Barbarians. Severus, count of the domestics, was
      hastily despatched, and as suddenly recalled, by the court of
      Treves. The representations of Jovinus served only to indicate
      the greatness of the evil; and, after a long and serious
      consultation, the defence, or rather the recovery, of Britain was
      intrusted to the abilities of the brave Theodosius. The exploits
      of that general, the father of a line of emperors, have been
      celebrated, with peculiar complacency, by the writers of the age:
      but his real merit deserved their applause; and his nomination
      was received, by the army and province, as a sure presage of
      approaching victory. He seized the favorable moment of
      navigation, and securely landed the numerous and veteran bands of
      the Heruli and Batavians, the Jovians and the Victors. In his
      march from Sandwich to London, Theodosius defeated several
      parties of the Barbarians, released a multitude of captives, and,
      after distributing to his soldiers a small portion of the spoil,
      established the fame of disinterested justice, by the restitution
      of the remainder to the rightful proprietors. The citizens of
      London, who had almost despaired of their safety, threw open
      their gates; and as soon as Theodosius had obtained from the
      court of Treves the important aid of a military lieutenant, and a
      civil governor, he executed, with wisdom and vigor, the laborious
      task of the deliverance of Britain. The vagrant soldiers were
      recalled to their standard; an edict of amnesty dispelled the
      public apprehensions; and his cheerful example alleviated the
      rigor of martial discipline. The scattered and desultory warfare
      of the Barbarians, who infested the land and sea, deprived him of
      the glory of a signal victory; but the prudent spirit, and
      consummate art, of the Roman general, were displayed in the
      operations of two campaigns, which successively rescued every
      part of the province from the hands of a cruel and rapacious
      enemy. The splendor of the cities, and the security of the
      fortifications, were diligently restored, by the paternal care of
      Theodosius; who with a strong hand confined the trembling
      Caledonians to the northern angle of the island; and perpetuated,
      by the name and settlement of the new province of _Valentia_, the
      glories of the reign of Valentinian. 118 The voice of poetry and
      panegyric may add, perhaps with some degree of truth, that the
      unknown regions of Thule were stained with the blood of the
      Picts; that the oars of Theodosius dashed the waves of the
      Hyperborean ocean; and that the distant Orkneys were the scene of
      his naval victory over the Saxon pirates. 119 He left the
      province with a fair, as well as splendid, reputation; and was
      immediately promoted to the rank of master-general of the
      cavalry, by a prince who could applaud, without envy, the merit
      of his servants. In the important station of the Upper Danube,
      the conqueror of Britain checked and defeated the armies of the
      Alemanni, before he was chosen to suppress the revolt of Africa.

      118 (return) [ Ammianus has concisely represented (xx. l. xxvi.
      4, xxvii. 8 xxviii. 3) the whole series of the British war.]

      119 (return) [ Horrescit.... ratibus.... impervia Thule. Ille....
      nec falso nomine Pictos Edomuit. Scotumque vago mucrone secutus,
      Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas. Claudian, in iii. Cons.
      Honorii, ver. 53, &c—Madurunt Saxone fuso Orcades: incaluit
      Pictorum sanguine Thule, Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne.
      In iv. Cons. Hon. ver. 31, &c. ——See likewise Pacatus, (in
      Panegyr. Vet. xii. 5.) But it is not easy to appreciate the
      intrinsic value of flattery and metaphor. Compare the _British_
      victories of Bolanus (Statius, Silv. v. 2) with his real
      character, (Tacit. in Vit. Agricol. c. 16.)]

      III. The prince who refuses to be the judge, instructs the people
      to consider him as the accomplice, of his ministers. The military
      command of Africa had been long exercised by Count Romanus, and
      his abilities were not inadequate to his station; but, as sordid
      interest was the sole motive of his conduct, he acted, on most
      occasions, as if he had been the enemy of the province, and the
      friend of the Barbarians of the desert. The three flourishing
      cities of Oea, Leptis, and Sobrata, which, under the name of
      Tripoli, had long constituted a federal union, 120 were obliged,
      for the first time, to shut their gates against a hostile
      invasion; several of their most honorable citizens were surprised
      and massacred; the villages, and even the suburbs, were pillaged;
      and the vines and fruit trees of that rich territory were
      extirpated by the malicious savages of Getulia. The unhappy
      provincials implored the protection of Romanus; but they soon
      found that their military governor was not less cruel and
      rapacious than the Barbarians. As they were incapable of
      furnishing the four thousand camels, and the exorbitant present,
      which he required, before he would march to the assistance of
      Tripoli; his demand was equivalent to a refusal, and he might
      justly be accused as the author of the public calamity. In the
      annual assembly of the three cities, they nominated two deputies,
      to lay at the feet of Valentinian the customary offering of a
      gold victory; and to accompany this tribute of duty, rather than
      of gratitude, with their humble complaint, that they were ruined
      by the enemy, and betrayed by their governor. If the severity of
      Valentinian had been rightly directed, it would have fallen on
      the guilty head of Romanus. But the count, long exercised in the
      arts of corruption, had despatched a swift and trusty messenger
      to secure the venal friendship of Remigius, master of the
      offices. The wisdom of the Imperial council was deceived by
      artifice; and their honest indignation was cooled by delay. At
      length, when the repetition of complaint had been justified by
      the repetition of public misfortunes, the notary Palladius was
      sent from the court of Treves, to examine the state of Africa,
      and the conduct of Romanus. The rigid impartiality of Palladius
      was easily disarmed: he was tempted to reserve for himself a part
      of the public treasure, which he brought with him for the payment
      of the troops; and from the moment that he was conscious of his
      own guilt, he could no longer refuse to attest the innocence and
      merit of the count. The charge of the Tripolitans was declared to
      be false and frivolous; and Palladius himself was sent back from
      Treves to Africa, with a special commission to discover and
      prosecute the authors of this impious conspiracy against the
      representatives of the sovereign. His inquiries were managed with
      so much dexterity and success, that he compelled the citizens of
      Leptis, who had sustained a recent siege of eight days, to
      contradict the truth of their own decrees, and to censure the
      behavior of their own deputies. A bloody sentence was pronounced,
      without hesitation, by the rash and headstrong cruelty of
      Valentinian. The president of Tripoli, who had presumed to pity
      the distress of the province, was publicly executed at Utica;
      four distinguished citizens were put to death, as the accomplices
      of the imaginary fraud; and the tongues of two others were cut
      out, by the express order of the emperor. Romanus, elated by
      impunity, and irritated by resistance, was still continued in the
      military command; till the Africans were provoked, by his
      avarice, to join the rebellious standard of Firmus, the Moor. 121

      120 (return) [ Ammianus frequently mentions their concilium
      annuum, legitimum, &c. Leptis and Sabrata are long since ruined;
      but the city of Oea, the native country of Apuleius, still
      flourishes under the provincial denomination of _Tripoli_. See
      Cellarius (Geograph. Antiqua, tom. ii. part ii. p. 81,)
      D’Anville, (Geographie Ancienne, tom. iii. p. 71, 72,) and
      Marmol, (Arrique, tom. ii. p. 562.)]

      121 (return) [ Ammian. xviii. 6. Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. v. p 25, 676) has discussed the chronological difficulties
      of the history of Count Romanus.]

      His father Nabal was one of the richest and most powerful of the
      Moorish princes, who acknowledged the supremacy of Rome. But as
      he left, either by his wives or concubines, a very numerous
      posterity, the wealthy inheritance was eagerly disputed; and
      Zamma, one of his sons, was slain in a domestic quarrel by his
      brother Firmus. The implacable zeal, with which Romanus
      prosecuted the legal revenge of this murder, could be ascribed
      only to a motive of avarice, or personal hatred; but, on this
      occasion, his claims were just; his influence was weighty; and
      Firmus clearly understood, that he must either present his neck
      to the executioner, or appeal from the sentence of the Imperial
      consistory, to his sword, and to the people. 122 He was received
      as the deliverer of his country; and, as soon as it appeared that
      Romanus was formidable only to a submissive province, the tyrant
      of Africa became the object of universal contempt. The ruin of
      Cæsarea, which was plundered and burnt by the licentious
      Barbarians, convinced the refractory cities of the danger of
      resistance; the power of Firmus was established, at least in the
      provinces of Mauritania and Numidia; and it seemed to be his only
      doubt whether he should assume the diadem of a Moorish king, or
      the purple of a Roman emperor. But the imprudent and unhappy
      Africans soon discovered, that, in this rash insurrection, they
      had not sufficiently consulted their own strength, or the
      abilities of their leader. Before he could procure any certain
      intelligence, that the emperor of the West had fixed the choice
      of a general, or that a fleet of transports was collected at the
      mouth of the Rhone, he was suddenly informed that the great
      Theodosius, with a small band of veterans, had landed near
      Igilgilis, or Gigeri, on the African coast; and the timid usurper
      sunk under the ascendant of virtue and military genius. Though
      Firmus possessed arms and treasures, his despair of victory
      immediately reduced him to the use of those arts, which, in the
      same country, and in a similar situation, had formerly been
      practised by the crafty Jugurtha. He attempted to deceive, by an
      apparent submission, the vigilance of the Roman general; to
      seduce the fidelity of his troops; and to protract the duration
      of the war, by successively engaging the independent tribes of
      Africa to espouse his quarrel, or to protect his flight.
      Theodosius imitated the example, and obtained the success, of his
      predecessor Metellus. When Firmus, in the character of a
      suppliant, accused his own rashness, and humbly solicited the
      clemency of the emperor, the lieutenant of Valentinian received
      and dismissed him with a friendly embrace: but he diligently
      required the useful and substantial pledges of a sincere
      repentance; nor could he be persuaded, by the assurances of
      peace, to suspend, for an instant, the operations of an active
      war. A dark conspiracy was detected by the penetration of
      Theodosius; and he satisfied, without much reluctance, the public
      indignation, which he had secretly excited. Several of the guilty
      accomplices of Firmus were abandoned, according to ancient
      custom, to the tumult of a military execution; many more, by the
      amputation of both their hands, continued to exhibit an
      instructive spectacle of horror; the hatred of the rebels was
      accompanied with fear; and the fear of the Roman soldiers was
      mingled with respectful admiration. Amidst the boundless plains
      of Getulia, and the innumerable valleys of Mount Atlas, it was
      impossible to prevent the escape of Firmus; and if the usurper
      could have tired the patience of his antagonist, he would have
      secured his person in the depth of some remote solitude, and
      expected the hopes of a future revolution. He was subdued by the
      perseverance of Theodosius; who had formed an inflexible
      determination, that the war should end only by the death of the
      tyrant; and that every nation of Africa, which presumed to
      support his cause, should be involved in his ruin. At the head of
      a small body of troops, which seldom exceeded three thousand five
      hundred men, the Roman general advanced, with a steady prudence,
      devoid of rashness or of fear, into the heart of a country, where
      he was sometimes attacked by armies of twenty thousand Moors. The
      boldness of his charge dismayed the irregular Barbarians; they
      were disconcerted by his seasonable and orderly retreats; they
      were continually baffled by the unknown resources of the military
      art; and they felt and confessed the just superiority which was
      assumed by the leader of a civilized nation. When Theodosius
      entered the extensive dominions of Igmazen, king of the
      Isaflenses, the haughty savage required, in words of defiance,
      his name, and the object of his expedition. “I am,” replied the
      stern and disdainful count, “I am the general of Valentinian, the
      lord of the world; who has sent me hither to pursue and punish a
      desperate robber. Deliver him instantly into my hands; and be
      assured, that if thou dost not obey the commands of my invincible
      sovereign, thou, and the people over whom thou reignest, shall be
      utterly extirpated.” 12211 As soon as Igmazen was satisfied, that
      his enemy had strength and resolution to execute the fatal
      menace, he consented to purchase a necessary peace by the
      sacrifice of a guilty fugitive. The guards that were placed to
      secure the person of Firmus deprived him of the hopes of escape;
      and the Moorish tyrant, after wine had extinguished the sense of
      danger, disappointed the insulting triumph of the Romans, by
      strangling himself in the night. His dead body, the only present
      which Igmazen could offer to the conqueror, was carelessly thrown
      upon a camel; and Theodosius, leading back his victorious troops
      to Sitifi, was saluted by the warmest acclamations of joy and
      loyalty. 123

      122 (return) [ The Chronology of Ammianus is loose and obscure;
      and Orosius (i. vii. c. 33, p. 551, edit. Havercamp) seems to
      place the revolt of Firmus after the deaths of Valentinian and
      Valens. Tillemont (Hist. des. Emp. tom. v. p. 691) endeavors to
      pick his way. The patient and sure-foot mule of the Alps may be
      trusted in the most slippery paths.]

      12211 (return) [ The war was longer protracted than this sentence
      would lead us to suppose: it was not till defeated more than once
      that Igmazen yielded Amm. xxix. 5.—M]

      123 (return) [ Ammian xxix. 5. The text of this long chapter
      (fifteen quarto pages) is broken and corrupted; and the narrative
      is perplexed by the want of chronological and geographical
      landmarks.]

      Africa had been lost by the vices of Romanus; it was restored by
      the virtues of Theodosius; and our curiosity may be usefully
      directed to the inquiry of the respective treatment which the two
      generals received from the Imperial court. The authority of Count
      Romanus had been suspended by the master-general of the cavalry;
      and he was committed to safe and honorable custody till the end
      of the war. His crimes were proved by the most authentic
      evidence; and the public expected, with some impatience, the
      decree of severe justice. But the partial and powerful favor of
      Mellobaudes encouraged him to challenge his legal judges, to
      obtain repeated delays for the purpose of procuring a crowd of
      friendly witnesses, and, finally, to cover his guilty conduct, by
      the additional guilt of fraud and forgery. About the same time,
      the restorer of Britain and Africa, on a vague suspicion that his
      name and services were superior to the rank of a subject, was
      ignominiously beheaded at Carthage. Valentinian no longer
      reigned; and the death of Theodosius, as well as the impunity of
      Romanus, may justly be imputed to the arts of the ministers, who
      abused the confidence, and deceived the inexperienced youth, of
      his sons. 124

      124 (return) [ Ammian xxviii. 4. Orosius, l. vii. c. 33, p. 551,
      552. Jerom. in Chron. p. 187.]

      If the geographical accuracy of Ammianus had been fortunately
      bestowed on the British exploits of Theodosius, we should have
      traced, with eager curiosity, the distinct and domestic footsteps
      of his march. But the tedious enumeration of the unknown and
      uninteresting tribes of Africa may be reduced to the general
      remark, that they were all of the swarthy race of the Moors; that
      they inhabited the back settlements of the Mauritanian and
      Numidian province, the country, as they have since been termed by
      the Arabs, of dates and of locusts; 125 and that, as the Roman
      power declined in Africa, the boundary of civilized manners and
      cultivated land was insensibly contracted. Beyond the utmost
      limits of the Moors, the vast and inhospitable desert of the
      South extends above a thousand miles to the banks of the Niger.
      The ancients, who had a very faint and imperfect knowledge of the
      great peninsula of Africa, were sometimes tempted to believe,
      that the torrid zone must ever remain destitute of inhabitants;
      126 and they sometimes amused their fancy by filling the vacant
      space with headless men, or rather monsters; 127 with horned and
      cloven-footed satyrs; 128 with fabulous centaurs; 129 and with
      human pygmies, who waged a bold and doubtful warfare against the
      cranes. 130 Carthage would have trembled at the strange
      intelligence that the countries on either side of the equator
      were filled with innumerable nations, who differed only in their
      color from the ordinary appearance of the human species: and the
      subjects of the Roman empire might have anxiously expected, that
      the swarms of Barbarians, which issued from the North, would soon
      be encountered from the South by new swarms of Barbarians,
      equally fierce and equally formidable. These gloomy terrors would
      indeed have been dispelled by a more intimate acquaintance with
      the character of their African enemies. The inaction of the
      negroes does not seem to be the effect either of their virtue or
      of their pusillanimity. They indulge, like the rest of mankind,
      their passions and appetites; and the adjacent tribes are engaged
      in frequent acts of hostility. 131 But their rude ignorance has
      never invented any effectual weapons of defence, or of
      destruction; they appear incapable of forming any extensive plans
      of government, or conquest; and the obvious inferiority of their
      mental faculties has been discovered and abused by the nations of
      the temperate zone. Sixty thousand blacks are annually embarked
      from the coast of Guinea, never to return to their native
      country; but they are embarked in chains; 132 and this constant
      emigration, which, in the space of two centuries, might have
      furnished armies to overrun the globe, accuses the guilt of
      Europe, and the weakness of Africa.

      125 (return) [ Leo Africanus (in the Viaggi di Ramusio, tom. i.
      fol. 78-83) has traced a curious picture of the people and the
      country; which are more minutely described in the Afrique de
      Marmol, tom. iii. p. 1-54.]

      126 (return) [ This uninhabitable zone was gradually reduced by
      the improvements of ancient geography, from forty-five to
      twenty-four, or even sixteen degrees of latitude. See a learned
      and judicious note of Dr. Robertson, Hist. of America, vol. i. p.
      426.]

      127 (return) [ Intra, si credere libet, vix jam homines et magis
      semiferi... Blemmyes, Satyri, &c. Pomponius Mela, i. 4, p. 26,
      edit. Voss. in 8vo. Pliny _philosophically_ explains (vi. 35) the
      irregularities of nature, which he had _credulously_ admitted,
      (v. 8.)]

      128 (return) [ If the satyr was the Orang-outang, the great human
      ape, (Buffon, Hist. Nat. tom. xiv. p. 43, &c.,) one of that
      species might actually be shown alive at Alexandria, in the reign
      of Constantine. Yet some difficulty will still remain about the
      conversation which St. Anthony held with one of these pious
      savages, in the desert of Thebais. (Jerom. in Vit. Paul. Eremit.
      tom. i. p. 238.)]

      129 (return) [ St. Anthony likewise met one of _these_ monsters;
      whose existence was seriously asserted by the emperor Claudius.
      The public laughed; but his præfect of Egypt had the address to
      send an artful preparation, the embalmed corpse of a
      _Hippocentaur_, which was preserved almost a century afterwards
      in the Imperial palace. See Pliny, (Hist. Natur. vii. 3,) and the
      judicious observations of Freret. (Mémoires de l’Acad. tom. vii.
      p. 321, &c.)]

      130 (return) [ The fable of the pygmies is as old as Homer,
      (Iliad. iii. 6) The pygmies of India and Æthiopia were
      (trispithami) twenty-seven inches high. Every spring their
      cavalry (mounted on rams and goats) marched, in battle array, to
      destroy the cranes’ eggs, aliter (says Pliny) futuris gregibus
      non resisti. Their houses were built of mud, feathers, and
      egg-shells. See Pliny, (vi. 35, vii. 2,) and Strabo, (l. ii. p.
      121.)]

      131 (return) [ The third and fourth volumes of the valuable
      Histoire des Voyages describe the present state of the Negroes.
      The nations of the sea-coast have been polished by European
      commerce; and those of the inland country have been improved by
      Moorish colonies. * Note: The martial tribes in chain armor,
      discovered by Denham, are Mahometan; the great question of the
      inferiority of the African tribes in their mental faculties will
      probably be experimentally resolved before the close of the
      century; but the Slave Trade still continues, and will, it is to
      be feared, till the spirit of gain is subdued by the spirit of
      Christian humanity.—M.]

      132 (return) [ Histoire Philosophique et Politique, &c., tom. iv.
      p. 192.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.—Part VI.


      IV. The ignominious treaty, which saved the army of Jovian, had
      been faithfully executed on the side of the Romans; and as they
      had solemnly renounced the sovereignty and alliance of Armenia
      and Iberia, those tributary kingdoms were exposed, without
      protection, to the arms of the Persian monarch. 133 Sapor entered
      the Armenian territories at the head of a formidable host of
      cuirassiers, of archers, and of mercenary foot; but it was the
      invariable practice of Sapor to mix war and negotiation, and to
      consider falsehood and perjury as the most powerful instruments
      of regal policy. He affected to praise the prudent and moderate
      conduct of the king of Armenia; and the unsuspicious Tiranus was
      persuaded, by the repeated assurances of insidious friendship, to
      deliver his person into the hands of a faithless and cruel enemy.
      In the midst of a splendid entertainment, he was bound in chains
      of silver, as an honor due to the blood of the Arsacides; and,
      after a short confinement in the Tower of Oblivion at Ecbatana,
      he was released from the miseries of life, either by his own
      dagger, or by that of an assassin. 13311 The kingdom of Armenia
      was reduced to the state of a Persian province; the
      administration was shared between a distinguished satrap and a
      favorite eunuch; and Sapor marched, without delay, to subdue the
      martial spirit of the Iberians. Sauromaces, who reigned in that
      country by the permission of the emperors, was expelled by a
      superior force; and, as an insult on the majesty of Rome, the
      king of kings placed a diadem on the head of his abject vassal
      Aspacuras. The city of Artogerassa 134 was the only place of
      Armenia 13411 which presumed to resist the efforts of his arms.
      The treasure deposited in that strong fortress tempted the
      avarice of Sapor; but the danger of Olympias, the wife or widow
      of the Armenian king, excited the public compassion, and animated
      the desperate valor of her subjects and soldiers. 13412 The
      Persians were surprised and repulsed under the walls of
      Artogerassa, by a bold and well-concerted sally of the besieged.
      But the forces of Sapor were continually renewed and increased;
      the hopeless courage of the garrison was exhausted; the strength
      of the walls yielded to the assault; and the proud conqueror,
      after wasting the rebellious city with fire and sword, led away
      captive an unfortunate queen; who, in a more auspicious hour, had
      been the destined bride of the son of Constantine. 135 Yet if
      Sapor already triumphed in the easy conquest of two dependent
      kingdoms, he soon felt, that a country is unsubdued as long as
      the minds of the people are actuated by a hostile and
      contumacious spirit. The satraps, whom he was obliged to trust,
      embraced the first opportunity of regaining the affection of
      their countrymen, and of signalizing their immortal hatred to the
      Persian name. Since the conversion of the Armenians and Iberians,
      these nations considered the Christians as the favorites, and the
      Magians as the adversaries, of the Supreme Being: the influence
      of the clergy, over a superstitious people was uniformly exerted
      in the cause of Rome; and as long as the successors of
      Constantine disputed with those of Artaxerxes the sovereignty of
      the intermediate provinces, the religious connection always threw
      a decisive advantage into the scale of the empire. A numerous and
      active party acknowledged Para, the son of Tiranus, as the lawful
      sovereign of Armenia, and his title to the throne was deeply
      rooted in the hereditary succession of five hundred years. By the
      unanimous consent of the Iberians, the country was equally
      divided between the rival princes; and Aspacuras, who owed his
      diadem to the choice of Sapor, was obliged to declare, that his
      regard for his children, who were detained as hostages by the
      tyrant, was the only consideration which prevented him from
      openly renouncing the alliance of Persia. The emperor Valens, who
      respected the obligations of the treaty, and who was apprehensive
      of involving the East in a dangerous war, ventured, with slow and
      cautious measures, to support the Roman party in the kingdoms of
      Iberia and Armenia. 13511 Twelve legions established the
      authority of Sauromaces on the banks of the Cyrus. The Euphrates
      was protected by the valor of Arintheus. A powerful army, under
      the command of Count Trajan, and of Vadomair, king of the
      Alemanni, fixed their camp on the confines of Armenia. But they
      were strictly enjoined not to commit the first hostilities, which
      might be understood as a breach of the treaty: and such was the
      implicit obedience of the Roman general, that they retreated,
      with exemplary patience, under a shower of Persian arrows till
      they had clearly acquired a just title to an honorable and
      legitimate victory. Yet these appearances of war insensibly
      subsided in a vain and tedious negotiation. The contending
      parties supported their claims by mutual reproaches of perfidy
      and ambition; and it should seem, that the original treaty was
      expressed in very obscure terms, since they were reduced to the
      necessity of making their inconclusive appeal to the partial
      testimony of the generals of the two nations, who had assisted at
      the negotiations. 136 The invasion of the Goths and Huns which
      soon afterwards shook the foundations of the Roman empire,
      exposed the provinces of Asia to the arms of Sapor. But the
      declining age, and perhaps the infirmities, of the monarch
      suggested new maxims of tranquillity and moderation. His death,
      which happened in the full maturity of a reign of seventy years,
      changed in a moment the court and councils of Persia; and their
      attention was most probably engaged by domestic troubles, and the
      distant efforts of a Carmanian war. 137 The remembrance of
      ancient injuries was lost in the enjoyment of peace. The kingdoms
      of Armenia and Iberia were permitted, by the mutual,though tacit
      consent of both empires, to resume their doubtful neutrality. In
      the first years of the reign of Theodosius, a Persian embassy
      arrived at Constantinople, to excuse the unjustifiable measures
      of the former reign; and to offer, as the tribute of friendship,
      or even of respect, a splendid present of gems, of silk, and of
      Indian elephants. 138

      133 (return) [ The evidence of Ammianus is original and decisive,
      (xxvii. 12.) Moses of Chorene, (l. iii. c. 17, p. 249, and c. 34,
      p. 269,) and Procopius, (de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 5, p. 17,
      edit. Louvre,) have been consulted: but those historians who
      confound distinct facts, repeat the same events, and introduce
      strange stories, must be used with diffidence and caution. Note:
      The statement of Ammianus is more brief and succinct, but
      harmonizes with the more complicated history developed by M. St.
      Martin from the Armenian writers, and from Procopius, who wrote,
      as he states from Armenian authorities.—M.]

      13311 (return) [ According to M. St. Martin, Sapor, though
      supported by the two apostate Armenian princes, Meroujan the
      Ardzronnian and Vahan the Mamigonian, was gallantly resisted by
      Arsaces, and his brave though impious wife Pharandsem. His troops
      were defeated by Vasag, the high constable of the kingdom. (See
      M. St. Martin.) But after four years’ courageous defence of his
      kingdom, Arsaces was abandoned by his nobles, and obliged to
      accept the perfidious hospitality of Sapor. He was blinded and
      imprisoned in the “Castle of Oblivion;” his brave general Vasag
      was flayed alive; his skin stuffed and placed near the king in
      his lonely prison. It was not till many years after (A.D. 371)
      that he stabbed himself, according to the romantic story, (St. M.
      iii. 387, 389,) in a paroxysm of excitement at his restoration to
      royal honors. St. Martin, Additions to Le Beau, iii. 283,
      296.—M.]

      134 (return) [ Perhaps Artagera, or Ardis; under whose walls
      Caius, the grandson of Augustus, was wounded. This fortress was
      situate above Amida, near one of the sources of the Tigris. See
      D’Anville, Geographie Ancienue, tom. ii. p. 106. * Note: St.
      Martin agrees with Gibbon, that it was the same fortress with
      Ardis Note, p. 373.—M.]

      13411 (return) [ Artaxata, Vagharschabad, or Edchmiadzin,
      Erovantaschad, and many other cities, in all of which there was a
      considerable Jewish population were taken and destroyed.—M.]

      13412 (return) [ Pharandsem, not Olympias, refusing the orders of
      her captive husband to surrender herself to Sapor, threw herself
      into Artogerassa St. Martin, iii. 293, 302. She defended herself
      for fourteen months, till famine and disease had left few
      survivors out of 11,000 soldiers and 6000 women who had taken
      refuge in the fortress. She then threw open the gates with her
      own hand. M. St. Martin adds, what even the horrors of Oriental
      warfare will scarcely permit us to credit, that she was exposed
      by Sapor on a public scaffold to the brutal lusts of his
      soldiery, and afterwards empaled, iii. 373, &c.—M.]

      135 (return) [ Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 701)
      proves, from chronology, that Olympias must have been the mother
      of Para. Note *: An error according to St. M. 273.—M.]

      13511 (return) [ According to Themistius, quoted by St. Martin,
      he once advanced to the Tigris, iii. 436.—M.]

      136 (return) [ Ammianus (xxvii. 12, xix. 1. xxx. 1, 2) has
      described the events, without the dates, of the Persian war.
      Moses of Chorene (Hist. Armen. l. iii. c. 28, p. 261, c. 31, p.
      266, c. 35, p. 271) affords some additional facts; but it is
      extremely difficult to separate truth from fable.]

      137 (return) [ Artaxerxes was the successor and brother (_the
      cousin-german_) of the great Sapor; and the guardian of his son,
      Sapor III. (Agathias, l. iv. p. 136, edit. Louvre.) See the
      Universal History, vol. xi. p. 86, 161. The authors of that
      unequal work have compiled the Sassanian dynasty with erudition
      and diligence; but it is a preposterous arrangement to divide the
      Roman and Oriental accounts into two distinct histories. * Note:
      On the war of Sapor with the Bactrians, which diverted from
      Armenia, see St. M. iii. 387.—M.]

      138 (return) [ Pacatus in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 22, and Orosius, l.
      vii. c. 34. Ictumque tum fœdus est, quo universus Oriens usque ad
      num (A. D. 416) tranquillissime fruitur.]

      In the general picture of the affairs of the East under the reign
      of Valens, the adventures of Para form one of the most striking
      and singular objects. The noble youth, by the persuasion of his
      mother Olympias, had escaped through the Persian host that
      besieged Artogerassa, and implored the protection of the emperor
      of the East. By his timid councils, Para was alternately
      supported, and recalled, and restored, and betrayed. The hopes of
      the Armenians were sometimes raised by the presence of their
      natural sovereign, 13811 and the ministers of Valens were
      satisfied, that they preserved the integrity of the public faith,
      if their vassal was not suffered to assume the diadem and title
      of King. But they soon repented of their own rashness. They were
      confounded by the reproaches and threats of the Persian monarch.
      They found reason to distrust the cruel and inconstant temper of
      Para himself; who sacrificed, to the slightest suspicions, the
      lives of his most faithful servants, and held a secret and
      disgraceful correspondence with the assassin of his father and
      the enemy of his country. Under the specious pretence of
      consulting with the emperor on the subject of their common
      interest, Para was persuaded to descend from the mountains of
      Armenia, where his party was in arms, and to trust his
      independence and safety to the discretion of a perfidious court.
      The king of Armenia, for such he appeared in his own eyes and in
      those of his nation, was received with due honors by the
      governors of the provinces through which he passed; but when he
      arrived at Tarsus in Cilicia, his progress was stopped under
      various pretences; his motions were watched with respectful
      vigilance, and he gradually discovered, that he was a prisoner in
      the hands of the Romans. Para suppressed his indignation,
      dissembled his fears, and after secretly preparing his escape,
      mounted on horseback with three hundred of his faithful
      followers. The officer stationed at the door of his apartment
      immediately communicated his flight to the consular of Cilicia,
      who overtook him in the suburbs, and endeavored without success,
      to dissuade him from prosecuting his rash and dangerous design. A
      legion was ordered to pursue the royal fugitive; but the pursuit
      of infantry could not be very alarming to a body of light
      cavalry; and upon the first cloud of arrows that was discharged
      into the air, they retreated with precipitation to the gates of
      Tarsus. After an incessant march of two days and two nights, Para
      and his Armenians reached the banks of the Euphrates; but the
      passage of the river which they were obliged to swim, 13812 was
      attended with some delay and some loss. The country was alarmed;
      and the two roads, which were only separated by an interval of
      three miles had been occupied by a thousand archers on horseback,
      under the command of a count and a tribune. Para must have
      yielded to superior force, if the accidental arrival of a
      friendly traveller had not revealed the danger and the means of
      escape. A dark and almost impervious path securely conveyed the
      Armenian troop through the thicket; and Para had left behind him
      the count and the tribune, while they patiently expected his
      approach along the public highways. They returned to the Imperial
      court to excuse their want of diligence or success; and seriously
      alleged, that the king of Armenia, who was a skilful magician,
      had transformed himself and his followers, and passed before
      their eyes under a borrowed shape. 13813 After his return to his
      native kingdom, Para still continued to profess himself the
      friend and ally of the Romans: but the Romans had injured him too
      deeply ever to forgive, and the secret sentence of his death was
      signed in the council of Valens. The execution of the bloody deed
      was committed to the subtle prudence of Count Trajan; and he had
      the merit of insinuating himself into the confidence of the
      credulous prince, that he might find an opportunity of stabbing
      him to the heart Para was invited to a Roman banquet, which had
      been prepared with all the pomp and sensuality of the East; the
      hall resounded with cheerful music, and the company was already
      heated with wine; when the count retired for an instant, drew his
      sword, and gave the signal of the murder. A robust and desperate
      Barbarian instantly rushed on the king of Armenia; and though he
      bravely defended his life with the first weapon that chance
      offered to his hand, the table of the Imperial general was
      stained with the royal blood of a guest, and an ally. Such were
      the weak and wicked maxims of the Roman administration, that, to
      attain a doubtful object of political interest the laws of
      nations, and the sacred rights of hospitality were inhumanly
      violated in the face of the world. 139

      13811 (return) [ On the reconquest of Armenia by Para, or rather
      by Mouschegh, the Mamigonian see St. M. iii. 375, 383.—M.]

      13812 (return) [ On planks floated by bladders.—M.]

      13813 (return) [ It is curious enough that the Armenian
      historian, Faustus of Byzandum, represents Para as a magician.
      His impious mother Pharandac had devoted him to the demons on his
      birth. St. M. iv. 23.—M.]

      139 (return) [ See in Ammianus (xxx. 1) the adventures of Para.
      Moses of Chorene calls him Tiridates; and tells a long, and not
      improbable story of his son Gnelus, who afterwards made himself
      popular in Armenia, and provoked the jealousy of the reigning
      king, (l. iii. c 21, &c., p. 253, &c.) * Note: This note is a
      tissue of mistakes. Tiridates and Para are two totally different
      persons. Tiridates was the father of Gnel first husband of
      Pharandsem, the mother of Para. St. Martin, iv. 27—M.]

      V. During a peaceful interval of thirty years, the Romans secured
      their frontiers, and the Goths extended their dominions. The
      victories of the great Hermanric, 140 king of the Ostrogoths, and
      the most noble of the race of the Amali, have been compared, by
      the enthusiasm of his countrymen, to the exploits of Alexander;
      with this singular, and almost incredible, difference, that the
      martial spirit of the Gothic hero, instead of being supported by
      the vigor of youth, was displayed with glory and success in the
      extreme period of human life, between the age of fourscore and
      one hundred and ten years. The independent tribes were persuaded,
      or compelled, to acknowledge the king of the Ostrogoths as the
      sovereign of the Gothic nation: the chiefs of the Visigoths, or
      Thervingi, renounced the royal title, and assumed the more humble
      appellation of _Judges;_ and, among those judges, Athanaric,
      Fritigern, and Alavivus, were the most illustrious, by their
      personal merit, as well as by their vicinity to the Roman
      provinces. These domestic conquests, which increased the military
      power of Hermanric, enlarged his ambitious designs. He invaded
      the adjacent countries of the North; and twelve considerable
      nations, whose names and limits cannot be accurately defined,
      successively yielded to the superiority of the Gothic arms. 141
      The Heruli, who inhabited the marshy lands near the lake Mæotis,
      were renowned for their strength and agility; and the assistance
      of their light infantry was eagerly solicited, and highly
      esteemed, in all the wars of the Barbarians. But the active
      spirit of the Heruli was subdued by the slow and steady
      perseverance of the Goths; and, after a bloody action, in which
      the king was slain, the remains of that warlike tribe became a
      useful accession to the camp of Hermanric.

      He then marched against the Venedi; unskilled in the use of arms,
      and formidable only by their numbers, which filled the wide
      extent of the plains of modern Poland. The victorious Goths, who
      were not inferior in numbers, prevailed in the contest, by the
      decisive advantages of exercise and discipline. After the
      submission of the Venedi, the conqueror advanced, without
      resistance, as far as the confines of the Æstii; 142 an ancient
      people, whose name is still preserved in the province of
      Esthonia. Those distant inhabitants of the Baltic coast were
      supported by the labors of agriculture, enriched by the trade of
      amber, and consecrated by the peculiar worship of the Mother of
      the Gods. But the scarcity of iron obliged the Æstian warriors to
      content themselves with wooden clubs; and the reduction of that
      wealthy country is ascribed to the prudence, rather than to the
      arms, of Hermanric. His dominions, which extended from the Danube
      to the Baltic, included the native seats, and the recent
      acquisitions, of the Goths; and he reigned over the greatest part
      of Germany and Scythia with the authority of a conqueror, and
      sometimes with the cruelty of a tyrant. But he reigned over a
      part of the globe incapable of perpetuating and adorning the
      glory of its heroes. The name of Hermanric is almost buried in
      oblivion; his exploits are imperfectly known; and the Romans
      themselves appeared unconscious of the progress of an aspiring
      power which threatened the liberty of the North, and the peace of
      the empire. 143

      140 (return) [ The concise account of the reign and conquests of
      Hermanric seems to be one of the valuable fragments which
      Jornandes (c 28) borrowed from the Gothic histories of Ablavius,
      or Cassiodorus.]

      141 (return) [ M. d. Buat. (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom.
      vi. p. 311-329) investigates, with more industry than success,
      the nations subdued by the arms of Hermanric. He denies the
      existence of the _Vasinobroncæ_, on account of the immoderate
      length of their name. Yet the French envoy to Ratisbon, or
      Dresden, must have traversed the country of the _Mediomatrici_.]

      142 (return) [ The edition of Grotius (Jornandes, p. 642)
      exhibits the name of _Æstri_. But reason and the Ambrosian MS.
      have restored the _Æstii_, whose manners and situation are
      expressed by the pencil of Tacitus, (Germania, c. 45.)]

      143 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 3) observes, in general terms,
      Ermenrichi.... nobilissimi Regis, et per multa variaque fortiter
      facta, vicinigentibus formidati, &c.]

      The Goths had contracted an hereditary attachment for the
      Imperial house of Constantine, of whose power and liberality they
      had received so many signal proofs. They respected the public
      peace; and if a hostile band sometimes presumed to pass the Roman
      limit, their irregular conduct was candidly ascribed to the
      ungovernable spirit of the Barbarian youth. Their contempt for
      two new and obscure princes, who had been raised to the throne by
      a popular election, inspired the Goths with bolder hopes; and,
      while they agitated some design of marching their confederate
      force under the national standard, 144 they were easily tempted
      to embrace the party of Procopius; and to foment, by their
      dangerous aid, the civil discord of the Romans. The public treaty
      might stipulate no more than ten thousand auxiliaries; but the
      design was so zealously adopted by the chiefs of the Visigoths,
      that the army which passed the Danube amounted to the number of
      thirty thousand men. 145 They marched with the proud confidence,
      that their invincible valor would decide the fate of the Roman
      empire; and the provinces of Thrace groaned under the weight of
      the Barbarians, who displayed the insolence of masters and the
      licentiousness of enemies. But the intemperance which gratified
      their appetites, retarded their progress; and before the Goths
      could receive any certain intelligence of the defeat and death of
      Procopius, they perceived, by the hostile state of the country,
      that the civil and military powers were resumed by his successful
      rival. A chain of posts and fortifications, skilfully disposed by
      Valens, or the generals of Valens, resisted their march,
      prevented their retreat, and intercepted their subsistence. The
      fierceness of the Barbarians was tamed and suspended by hunger;
      they indignantly threw down their arms at the feet of the
      conqueror, who offered them food and chains: the numerous
      captives were distributed in all the cities of the East; and the
      provincials, who were soon familiarized with their savage
      appearance, ventured, by degrees, to measure their own strength
      with these formidable adversaries, whose name had so long been
      the object of their terror. The king of Scythia (and Hermanric
      alone could deserve so lofty a title) was grieved and exasperated
      by this national calamity. His ambassadors loudly complained, at
      the court of Valens, of the infraction of the ancient and solemn
      alliance, which had so long subsisted between the Romans and the
      Goths. They alleged, that they had fulfilled the duty of allies,
      by assisting the kinsman and successor of the emperor Julian;
      they required the immediate restitution of the noble captives;
      and they urged a very singular claim, that the Gothic generals
      marching in arms, and in hostile array, were entitled to the
      sacred character and privileges of ambassadors. The decent, but
      peremptory, refusal of these extravagant demands, was signified
      to the Barbarians by Victor, master-general of the cavalry; who
      expressed, with force and dignity, the just complaints of the
      emperor of the East. 146 The negotiation was interrupted; and the
      manly exhortations of Valentinian encouraged his timid brother to
      vindicate the insulted majesty of the empire. 147

      144 (return) [ Valens. ... docetur relationibus Ducum, gentem
      Gothorum, ea tempestate intactam ideoque sævissimam, conspirantem
      in unum, ad pervadenda parari collimitia Thraciarum. Ammian. xxi.
      6.]

      145 (return) [ M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom.
      vi. p. 332) has curiously ascertained the real number of these
      auxiliaries. The 3000 of Ammianus, and the 10,000 of Zosimus,
      were only the first divisions of the Gothic army. * Note: M. St.
      Martin (iii. 246) denies that there is any authority for these
      numbers.—M.]

      146 (return) [ The march, and subsequent negotiation, are
      described in the Fragments of Eunapius, (Excerpt. Legat. p. 18,
      edit. Louvre.) The provincials who afterwards became familiar
      with the Barbarians, found that their strength was more apparent
      than real. They were tall of stature; but their legs were clumsy,
      and their shoulders were narrow.]

      147 (return) [ Valens enim, ut consulto placuerat fratri, cujus
      regebatur arbitrio, arma concussit in Gothos ratione justâ
      permotus. Ammianus (xxvii. 4) then proceeds to describe, not the
      country of the Goths, but the peaceful and obedient province of
      Thrace, which was not affected by the war.]

      The splendor and magnitude of this Gothic war are celebrated by a
      contemporary historian: 148 but the events scarcely deserve the
      attention of posterity, except as the preliminary steps of the
      approaching decline and fall of the empire. Instead of leading
      the nations of Germany and Scythia to the banks of the Danube, or
      even to the gates of Constantinople, the aged monarch of the
      Goths resigned to the brave Athanaric the danger and glory of a
      defensive war, against an enemy, who wielded with a feeble hand
      the powers of a mighty state. A bridge of boats was established
      upon the Danube; the presence of Valens animated his troops; and
      his ignorance of the art of war was compensated by personal
      bravery, and a wise deference to the advice of Victor and
      Arintheus, his masters-general of the cavalry and infantry. The
      operations of the campaign were conducted by their skill and
      experience; but they found it impossible to drive the Visigoths
      from their strong posts in the mountains; and the devastation of
      the plains obliged the Romans themselves to repass the Danube on
      the approach of winter. The incessant rains, which swelled the
      waters of the river, produced a tacit suspension of arms, and
      confined the emperor Valens, during the whole course of the
      ensuing summer, to his camp of Marcianopolis. The third year of
      the war was more favorable to the Romans, and more pernicious to
      the Goths. The interruption of trade deprived the Barbarians of
      the objects of luxury, which they already confounded with the
      necessaries of life; and the desolation of a very extensive tract
      of country threatened them with the horrors of famine. Athanaric
      was provoked, or compelled, to risk a battle, which he lost, in
      the plains; and the pursuit was rendered more bloody by the cruel
      precaution of the victorious generals, who had promised a large
      reward for the head of every Goth that was brought into the
      Imperial camp. The submission of the Barbarians appeased the
      resentment of Valens and his council: the emperor listened with
      satisfaction to the flattering and eloquent remonstrance of the
      senate of Constantinople, which assumed, for the first time, a
      share in the public deliberations; and the same generals, Victor
      and Arintheus, who had successfully directed the conduct of the
      war, were empowered to regulate the conditions of peace. The
      freedom of trade, which the Goths had hitherto enjoyed, was
      restricted to two cities on the Danube; the rashness of their
      leaders was severely punished by the suppression of their
      pensions and subsidies; and the exception, which was stipulated
      in favor of Athanaric alone, was more advantageous than honorable
      to the Judge of the Visigoths. Athanaric, who, on this occasion,
      appears to have consulted his private interest, without expecting
      the orders of his sovereign, supported his own dignity, and that
      of his tribe, in the personal interview which was proposed by the
      ministers of Valens. He persisted in his declaration, that it was
      impossible for him, without incurring the guilt of perjury, ever
      to set his foot on the territory of the empire; and it is more
      than probable, that his regard for the sanctity of an oath was
      confirmed by the recent and fatal examples of Roman treachery.
      The Danube, which separated the dominions of the two independent
      nations, was chosen for the scene of the conference. The emperor
      of the East, and the Judge of the Visigoths, accompanied by an
      equal number of armed followers, advanced in their respective
      barges to the middle of the stream. After the ratification of the
      treaty, and the delivery of hostages, Valens returned in triumph
      to Constantinople; and the Goths remained in a state of
      tranquillity about six years; till they were violently impelled
      against the Roman empire by an innumerable host of Scythians, who
      appeared to issue from the frozen regions of the North. 149

      148 (return) [ Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legat. p. 18, 19. The Greek
      sophist must have considered as _one_ and the _same_ war, the
      whole series of Gothic history till the victories and peace of
      Theodosius.]

      149 (return) [ The Gothic war is described by Ammianus, (xxvii.
      6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 211-214,) and Themistius, (Orat. x. p.
      129-141.) The orator Themistius was sent from the senate of
      Constantinople to congratulate the victorious emperor; and his
      servile eloquence compares Valens on the Danube to Achilles in
      the Scamander. Jornandes forgets a war peculiar to the
      _Visi_-Goths, and inglorious to the Gothic name, (Mascon’s Hist.
      of the Germans, vii. 3.)]

      The emperor of the West, who had resigned to his brother the
      command of the Lower Danube, reserved for his immediate care the
      defence of the Rhætian and Illyrian provinces, which spread so
      many hundred miles along the greatest of the European rivers. The
      active policy of Valentinian was continually employed in adding
      new fortifications to the security of the frontier: but the abuse
      of this policy provoked the just resentment of the Barbarians.
      The Quadi complained, that the ground for an intended fortress
      had been marked out on their territories; and their complaints
      were urged with so much reason and moderation, that Equitius,
      master-general of Illyricum, consented to suspend the prosecution
      of the work, till he should be more clearly informed of the will
      of his sovereign. This fair occasion of injuring a rival, and of
      advancing the fortune of his son, was eagerly embraced by the
      inhuman Maximin, the præfect, or rather tyrant, of Gaul. The
      passions of Valentinian were impatient of control; and he
      credulously listened to the assurances of his favorite, that if
      the government of Valeria, and the direction of the work, were
      intrusted to the zeal of his son Marcellinus, the emperor should
      no longer be importuned with the audacious remonstrances of the
      Barbarians. The subjects of Rome, and the natives of Germany,
      were insulted by the arrogance of a young and worthless minister,
      who considered his rapid elevation as the proof and reward of his
      superior merit. He affected, however, to receive the modest
      application of Gabinius, king of the Quadi, with some attention
      and regard: but this artful civility concealed a dark and bloody
      design, and the credulous prince was persuaded to accept the
      pressing invitation of Marcellinus. I am at a loss how to vary
      the narrative of similar crimes; or how to relate, that, in the
      course of the same year, but in remote parts of the empire, the
      inhospitable table of two Imperial generals was stained with the
      royal blood of two guests and allies, inhumanly murdered by their
      order, and in their presence. The fate of Gabinius, and of Para,
      was the same: but the cruel death of their sovereign was resented
      in a very different manner by the servile temper of the
      Armenians, and the free and daring spirit of the Germans. The
      Quadi were much declined from that formidable power, which, in
      the time of Marcus Antoninus, had spread terror to the gates of
      Rome. But they still possessed arms and courage; their courage
      was animated by despair, and they obtained the usual
      reenforcement of the cavalry of their Sarmatian allies. So
      improvident was the assassin Marcellinus, that he chose the
      moment when the bravest veterans had been drawn away, to suppress
      the revolt of Firmus; and the whole province was exposed, with a
      very feeble defence, to the rage of the exasperated Barbarians.
      They invaded Pannonia in the season of harvest; unmercifully
      destroyed every object of plunder which they could not easily
      transport; and either disregarded, or demolished, the empty
      fortifications. The princess Constantia, the daughter of the
      emperor Constantius, and the granddaughter of the great
      Constantine, very narrowly escaped. That royal maid, who had
      innocently supported the revolt of Procopius, was now the
      destined wife of the heir of the Western empire. She traversed
      the peaceful province with a splendid and unarmed train. Her
      person was saved from danger, and the republic from disgrace, by
      the active zeal of Messala, governor of the provinces. As soon as
      he was informed that the village, where she stopped only to dine,
      was almost encompassed by the Barbarians, he hastily placed her
      in his own chariot, and drove full speed till he reached the
      gates of Sirmium, which were at the distance of six-and-twenty
      miles. Even Sirmium might not have been secure, if the Quadi and
      Sarmatians had diligently advanced during the general
      consternation of the magistrates and people. Their delay allowed
      Probus, the Prætorian præfect, sufficient time to recover his own
      spirits, and to revive the courage of the citizens. He skilfully
      directed their strenuous efforts to repair and strengthen the
      decayed fortifications; and procured the seasonable and effectual
      assistance of a company of archers, to protect the capital of the
      Illyrian provinces. Disappointed in their attempts against the
      walls of Sirmium, the indignant Barbarians turned their arms
      against the master general of the frontier, to whom they unjustly
      attributed the murder of their king. Equitius could bring into
      the field no more than two legions; but they contained the
      veteran strength of the Mæsian and Pannonian bands. The obstinacy
      with which they disputed the vain honors of rank and precedency,
      was the cause of their destruction; and while they acted with
      separate forces and divided councils, they were surprised and
      slaughtered by the active vigor of the Sarmatian horse. The
      success of this invasion provoked the emulation of the bordering
      tribes; and the province of Mæsia would infallibly have been
      lost, if young Theodosius, the duke, or military commander, of
      the frontier, had not signalized, in the defeat of the public
      enemy, an intrepid genius, worthy of his illustrious father, and
      of his future greatness. 150

      150 (return) [ Ammianus (xxix. 6) and Zosimus (I. iv. p. 219,
      220) carefully mark the origin and progress of the Quadic and
      Sarmatian war.]




      Chapter XXV: Reigns Of Jovian And Valentinian, Division Of The
      Empire.—Part VII.


      The mind of Valentinian, who then resided at Treves, was deeply
      affected by the calamities of Illyricum; but the lateness of the
      season suspended the execution of his designs till the ensuing
      spring. He marched in person, with a considerable part of the
      forces of Gaul, from the banks of the Moselle: and to the
      suppliant ambassadors of the Sarmatians, who met him on the way,
      he returned a doubtful answer, that, as soon as he reached the
      scene of action, he should examine, and pronounce. When he
      arrived at Sirmium, he gave audience to the deputies of the
      Illyrian provinces; who loudly congratulated their own felicity
      under the auspicious government of Probus, his Prætorian præfect.
      151 Valentinian, who was flattered by these demonstrations of
      their loyalty and gratitude, imprudently asked the deputy of
      Epirus, a Cynic philosopher of intrepid sincerity, 152 whether he
      was freely sent by the wishes of the province. “With tears and
      groans am I sent,” replied Iphicles, “by a reluctant people.” The
      emperor paused: but the impunity of his ministers established the
      pernicious maxim, that they might oppress his subjects, without
      injuring his service. A strict inquiry into their conduct would
      have relieved the public discontent. The severe condemnation of
      the murder of Gabinius, was the only measure which could restore
      the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the honor of the
      Roman name. But the haughty monarch was incapable of the
      magnanimity which dares to acknowledge a fault. He forgot the
      provocation, remembered only the injury, and advanced into the
      country of the Quadi with an insatiate thirst of blood and
      revenge. The extreme devastation, and promiscuous massacre, of a
      savage war, were justified, in the eyes of the emperor, and
      perhaps in those of the world, by the cruel equity of
      retaliation: 153 and such was the discipline of the Romans, and
      the consternation of the enemy, that Valentinian repassed the
      Danube without the loss of a single man. As he had resolved to
      complete the destruction of the Quadi by a second campaign, he
      fixed his winter quarters at Bregetio, on the Danube, near the
      Hungarian city of Presburg. While the operations of war were
      suspended by the severity of the weather, the Quadi made an
      humble attempt to deprecate the wrath of their conqueror; and, at
      the earnest persuasion of Equitius, their ambassadors were
      introduced into the Imperial council. They approached the throne
      with bended bodies and dejected countenances; and without daring
      to complain of the murder of their king, they affirmed, with
      solemn oaths, that the late invasion was the crime of some
      irregular robbers, which the public council of the nation
      condemned and abhorred. The answer of the emperor left them but
      little to hope from his clemency or compassion. He reviled, in
      the most intemperate language, their baseness, their ingratitude,
      their insolence. His eyes, his voice, his color, his gestures,
      expressed the violence of his ungoverned fury; and while his
      whole frame was agitated with convulsive passion, a large blood
      vessel suddenly burst in his body; and Valentinian fell
      speechless into the arms of his attendants. Their pious care
      immediately concealed his situation from the crowd; but, in a few
      minutes, the emperor of the West expired in an agony of pain,
      retaining his senses till the last; and struggling, without
      success, to declare his intentions to the generals and ministers,
      who surrounded the royal couch. Valentinian was about fifty-four
      years of age; and he wanted only one hundred days to accomplish
      the twelve years of his reign. 154

      151 (return) [ Ammianus, (xxx. 5,) who acknowledges the merit,
      has censured, with becoming asperity, the oppressive
      administration of Petronius Probus. When Jerom translated and
      continued the Chronicle of Eusebius, (A. D. 380; see Tillemont,
      Mém. Eccles. tom. xii. p. 53, 626,) he expressed the truth, or at
      least the public opinion of his country, in the following words:
      “Probus P. P. Illyrici inquissimus tributorum exactionibus, ante
      provincias quas regebat, quam a Barbaris vastarentur, _erasit_.”
      (Chron. edit. Scaliger, p. 187. Animadvers p. 259.) The Saint
      afterwards formed an intimate and tender friendship with the
      widow of Probus; and the name of Count Equitius with less
      propriety, but without much injustice, has been substituted in
      the text.]

      152 (return) [ Julian (Orat. vi. p. 198) represents his friend
      Iphicles, as a man of virtue and merit, who had made himself
      ridiculous and unhappy by adopting the extravagant dress and
      manners of the Cynics.]

      153 (return) [ Ammian. xxx. v. Jerom, who exaggerates the
      misfortune of Valentinian, refuses him even this last consolation
      of revenge. Genitali vastato solo et _inultam_ patriam
      derelinquens, (tom. i. p. 26.)]

      154 (return) [ See, on the death of Valentinian, Ammianus, (xxx.
      6,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Victor, (in Epitom.,) Socrates, (l.
      iv. c. 31,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 187, and tom. i. p. 26, ad
      Heliodor.) There is much variety of circumstances among them; and
      Ammianus is so eloquent, that he writes nonsense.]

      The polygamy of Valentinian is seriously attested by an
      ecclesiastical historian. 155 “The empress Severa (I relate the
      fable) admitted into her familiar society the lovely Justina, the
      daughter of an Italian governor: her admiration of those naked
      charms, which she had often seen in the bath, was expressed with
      such lavish and imprudent praise, that the emperor was tempted to
      introduce a second wife into his bed; and his public edict
      extended to all the subjects of the empire the same domestic
      privilege which he had assumed for himself.” But we may be
      assured, from the evidence of reason as well as history, that the
      two marriages of Valentinian, with Severa, and with Justina, were
      _successively_ contracted; and that he used the ancient
      permission of divorce, which was still allowed by the laws,
      though it was condemned by the church. Severa was the mother of
      Gratian, who seemed to unite every claim which could entitle him
      to the undoubted succession of the Western empire. He was the
      eldest son of a monarch whose glorious reign had confirmed the
      free and honorable choice of his fellow-soldiers. Before he had
      attained the ninth year of his age, the royal youth received from
      the hands of his indulgent father the purple robe and diadem,
      with the title of Augustus; the election was solemnly ratified by
      the consent and applause of the armies of Gaul; 156 and the name
      of Gratian was added to the names of Valentinian and Valens, in
      all the legal transactions of the Roman government. By his
      marriage with the granddaughter of Constantine, the son of
      Valentinian acquired all the hereditary rights of the Flavian
      family; which, in a series of three Imperial generations, were
      sanctified by time, religion, and the reverence of the people. At
      the death of his father, the royal youth was in the seventeenth
      year of his age; and his virtues already justified the favorable
      opinion of the army and the people. But Gratian resided, without
      apprehension, in the palace of Treves; whilst, at the distance of
      many hundred miles, Valentinian suddenly expired in the camp of
      Bregetio. The passions, which had been so long suppressed by the
      presence of a master, immediately revived in the Imperial
      council; and the ambitious design of reigning in the name of an
      infant, was artfully executed by Mellobaudes and Equitius, who
      commanded the attachment of the Illyrian and Italian bands. They
      contrived the most honorable pretences to remove the popular
      leaders, and the troops of Gaul, who might have asserted the
      claims of the lawful successor; they suggested the necessity of
      extinguishing the hopes of foreign and domestic enemies, by a
      bold and decisive measure. The empress Justina, who had been left
      in a palace about one hundred miles from Bregetio, was
      respectively invited to appear in the camp, with the son of the
      deceased emperor. On the sixth day after the death of
      Valentinian, the infant prince of the same name, who was only
      four years old, was shown, in the arms of his mother, to the
      legions; and solemnly invested, by military acclamation, with the
      titles and ensigns of supreme power. The impending dangers of a
      civil war were seasonably prevented by the wise and moderate
      conduct of the emperor Gratian. He cheerfully accepted the choice
      of the army; declared that he should always consider the son of
      Justina as a brother, not as a rival; and advised the empress,
      with her son Valentinian to fix their residence at Milan, in the
      fair and peaceful province of Italy; while he assumed the more
      arduous command of the countries beyond the Alps. Gratian
      dissembled his resentment till he could safely punish, or
      disgrace, the authors of the conspiracy; and though he uniformly
      behaved with tenderness and regard to his infant colleague, he
      gradually confounded, in the administration of the Western
      empire, the office of a guardian with the authority of a
      sovereign. The government of the Roman world was exercised in the
      united names of Valens and his two nephews; but the feeble
      emperor of the East, who succeeded to the rank of his elder
      brother, never obtained any weight or influence in the councils
      of the West. 157

      155 (return) [ Socrates (l. iv. c. 31) is the only original
      witness of this foolish story, so repugnant to the laws and
      manners of the Romans, that it scarcely deserved the formal and
      elaborate dissertation of M. Bonamy, (Mém. de l’Académie, tom.
      xxx. p. 394-405.) Yet I would preserve the natural circumstance
      of the bath; instead of following Zosimus who represents Justina
      as an old woman, the widow of Magnentius.]

      156 (return) [ Ammianus (xxvii. 6) describes the form of this
      military election, and _august_ investiture. Valentinian does not
      appear to have consulted, or even informed, the senate of Rome.]

      157 (return) [ Ammianus, xxx. 10. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 222, 223.
      Tillemont has proved (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 707-709)
      that Gratian _reigned_ in Italy, Africa, and Illyricum. I have
      endeavored to express his authority over his brother’s dominions,
      as he used it, in an ambiguous style.]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part I.

     Manners Of The Pastoral Nations.—Progress Of The Huns, From China
     To Europe.—Flight Of The Goths.—They Pass The Danube.—Gothic
     War.—Defeat And Death Of Valens.—Gratian Invests Theodosius With
     The Eastern Empire.—His Character And Success.—Peace And
     Settlement Of The Goths.


      In the second year of the reign of Valentinian and Valens, on the
      morning of the twenty-first day of July, the greatest part of the
      Roman world was shaken by a violent and destructive earthquake.
      The impression was communicated to the waters; the shores of the
      Mediterranean were left dry, by the sudden retreat of the sea;
      great quantities of fish were caught with the hand; large vessels
      were stranded on the mud; and a curious spectator 1 amused his
      eye, or rather his fancy, by contemplating the various appearance
      of valleys and mountains, which had never, since the formation of
      the globe, been exposed to the sun. But the tide soon returned,
      with the weight of an immense and irresistible deluge, which was
      severely felt on the coasts of Sicily, of Dalmatia, of Greece,
      and of Egypt: large boats were transported, and lodged on the
      roofs of houses, or at the distance of two miles from the shore;
      the people, with their habitations, were swept away by the
      waters; and the city of Alexandria annually commemorated the
      fatal day, on which fifty thousand persons had lost their lives
      in the inundation. This calamity, the report of which was
      magnified from one province to another, astonished and terrified
      the subjects of Rome; and their affrighted imagination enlarged
      the real extent of a momentary evil. They recollected the
      preceding earthquakes, which had subverted the cities of
      Palestine and Bithynia: they considered these alarming strokes as
      the prelude only of still more dreadful calamities, and their
      fearful vanity was disposed to confound the symptoms of a
      declining empire and a sinking world. 2 It was the fashion of the
      times to attribute every remarkable event to the particular will
      of the Deity; the alterations of nature were connected, by an
      invisible chain, with the moral and metaphysical opinions of the
      human mind; and the most sagacious divines could distinguish,
      according to the color of their respective prejudices, that the
      establishment of heresy tended to produce an earthquake; or that
      a deluge was the inevitable consequence of the progress of sin
      and error. Without presuming to discuss the truth or propriety of
      these lofty speculations, the historian may content himself with
      an observation, which seems to be justified by experience, that
      man has much more to fear from the passions of his
      fellow-creatures, than from the convulsions of the elements. 3
      The mischievous effects of an earthquake, or deluge, a hurricane,
      or the eruption of a volcano, bear a very inconsiderable portion
      to the ordinary calamities of war, as they are now moderated by
      the prudence or humanity of the princes of Europe, who amuse
      their own leisure, and exercise the courage of their subjects, in
      the practice of the military art. But the laws and manners of
      modern nations protect the safety and freedom of the vanquished
      soldier; and the peaceful citizen has seldom reason to complain,
      that his life, or even his fortune, is exposed to the rage of
      war. In the disastrous period of the fall of the Roman empire,
      which may justly be dated from the reign of Valens, the happiness
      and security of each individual were personally attacked; and the
      arts and labors of ages were rudely defaced by the Barbarians of
      Scythia and Germany. The invasion of the Huns precipitated on the
      provinces of the West the Gothic nation, which advanced, in less
      than forty years, from the Danube to the Atlantic, and opened a
      way, by the success of their arms, to the inroads of so many
      hostile tribes, more savage than themselves. The original
      principle of motion was concealed in the remote countries of the
      North; and the curious observation of the pastoral life of the
      Scythians, 4 or Tartars, 5 will illustrate the latent cause of
      these destructive emigrations.

      1 (return) [ Such is the bad taste of Ammianus, (xxvi. 10,) that
      it is not easy to distinguish his facts from his metaphors. Yet
      he positively affirms, that he saw the rotten carcass of a ship,
      _ad decundum lapidem_, at Mothone, or Modon, in Peloponnesus.]

      2 (return) [ The earthquakes and inundations are variously
      described by Libanius, (Orat. de ulciscenda Juliani nece, c. x.,
      in Fabricius, Bibl. Græc. tom. vii. p. 158, with a learned note
      of Olearius,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 221,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 2,)
      Cedrenus, (p. 310, 314,) and Jerom, (in Chron. p. 186, and tom.
      i. p. 250, in Vit. Hilarion.) Epidaurus must have been
      overwhelmed, had not the prudent citizens placed St. Hilarion, an
      Egyptian monk, on the beach. He made the sign of the Cross; the
      mountain-wave stopped, bowed, and returned.]

      3 (return) [ Dicæarchus, the Peripatetic, composed a formal
      treatise, to prove this obvious truth; which is not the most
      honorable to the human species. (Cicero, de Officiis, ii. 5.)]

      4 (return) [ The original Scythians of Herodotus (l. iv. c.
      47—57, 99—101) were confined, by the Danube and the Palus Mæotis,
      within a square of 4000 stadia, (400 Roman miles.) See D’Anville
      (Mém. de l’Académie, tom. xxxv. p. 573—591.) Diodorus Siculus
      (tom. i. l. ii. p. 155, edit. Wesseling) has marked the gradual
      progress of the _name_ and nation.]

      5 (return) [ The _Tatars_, or Tartars, were a primitive tribe,
      the rivals, and at length the subjects, of the Moguls. In the
      victorious armies of Zingis Khan, and his successors, the Tartars
      formed the vanguard; and the name, which first reached the ears
      of foreigners, was applied to the whole nation, (Freret, in the
      Hist. de l’Académie, tom. xviii. p. 60.) In speaking of all, or
      any of the northern shepherds of Europe, or Asia, I indifferently
      use the appellations of _Scythians_ or _Tartars_. * Note: The
      Moguls, (Mongols,) according to M. Klaproth, are a tribe of the
      Tartar nation. Tableaux Hist. de l’Asie, p. 154.—M.]

      The different characters that mark the civilized nations of the
      globe, may be ascribed to the use, and the abuse, of reason;
      which so variously shapes, and so artificially composes, the
      manners and opinions of a European, or a Chinese. But the
      operation of instinct is more sure and simple than that of
      reason: it is much easier to ascertain the appetites of a
      quadruped than the speculations of a philosopher; and the savage
      tribes of mankind, as they approach nearer to the condition of
      animals, preserve a stronger resemblance to themselves and to
      each other. The uniform stability of their manners is the natural
      consequence of the imperfection of their faculties. Reduced to a
      similar situation, their wants, their desires, their enjoyments,
      still continue the same: and the influence of food or climate,
      which, in a more improved state of society, is suspended, or
      subdued, by so many moral causes, most powerfully contributes to
      form, and to maintain, the national character of Barbarians. In
      every age, the immense plains of Scythia, or Tartary, have been
      inhabited by vagrant tribes of hunters and shepherds, whose
      indolence refuses to cultivate the earth, and whose restless
      spirit disdains the confinement of a sedentary life. In every
      age, the Scythians, and Tartars, have been renowned for their
      invincible courage and rapid conquests. The thrones of Asia have
      been repeatedly overturned by the shepherds of the North; and
      their arms have spread terror and devastation over the most
      fertile and warlike countries of Europe. 6 On this occasion, as
      well as on many others, the sober historian is forcibly awakened
      from a pleasing vision; and is compelled, with some reluctance,
      to confess, that the pastoral manners, which have been adorned
      with the fairest attributes of peace and innocence, are much
      better adapted to the fierce and cruel habits of a military life.
      To illustrate this observation, I shall now proceed to consider a
      nation of shepherds and of warriors, in the three important
      articles of, I. Their diet; II. Their habitations; and, III.
      Their exercises. The narratives of antiquity are justified by the
      experience of modern times; 7 and the banks of the Borysthenes,
      of the Volga, or of the Selinga, will indifferently present the
      same uniform spectacle of similar and native manners. 8

      6 (return) [ Imperium Asiæ _ter_ quæsivere: ipsi perpetuo ab
      alieno imperio, aut intacti aut invicti, mansere. Since the time
      of Justin, (ii. 2,) they have multiplied this account. Voltaire,
      in a few words, (tom. x. p. 64, Hist. Generale, c. 156,) has
      abridged the Tartar conquests.

      Oft o’er the trembling nations from afar,
      Has Scythia breathed the living cloud of war.
      Note *: Gray.—M.]

      7 (return) [ The fourth book of Herodotus affords a curious
      though imperfect, portrait of the Scythians. Among the moderns,
      who describe the uniform scene, the Khan of Khowaresm, Abulghazi
      Bahadur, expresses his native feelings; and his genealogical
      history of the Tartars has been copiously illustrated by the
      French and English editors. Carpin, Ascelin, and Rubruquis (in
      the Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii.) represent the Moguls of the
      fourteenth century. To these guides I have added Gerbillon, and
      the other Jesuits, (Description de la China par du Halde, tom.
      iv.,) who accurately surveyed the Chinese Tartary; and that
      honest and intelligent traveller, Bell, of Antermony, (two
      volumes in 4to. Glasgow, 1763.) * Note: Of the various works
      published since the time of Gibbon, which throw fight on the
      nomadic population of Central Asia, may be particularly remarked
      the Travels and Dissertations of Pallas; and above all, the very
      curious work of Bergman, Nomadische Streifereyen. Riga, 1805.—M.]

      8 (return) [ The Uzbecks are the most altered from their
      primitive manners; 1. By the profession of the Mahometan
      religion; and 2. By the possession of the cities and harvests of
      the great Bucharia.]

      I. The corn, or even the rice, which constitutes the ordinary and
      wholesome food of a civilized people, can be obtained only by the
      patient toil of the husbandman. Some of the happy savages, who
      dwell between the tropics, are plentifully nourished by the
      liberality of nature; but in the climates of the North, a nation
      of shepherds is reduced to their flocks and herds. The skilful
      practitioners of the medical art will determine (if they are able
      to determine) how far the temper of the human mind may be
      affected by the use of animal, or of vegetable, food; and whether
      the common association of carniverous and cruel deserves to be
      considered in any other light than that of an innocent, perhaps a
      salutary, prejudice of humanity. 9 Yet, if it be true, that the
      sentiment of compassion is imperceptibly weakened by the sight
      and practice of domestic cruelty, we may observe, that the horrid
      objects which are disguised by the arts of European refinement,
      are exhibited in their naked and most disgusting simplicity in
      the tent of a Tartarian shepherd. The ox, or the sheep, are
      slaughtered by the same hand from which they were accustomed to
      receive their daily food; and the bleeding limbs are served, with
      very little preparation, on the table of their unfeeling
      murderer. In the military profession, and especially in the
      conduct of a numerous army, the exclusive use of animal food
      appears to be productive of the most solid advantages. Corn is a
      bulky and perishable commodity; and the large magazines, which
      are indispensably necessary for the subsistence of our troops,
      must be slowly transported by the labor of men or horses. But the
      flocks and herds, which accompany the march of the Tartars,
      afford a sure and increasing supply of flesh and milk: in the far
      greater part of the uncultivated waste, the vegetation of the
      grass is quick and luxuriant; and there are few places so
      extremely barren, that the hardy cattle of the North cannot find
      some tolerable pasture.

      The supply is multiplied and prolonged by the undistinguishing
      appetite, and patient abstinence, of the Tartars. They
      indifferently feed on the flesh of those animals that have been
      killed for the table, or have died of disease. Horseflesh, which
      in every age and country has been proscribed by the civilized
      nations of Europe and Asia, they devour with peculiar greediness;
      and this singular taste facilitates the success of their military
      operations. The active cavalry of Scythia is always followed, in
      their most distant and rapid incursions, by an adequate number of
      spare horses, who may be occasionally used, either to redouble
      the speed, or to satisfy the hunger, of the Barbarians. Many are
      the resources of courage and poverty. When the forage round a
      camp of Tartars is almost consumed, they slaughter the greatest
      part of their cattle, and preserve the flesh, either smoked, or
      dried in the sun. On the sudden emergency of a hasty march, they
      provide themselves with a sufficient quantity of little balls of
      cheese, or rather of hard curd, which they occasionally dissolve
      in water; and this unsubstantial diet will support, for many
      days, the life, and even the spirits, of the patient warrior. But
      this extraordinary abstinence, which the Stoic would approve, and
      the hermit might envy, is commonly succeeded by the most
      voracious indulgence of appetite. The wines of a happier climate
      are the most grateful present, or the most valuable commodity,
      that can be offered to the Tartars; and the only example of their
      industry seems to consist in the art of extracting from mare’s
      milk a fermented liquor, which possesses a very strong power of
      intoxication. Like the animals of prey, the savages, both of the
      old and new world, experience the alternate vicissitudes of
      famine and plenty; and their stomach is inured to sustain,
      without much inconvenience, the opposite extremes of hunger and
      of intemperance.

      9 (return) [ Il est certain que les grands mangeurs de viande
      sont en général cruels et féroces plus que les autres hommes.
      Cette observation est de tous les lieux, et de tous les temps: la
      barbarie Angloise est connue, &c. Emile de Rousseau, tom. i. p.
      274. Whatever we may think of the general observation, _we_ shall
      not easily allow the truth of his example. The good-natured
      complaints of Plutarch, and the pathetic lamentations of Ovid,
      seduce our reason, by exciting our sensibility.]

      II. In the ages of rustic and martial simplicity, a people of
      soldiers and husbandmen are dispersed over the face of an
      extensive and cultivated country; and some time must elapse
      before the warlike youth of Greece or Italy could be assembled
      under the same standard, either to defend their own confines, or
      to invade the territories of the adjacent tribes. The progress of
      manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude
      within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer
      soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil
      society, corrupt the habits of the military life. The pastoral
      manners of the Scythians seem to unite the different advantages
      of simplicity and refinement. The individuals of the same tribe
      are constantly assembled, but they are assembled in a camp; and
      the native spirit of these dauntless shepherds is animated by
      mutual support and emulation. The houses of the Tartars are no
      more than small tents, of an oval form, which afford a cold and
      dirty habitation, for the promiscuous youth of both sexes. The
      palaces of the rich consist of wooden huts, of such a size that
      they may be conveniently fixed on large wagons, and drawn by a
      team perhaps of twenty or thirty oxen. The flocks and herds,
      after grazing all day in the adjacent pastures, retire, on the
      approach of night, within the protection of the camp. The
      necessity of preventing the most mischievous confusion, in such a
      perpetual concourse of men and animals, must gradually introduce,
      in the distribution, the order, and the guard, of the encampment,
      the rudiments of the military art. As soon as the forage of a
      certain district is consumed, the tribe, or rather army, of
      shepherds, makes a regular march to some fresh pastures; and thus
      acquires, in the ordinary occupations of the pastoral life, the
      practical knowledge of one of the most important and difficult
      operations of war. The choice of stations is regulated by the
      difference of the seasons: in the summer, the Tartars advance
      towards the North, and pitch their tents on the banks of a river,
      or, at least, in the neighborhood of a running stream. But in the
      winter, they return to the South, and shelter their camp, behind
      some convenient eminence, against the winds, which are chilled in
      their passage over the bleak and icy regions of Siberia. These
      manners are admirably adapted to diffuse, among the wandering
      tribes, the spirit of emigration and conquest. The connection
      between the people and their territory is of so frail a texture,
      that it may be broken by the slightest accident. The camp, and
      not the soil, is the native country of the genuine Tartar. Within
      the precincts of that camp, his family, his companions, his
      property, are always included; and, in the most distant marches,
      he is still surrounded by the objects which are dear, or
      valuable, or familiar in his eyes. The thirst of rapine, the
      fear, or the resentment of injury, the impatience of servitude,
      have, in every age, been sufficient causes to urge the tribes of
      Scythia boldly to advance into some unknown countries, where they
      might hope to find a more plentiful subsistence or a less
      formidable enemy. The revolutions of the North have frequently
      determined the fate of the South; and in the conflict of hostile
      nations, the victor and the vanquished have alternately drove,
      and been driven, from the confines of China to those of Germany.
      10 These great emigrations, which have been sometimes executed
      with almost incredible diligence, were rendered more easy by the
      peculiar nature of the climate. It is well known that the cold of
      Tartary is much more severe than in the midst of the temperate
      zone might reasonably be expected; this uncommon rigor is
      attributed to the height of the plains, which rise, especially
      towards the East, more than half a mile above the level of the
      sea; and to the quantity of saltpetre with which the soil is
      deeply impregnated. 11 In the winter season, the broad and rapid
      rivers, that discharge their waters into the Euxine, the Caspian,
      or the Icy Sea, are strongly frozen; the fields are covered with
      a bed of snow; and the fugitive, or victorious, tribes may
      securely traverse, with their families, their wagons, and their
      cattle, the smooth and hard surface of an immense plain.

      10 (return) [ These Tartar emigrations have been discovered by M.
      de Guignes (Histoire des Huns, tom. i. ii.) a skilful and
      laborious interpreter of the Chinese language; who has thus laid
      open new and important scenes in the history of mankind.]

      11 (return) [ A plain in the Chinese Tartary, only eighty leagues
      from the great wall, was found by the missionaries to be three
      thousand geometrical paces above the level of the sea.
      Montesquieu, who has used, and abused, the relations of
      travellers, deduces the revolutions of Asia from this important
      circumstance, that heat and cold, weakness and strength, touch
      each other without any temperate zone, (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii.
      c. 3.)]

      III. The pastoral life, compared with the labors of agriculture
      and manufactures, is undoubtedly a life of idleness; and as the
      most honorable shepherds of the Tartar race devolve on their
      captives the domestic management of the cattle, their own leisure
      is seldom disturbed by any servile and assiduous cares. But this
      leisure, instead of being devoted to the soft enjoyments of love
      and harmony, is usefully spent in the violent and sanguinary
      exercise of the chase. The plains of Tartary are filled with a
      strong and serviceable breed of horses, which are easily trained
      for the purposes of war and hunting. The Scythians of every age
      have been celebrated as bold and skilful riders; and constant
      practice had seated them so firmly on horseback, that they were
      supposed by strangers to perform the ordinary duties of civil
      life, to eat, to drink, and even to sleep, without dismounting
      from their steeds. They excel in the dexterous management of the
      lance; the long Tartar bow is drawn with a nervous arm; and the
      weighty arrow is directed to its object with unerring aim and
      irresistible force. These arrows are often pointed against the
      harmless animals of the desert, which increase and multiply in
      the absence of their most formidable enemy; the hare, the goat,
      the roebuck, the fallow-deer, the stag, the elk, and the
      antelope. The vigor and patience, both of the men and horses, are
      continually exercised by the fatigues of the chase; and the
      plentiful supply of game contributes to the subsistence, and even
      luxury, of a Tartar camp. But the exploits of the hunters of
      Scythia are not confined to the destruction of timid or innoxious
      beasts; they boldly encounter the angry wild boar, when he turns
      against his pursuers, excite the sluggish courage of the bear,
      and provoke the fury of the tiger, as he slumbers in the thicket.
      Where there is danger, there may be glory; and the mode of
      hunting, which opens the fairest field to the exertions of valor,
      may justly be considered as the image, and as the school, of war.
      The general hunting matches, the pride and delight of the Tartar
      princes, compose an instructive exercise for their numerous
      cavalry. A circle is drawn, of many miles in circumference, to
      encompass the game of an extensive district; and the troops that
      form the circle regularly advance towards a common centre; where
      the captive animals, surrounded on every side, are abandoned to
      the darts of the hunters. In this march, which frequently
      continues many days, the cavalry are obliged to climb the hills,
      to swim the rivers, and to wind through the valleys, without
      interrupting the prescribed order of their gradual progress. They
      acquire the habit of directing their eye, and their steps, to a
      remote object; of preserving their intervals of suspending or
      accelerating their pace, according to the motions of the troops
      on their right and left; and of watching and repeating the
      signals of their leaders. Their leaders study, in this practical
      school, the most important lesson of the military art; the prompt
      and accurate judgment of ground, of distance, and of time. To
      employ against a human enemy the same patience and valor, the
      same skill and discipline, is the only alteration which is
      required in real war; and the amusements of the chase serve as a
      prelude to the conquest of an empire. 12

      12 (return) [ Petit de la Croix (Vie de Gengiscan, l. iii. c. 6)
      represents the full glory and extent of the Mogul chase. The
      Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest followed the emperor Khamhi when
      he hunted in Tartary, (Duhalde, Déscription de la Chine, tom. iv.
      p. 81, 290, &c., folio edit.) His grandson, Kienlong, who unites
      the Tartar discipline with the laws and learning of China,
      describes (Eloge de Moukden, p. 273—285) as a poet the pleasures
      which he had often enjoyed as a sportsman.]

      The political society of the ancient Germans has the appearance
      of a voluntary alliance of independent warriors. The tribes of
      Scythia, distinguished by the modern appellation of _Hords_,
      assume the form of a numerous and increasing family; which, in
      the course of successive generations, has been propagated from
      the same original stock. The meanest, and most ignorant, of the
      Tartars, preserve, with conscious pride, the inestimable treasure
      of their genealogy; and whatever distinctions of rank may have
      been introduced, by the unequal distribution of pastoral wealth,
      they mutually respect themselves, and each other, as the
      descendants of the first founder of the tribe. The custom, which
      still prevails, of adopting the bravest and most faithful of the
      captives, may countenance the very probable suspicion, that this
      extensive consanguinity is, in a great measure, legal and
      fictitious. But the useful prejudice, which has obtained the
      sanction of time and opinion, produces the effects of truth; the
      haughty Barbarians yield a cheerful and voluntary obedience to
      the head of their blood; and their chief, or _mursa_, as the
      representative of their great father, exercises the authority of
      a judge in peace, and of a leader in war. In the original state
      of the pastoral world, each of the _mursas_ (if we may continue
      to use a modern appellation) acted as the independent chief of a
      large and separate family; and the limits of their peculiar
      territories were gradually fixed by superior force, or mutual
      consent. But the constant operation of various and permanent
      causes contributed to unite the vagrant Hords into national
      communities, under the command of a supreme head. The weak were
      desirous of support, and the strong were ambitious of dominion;
      the power, which is the result of union, oppressed and collected
      the divided force of the adjacent tribes; and, as the vanquished
      were freely admitted to share the advantages of victory, the most
      valiant chiefs hastened to range themselves and their followers
      under the formidable standard of a confederate nation. The most
      successful of the Tartar princes assumed the military command, to
      which he was entitled by the superiority, either of merit or of
      power. He was raised to the throne by the acclamations of his
      equals; and the title of _Khan_ expresses, in the language of the
      North of Asia, the full extent of the regal dignity. The right of
      hereditary succession was long confined to the blood of the
      founder of the monarchy; and at this moment all the Khans, who
      reign from Crimea to the wall of China, are the lineal
      descendants of the renowned Zingis. 13 But, as it is the
      indispensable duty of a Tartar sovereign to lead his warlike
      subjects into the field, the claims of an infant are often
      disregarded; and some royal kinsman, distinguished by his age and
      valor, is intrusted with the sword and sceptre of his
      predecessor. Two distinct and regular taxes are levied on the
      tribes, to support the dignity of the national monarch, and of
      their peculiar chief; and each of those contributions amounts to
      the tithe, both of their property, and of their spoil. A Tartar
      sovereign enjoys the tenth part of the wealth of his people; and
      as his own domestic riches of flocks and herds increase in a much
      larger proportion, he is able plentifully to maintain the rustic
      splendor of his court, to reward the most deserving, or the most
      favored of his followers, and to obtain, from the gentle
      influence of corruption, the obedience which might be sometimes
      refused to the stern mandates of authority. The manners of his
      subjects, accustomed, like himself, to blood and rapine, might
      excuse, in their eyes, such partial acts of tyranny, as would
      excite the horror of a civilized people; but the power of a
      despot has never been acknowledged in the deserts of Scythia. The
      immediate jurisdiction of the khan is confined within the limits
      of his own tribe; and the exercise of his royal prerogative has
      been moderated by the ancient institution of a national council.
      The Coroulai, 14 or Diet, of the Tartars, was regularly held in
      the spring and autumn, in the midst of a plain; where the princes
      of the reigning family, and the mursas of the respective tribes,
      may conveniently assemble on horseback, with their martial and
      numerous trains; and the ambitious monarch, who reviewed the
      strength, must consult the inclination of an armed people. The
      rudiments of a feudal government may be discovered in the
      constitution of the Scythian or Tartar nations; but the perpetual
      conflict of those hostile nations has sometimes terminated in the
      establishment of a powerful and despotic empire. The victor,
      enriched by the tribute, and fortified by the arms of dependent
      kings, has spread his conquests over Europe or Asia: the
      successful shepherds of the North have submitted to the
      confinement of arts, of laws, and of cities; and the introduction
      of luxury, after destroying the freedom of the people, has
      undermined the foundations of the throne. 15

      13 (return) [ See the second volume of the Genealogical History
      of the Tartars; and the list of the Khans, at the end of the life
      of Geng’s, or Zingis. Under the reign of Timur, or Tamerlane, one
      of his subjects, a descendant of Zingis, still bore the regal
      appellation of Khan and the conqueror of Asia contented himself
      with the title of Emir or Sultan. Abulghazi, part v. c. 4.
      D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orien tale, p. 878.]

      14 (return) [ See the Diets of the ancient Huns, (De Guignes,
      tom. ii. p. 26,) and a curious description of those of Zingis,
      (Vie de Gengiscan, l. i. c. 6, l. iv. c. 11.) Such assemblies are
      frequently mentioned in the Persian history of Timur; though they
      served only to countenance the resolutions of their master.]

      15 (return) [ Montesquieu labors to explain a difference, which
      has not existed, between the liberty of the Arabs, and the
      _perpetual_ slavery of the Tartars. (Esprit des Loix, l. xvii. c.
      5, l. xviii. c. 19, &c.)]

      The memory of past events cannot long be preserved in the
      frequent and remote emigrations of illiterate Barbarians. The
      modern Tartars are ignorant of the conquests of their ancestors;
      16 and our knowledge of the history of the Scythians is derived
      from their intercourse with the learned and civilized nations of
      the South, the Greeks, the Persians, and the Chinese. The Greeks,
      who navigated the Euxine, and planted their colonies along the
      sea-coast, made the gradual and imperfect discovery of Scythia;
      from the Danube, and the confines of Thrace, as far as the frozen
      Mæotis, the seat of eternal winter, and Mount Caucasus, which, in
      the language of poetry, was described as the utmost boundary of
      the earth. They celebrated, with simple credulity, the virtues of
      the pastoral life: 17 they entertained a more rational
      apprehension of the strength and numbers of the warlike
      Barbarians, 18 who contemptuously baffled the immense armament of
      Darius, the son of Hystaspes. 19 The Persian monarchs had
      extended their western conquests to the banks of the Danube, and
      the limits of European Scythia. The eastern provinces of their
      empire were exposed to the Scythians of Asia; the wild
      inhabitants of the plains beyond the Oxus and the Jaxartes, two
      mighty rivers, which direct their course towards the Caspian Sea.
      The long and memorable quarrel of Iran and Touran is still the
      theme of history or romance: the famous, perhaps the fabulous,
      valor of the Persian heroes, Rustan and Asfendiar, was
      signalized, in the defence of their country, against the
      Afrasiabs of the North; 20 and the invincible spirit of the same
      Barbarians resisted, on the same ground, the victorious arms of
      Cyrus and Alexander. 21 In the eyes of the Greeks and Persians,
      the real geography of Scythia was bounded, on the East, by the
      mountains of Imaus, or Caf; and their distant prospect of the
      extreme and inaccessible parts of Asia was clouded by ignorance,
      or perplexed by fiction. But those inaccessible regions are the
      ancient residence of a powerful and civilized nation, 22 which
      ascends, by a probable tradition, above forty centuries; 23 and
      which is able to verify a series of near two thousand years, by
      the perpetual testimony of accurate and contemporary historians.
      24 The annals of China 25 illustrate the state and revolutions of
      the pastoral tribes, which may still be distinguished by the
      vague appellation of Scythians, or Tartars; the vassals, the
      enemies, and sometimes the conquerors, of a great empire; whose
      policy has uniformly opposed the blind and impetuous valor of the
      Barbarians of the North. From the mouth of the Danube to the Sea
      of Japan, the whole longitude of Scythia is about one hundred and
      ten degrees, which, in that parallel, are equal to more than five
      thousand miles. The latitude of these extensive deserts cannot be
      so easily, or so accurately, measured; but, from the fortieth
      degree, which touches the wall of China, we may securely advance
      above a thousand miles to the northward, till our progress is
      stopped by the excessive cold of Siberia. In that dreary climate,
      instead of the animated picture of a Tartar camp, the smoke that
      issues from the earth, or rather from the snow, betrays the
      subterraneous dwellings of the Tongouses, and the Samoides: the
      want of horses and oxen is imperfectly supplied by the use of
      reindeer, and of large dogs; and the conquerors of the earth
      insensibly degenerate into a race of deformed and diminutive
      savages, who tremble at the sound of arms. 26

      16 (return) [ Abulghasi Khan, in the two first parts of his
      Genealogical History, relates the miserable tales and traditions
      of the Uzbek Tartars concerning the times which preceded the
      reign of Zingis. * Note: The differences between the various
      pastoral tribes and nations comprehended by the ancients under
      the vague name of Scythians, and by Gibbon under inst of Tartars,
      have received some, and still, perhaps, may receive more, light
      from the comparisons of their dialects and languages by modern
      scholars.—M]

      17 (return) [ In the thirteenth book of the Iliad, Jupiter turns
      away his eyes from the bloody fields of Troy, to the plains of
      Thrace and Scythia. He would not, by changing the prospect,
      behold a more peaceful or innocent scene.]

      18 (return) [ Thucydides, l. ii. c. 97.]

      19 (return) [ See the fourth book of Herodotus. When Darius
      advanced into the Moldavian desert, between the Danube and the
      Niester, the king of the Scythians sent him a mouse, a frog, a
      bird, and five arrows; a tremendous allegory!]

      20 (return) [ These wars and heroes may be found under their
      respective _titles_, in the Bibliothèque Orientale of D’Herbelot.
      They have been celebrated in an epic poem of sixty thousand
      rhymed couplets, by Ferdusi, the Homer of Persia. See the history
      of Nadir Shah, p. 145, 165. The public must lament that Mr. Jones
      has suspended the pursuit of Oriental learning. Note: Ferdusi is
      yet imperfectly known to European readers. An abstract of the
      whole poem has been published by Goerres in German, under the
      title “das Heldenbuch des Iran.” In English, an abstract with
      poetical translations, by Mr. Atkinson, has appeared, under the
      auspices of the Oriental Fund. But to translate a poet a man must
      be a poet. The best account of the poem is in an article by Von
      Hammer in the Vienna Jahrbucher, 1820: or perhaps in a masterly
      article in Cochrane’s Foreign Quarterly Review, No. 1, 1835. A
      splendid and critical edition of the whole work has been
      published by a very learned English Orientalist, Captain Macan,
      at the expense of the king of Oude. As to the number of 60,000
      couplets, Captain Macan (Preface, p. 39) states that he never saw
      a MS. containing more than 56,685, including doubtful and
      spurious passages and episodes.—M. * Note: The later studies of
      Sir W. Jones were more in unison with the wishes of the public,
      thus expressed by Gibbon.—M.]

      21 (return) [ The Caspian Sea, with its rivers and adjacent
      tribes, are laboriously illustrated in the Examen Critique des
      Historiens d’Alexandre, which compares the true geography, and
      the errors produced by the vanity or ignorance of the Greeks.]

      22 (return) [ The original seat of the nation appears to have
      been in the Northwest of China, in the provinces of Chensi and
      Chansi. Under the two first dynasties, the principal town was
      still a movable camp; the villages were thinly scattered; more
      land was employed in pasture than in tillage; the exercise of
      hunting was ordained to clear the country from wild beasts;
      Petcheli (where Pekin stands) was a desert, and the Southern
      provinces were peopled with Indian savages. The dynasty of the
      _Han_ (before Christ 206) gave the empire its actual form and
      extent.]

      23 (return) [ The æra of the Chinese monarchy has been variously
      fixed from 2952 to 2132 years before Christ; and the year 2637
      has been chosen for the lawful epoch, by the authority of the
      present emperor. The difference arises from the uncertain
      duration of the two first dynasties; and the vacant space that
      lies beyond them, as far as the real, or fabulous, times of Fohi,
      or Hoangti. Sematsien dates his authentic chronology from the
      year 841; the thirty-six eclipses of Confucius (thirty-one of
      which have been verified) were observed between the years 722 and
      480 before Christ. The _historical_ period of China does not
      ascend above the Greek Olympiads.]

      24 (return) [ After several ages of anarchy and despotism, the
      dynasty of the Han (before Christ 206) was the æra of the revival
      of learning. The fragments of ancient literature were restored;
      the characters were improved and fixed; and the future
      preservation of books was secured by the useful inventions of
      ink, paper, and the art of printing. Ninety-seven years before
      Christ, Sematsien published the first history of China. His
      labors were illustrated, and continued, by a series of one
      hundred and eighty historians. The substance of their works is
      still extant; and the most considerable of them are now deposited
      in the king of France’s library.]

      25 (return) [ China has been illustrated by the labors of the
      French; of the missionaries at Pekin, and Messrs. Freret and De
      Guignes at Paris. The substance of the three preceding notes is
      extracted from the Chou-king, with the preface and notes of M. de
      Guignes, Paris, 1770. The _Tong-Kien-Kang-Mou_, translated by P.
      de Mailla, under the name of Hist. Génerale de la Chine, tom. i.
      p. xlix.—cc.; the Mémoires sur la Chine, Paris, 1776, &c., tom.
      i. p. 1—323; tom. ii. p. 5—364; the Histoire des Huns, tom. i. p.
      4—131, tom. v. p. 345—362; and the Mémoires de l’Académie des
      Inscriptions, tom. x. p. 377—402; tom. xv. p. 495—564; tom.
      xviii. p. 178—295; xxxvi. p. 164—238.]

      26 (return) [ See the Histoire Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii.,
      and the Genealogical History, vol. ii. p. 620—664.]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part II.


      The Huns, who under the reign of Valens threatened the empire of
      Rome, had been formidable, in a much earlier period, to the
      empire of China. 27 Their ancient, perhaps their original, seat
      was an extensive, though dry and barren, tract of country,
      immediately on the north side of the great wall. Their place is
      at present occupied by the forty-nine Hords or Banners of the
      Mongous, a pastoral nation, which consists of about two hundred
      thousand families. 28 But the valor of the Huns had extended the
      narrow limits of their dominions; and their rustic chiefs, who
      assumed the appellation of _Tanjou_, gradually became the
      conquerors, and the sovereigns of a formidable empire. Towards
      the East, their victorious arms were stopped only by the ocean;
      and the tribes, which are thinly scattered between the Amoor and
      the extreme peninsula of Corea, adhered, with reluctance, to the
      standard of the Huns. On the West, near the head of the Irtish,
      in the valleys of Imaus, they found a more ample space, and more
      numerous enemies. One of the lieutenants of the Tanjou subdued,
      in a single expedition, twenty-six nations; the Igours, 29
      distinguished above the Tartar race by the use of letters, were
      in the number of his vassals; and, by the strange connection of
      human events, the flight of one of those vagrant tribes recalled
      the victorious Parthians from the invasion of Syria. 30 On the
      side of the North, the ocean was assigned as the limit of the
      power of the Huns. Without enemies to resist their progress, or
      witnesses to contradict their vanity, they might securely achieve
      a real, or imaginary, conquest of the frozen regions of Siberia.
      The _Northern Sea_ was fixed as the remote boundary of their
      empire. But the name of that sea, on whose shores the patriot
      Sovou embraced the life of a shepherd and an exile, 31 may be
      transferred, with much more probability, to the Baikal, a
      capacious basin, above three hundred miles in length, which
      disdains the modest appellation of a lake 32 and which actually
      communicates with the seas of the North, by the long course of
      the Angara, the Tongusha, and the Jenissea. The submission of so
      many distant nations might flatter the pride of the Tanjou; but
      the valor of the Huns could be rewarded only by the enjoyment of
      the wealth and luxury of the empire of the South. In the third
      century 3211 before the Christian æra, a wall of fifteen hundred
      miles in length was constructed, to defend the frontiers of China
      against the inroads of the Huns; 33 but this stupendous work,
      which holds a conspicuous place in the map of the world, has
      never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The
      cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three
      hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with
      which they managed their bows and their horses: by their hardy
      patience in supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the
      incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked by
      torrents, or precipices, by the deepest rivers, or by the most
      lofty mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of
      the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished,
      and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese
      army. The emperor Kaoti, 34 a soldier of fortune, whose personal
      merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the Huns with
      those veteran troops which had been trained in the civil wars of
      China. But he was soon surrounded by the Barbarians; and, after a
      siege of seven days, the monarch, hopeless of relief, was reduced
      to purchase his deliverance by an ignominious capitulation. The
      successors of Kaoti, whose lives were dedicated to the arts of
      peace, or the luxury of the palace, submitted to a more permanent
      disgrace. They too hastily confessed the insufficiency of arms
      and fortifications. They were too easily convinced, that while
      the blazing signals announced on every side the approach of the
      Huns, the Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on their
      head, and the cuirass on their back, were destroyed by the
      incessant labor of ineffectual marches. 35 A regular payment of
      money, and silk, was stipulated as the condition of a temporary
      and precarious peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a
      real tribute, under the names of a gift or subsidy, was practised
      by the emperors of China as well as by those of Rome. But there
      still remained a more disgraceful article of tribute, which
      violated the sacred feelings of humanity and nature. The
      hardships of the savage life, which destroy in their infancy the
      children who are born with a less healthy and robust
      constitution, introduced a remarkable disproportion between the
      numbers of the two sexes. The Tartars are an ugly and even
      deformed race; and while they consider their own women as the
      instruments of domestic labor, their desires, or rather their
      appetites, are directed to the enjoyment of more elegant beauty.
      A select band of the fairest maidens of China was annually
      devoted to the rude embraces of the Huns; 36 and the alliance of
      the haughty Tanjous was secured by their marriage with the
      genuine, or adopted, daughters of the Imperial family, which
      vainly attempted to escape the sacrilegious pollution. The
      situation of these unhappy victims is described in the verses of
      a Chinese princess, who laments that she had been condemned by
      her parents to a distant exile, under a Barbarian husband; who
      complains that sour milk was her only drink, raw flesh her only
      food, a tent her only palace; and who expresses, in a strain of
      pathetic simplicity, the natural wish, that she were transformed
      into a bird, to fly back to her dear country; the object of her
      tender and perpetual regret. 37

      27 (return) [ M. de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 1—124) has given the
      original history of the ancient Hiong-nou, or Huns. The Chinese
      geography of their country (tom. i. part. p. lv.—lxiii.) seems to
      comprise a part of their conquests. * Note: The theory of De
      Guignes on the early history of the Huns is, in general, rejected
      by modern writers. De Guignes advanced no valid proof of the
      identity of the Hioung-nou of the Chinese writers with the Huns,
      except the similarity of name. Schlozer, (Allgemeine Nordische
      Geschichte, p. 252,) Klaproth, (Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie,
      p. 246,) St. Martin, iv. 61, and A. Remusat, (Recherches sur les
      Langues Tartares, D. P. xlvi, and p. 328; though in the latter
      passage he considers the theory of De Guignes not absolutely
      disproved,) concur in considering the Huns as belonging to the
      Finnish stock, distinct from the Moguls the Mandscheus, and the
      Turks. The Hiong-nou, according to Klaproth, were Turks. The
      names of the Hunnish chiefs could not be pronounced by a Turk;
      and, according to the same author, the Hioung-nou, which is
      explained in Chinese as _detestable slaves_, as early as the year
      91 J. C., were dispersed by the Chinese, and assumed the name of
      Yue-po or Yue-pan. M. St. Martin does not consider it impossible
      that the appellation of Hioung-nou may have belonged to the Huns.
      But all agree in considering the Madjar or Magyar of modern
      Hungary the descendants of the Huns. Their language (compare
      Gibbon, c. lv. n. 22) is nearly related to the Lapponian and
      Vogoul. The noble forms of the modern Hungarians, so strongly
      contrasted with the hideous pictures which the fears and the
      hatred of the Romans give of the Huns, M. Klaproth accounts for
      by the intermingling with other races, Turkish and Slavonian. The
      present state of the question is thus stated in the last edition
      of Malte Brun, and a new and ingenious hypothesis suggested to
      resolve all the difficulties of the question.
          Were the Huns Finns? This obscure question has not been
          debated till very recently, and is yet very far from being
          decided. We are of opinion that it will be so hereafter in
          the same manner as that with regard to the Scythians. We
          shall trace in the portrait of Attila a dominant tribe or
          Mongols, or Kalmucks, with all the hereditary ugliness of
          that race; but in the mass of the Hunnish army and nation
          will be recognized the Chuni and the Ounni of the Greek
          Geography. the Kuns of the Hungarians, the European Huns, and
          a race in close relationship with the Flemish stock. Malte
          Brun, vi. p. 94. This theory is more fully and ably
          developed, p. 743. Whoever has seen the emperor of Austria’s
          Hungarian guard, will not readily admit their descent from
          the Huns described by Sidonius Appolinaris.—M]

      28 (return) [ See in Duhalde (tom. iv. p. 18—65) a circumstantial
      description, with a correct map, of the country of the Mongous.]

      29 (return) [ The Igours, or Vigours, were divided into three
      branches; hunters, shepherds, and husbandmen; and the last class
      was despised by the two former. See Abulghazi, part ii. c. 7. *
      Note: On the Ouigour or Igour characters, see the work of M. A.
      Remusat, Sur les Langues Tartares. He conceives the Ouigour
      alphabet of sixteen letters to have been formed from the Syriac,
      and introduced by the Nestorian Christians.—Ch. ii. M.]

      30 (return) [ Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. xxv.
      p. 17—33. The comprehensive view of M. de Guignes has compared
      these distant events.]

      31 (return) [ The fame of Sovou, or So-ou, his merit, and his
      singular adventurers, are still celebrated in China. See the
      Eloge de Moukden, p. 20, and notes, p. 241—247; and Mémoires sur
      la Chine, tom. iii. p. 317—360.]

      32 (return) [ See Isbrand Ives in Harris’s Collection, vol. ii.
      p. 931; Bell’s Travels, vol. i. p. 247—254; and Gmelin, in the
      Hist. Generale des Voyages, tom. xviii. 283—329. They all remark
      the vulgar opinion that the _holy sea_ grows angry and
      tempestuous if any one presumes to call it a _lake_. This
      grammatical nicety often excites a dispute between the absurd
      superstition of the mariners and the absurd obstinacy of
      travellers.]

      3211 (return) [ 224 years before Christ. It was built by
      Chi-hoang-ti of the Dynasty Thsin. It is from twenty to
      twenty-five feet high. Ce monument, aussi gigantesque
      qu’impuissant, arreterait bien les incursions de quelques
      Nomades; mais il n’a jamais empéché les invasions des Turcs, des
      Mongols, et des Mandchous. Abe Remusat Rech. Asiat. 2d ser. vol.
      i. p. 58—M.]

      33 (return) [ The construction of the wall of China is mentioned
      by Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 45) and De Guignes, (tom. ii. p. 59.)]

      34 (return) [ See the life of Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist,
      de la Chine, published at Paris, 1777, &c., tom. i. p. 442—522.
      This voluminous work is the translation (by the P. de Mailla) of
      the _Tong- Kien-Kang-Mou_, the celebrated abridgment of the great
      History of Semakouang (A.D. 1084) and his continuators.]

      35 (return) [ See a free and ample memorial, presented by a
      Mandarin to the emperor Venti, (before Christ 180—157,) in
      Duhalde, (tom. ii. p. 412—426,) from a collection of State papers
      marked with the red pencil by Kamhi himself, (p. 354—612.)
      Another memorial from the minister of war (Kang-Mou, tom. ii. p
      555) supplies some curious circumstances of the manners of the
      Huns.]

      36 (return) [ A supply of women is mentioned as a customary
      article of treaty and tribute, (Hist. de la Conquete de la Chine,
      par les Tartares Mantcheoux, tom. i. p. 186, 187, with the note
      of the editor.)]

      37 (return) [ De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 62.]

      The conquest of China has been twice achieved by the pastoral
      tribes of the North: the forces of the Huns were not inferior to
      those of the Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their ambition
      might entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. But their
      pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the arms
      and policy of Vouti, 38 the fifth emperor of the powerful dynasty
      of the Han. In his long reign of fifty- four years, the
      Barbarians of the southern provinces submitted to the laws and
      manners of China; and the ancient limits of the monarchy were
      enlarged, from the great river of Kiang, to the port of Canton.
      Instead of confining himself to the timid operations of a
      defensive war, his lieutenants penetrated many hundred miles into
      the country of the Huns. In those boundless deserts, where it is
      impossible to form magazines, and difficult to transport a
      sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of Vouti were
      repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships: and, of one hundred
      and forty thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians,
      thirty thousand only returned in safety to the feet of their
      master. These losses, however, were compensated by splendid and
      decisive success. The Chinese generals improved the superiority
      which they derived from the temper of their arms, their chariots
      of war, and the service of their Tartar auxiliaries. The camp of
      the Tanjou was surprised in the midst of sleep and intemperance;
      and, though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way through
      the ranks of the enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his
      subjects on the field of battle. Yet this signal victory, which
      was preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed
      much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns than the
      effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary
      nations from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or allured
      by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most
      considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, disclaimed
      the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged themselves
      the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the
      implacable enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty
      people, as soon as they were reduced to their native strength,
      might, perhaps, have been contained within the walls of one of
      the great and populous cities of China. 39 The desertion of his
      subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length compelled
      the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an independent
      sovereign, and the freedom of a warlike and high-spirited nation.
      He was received at Sigan, the capital of the monarchy, by the
      troops, the mandarins, and the emperor himself, with all the
      honors that could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese
      vanity. 40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his reception;
      his place was assigned above all the princes of the royal family;
      and the patience of the Barbarian king was exhausted by the
      ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight courses of
      meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on
      his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of
      China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his
      successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted
      a seal, which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence.
      After this humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed
      from their allegiance and seized the favorable moments of war and
      rapine; but the monarchy of the Huns gradually declined, till it
      was broken, by civil dissension, into two hostile and separate
      kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged, by fear and
      ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which
      composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained,
      with the title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of
      the Chinese provinces; and his constant attachment to the service
      of the empire was secured by weakness, and the desire of revenge.
      From the time of this fatal schism, the Huns of the North
      continued to languish about fifty years; till they were oppressed
      on every side by their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud
      inscription 41 of a column, erected on a lofty mountain,
      announced to posterity, that a Chinese army had marched seven
      hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, 42 a
      tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had
      formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign
      of thirteen hundred years, was utterly destroyed before the end
      of the first century of the Christian æra. 43

      38 (return) [ See the reign of the emperor Vouti, in the
      Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 1—98. His various and inconsistent
      character seems to be impartially drawn.]

      39 (return) [ This expression is used in the memorial to the
      emperor Venti, (Duhalde, tom. ii. p. 411.) Without adopting the
      exaggerations of Marco Polo and Isaac Vossius, we may rationally
      allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the
      South, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more
      populous.]

      40 (return) [ See the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 150, and the
      subsequent events under the proper years. This memorable festival
      is celebrated in the Eloge de Moukden, and explained in a note by
      the P. Gaubil, p. 89, 90.]

      41 (return) [ This inscription was composed on the spot by
      Parkou, President of the Tribunal of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii.
      p. 392.) Similar monuments have been discovered in many parts of
      Tartary, (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122.)]

      42 (return) [ M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short
      account of the Sienpi.]

      43 (return) [ The æra of the Huns is placed, by the Chinese, 1210
      years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not
      commence till the year 230, (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21,
      123.)]

      The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the various
      influence of character and situation. 44 Above one hundred
      thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most pusillanimous
      of the people, were contented to remain in their native country,
      to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and to mingle with
      the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fifty-eight hords, about two
      hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more honorable servitude,
      retired towards the South; implored the protection of the
      emperors of China; and were permitted to inhabit, and to guard,
      the extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the territory
      of Ortous. But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns
      maintained, in their adverse fortune, the undaunted spirit of
      their ancestors. The Western world was open to their valor; and
      they resolved, under the conduct of their hereditary chieftains,
      to conquer and subdue some remote country, which was still
      inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi, and to the laws of China.
      45 The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the
      mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the Chinese geography; but
      _we_ are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these
      formidable exiles, which directed their march towards the Oxus,
      and towards the Volga. The first of these colonies established
      their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana,
      on the eastern side of the Caspian; where they preserved the name
      of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites, or Nepthalites. 4511
      Their manners were softened, and even their features were
      insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate, and their
      long residence in a flourishing province, 46 which might still
      retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece. 47 The _white_
      Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their
      complexions, soon abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo,
      which, under the appellation of Carizme, has since enjoyed a
      temporary splendor, was the residence of the king, who exercised
      a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury was
      maintained by the labor of the Sogdians; and the only vestige of
      their ancient barbarism, was the custom which obliged all the
      companions, perhaps to the number of twenty, who had shared the
      liberality of a wealthy lord, to be buried alive in the same
      grave. 48 The vicinity of the Huns to the provinces of Persia,
      involved them in frequent and bloody contests with the power of
      that monarchy. But they respected, in peace, the faith of
      treaties; in war, the dictates of humanity; and their memorable
      victory over Peroses, or Firuz, displayed the moderation, as well
      as the valor, of the Barbarians. The _second_ division of their
      countrymen, the Huns, who gradually advanced towards the
      North-west, were exercised by the hardships of a colder climate,
      and a more laborious march. Necessity compelled them to exchange
      the silks of China for the furs of Siberia; the imperfect
      rudiments of civilized life were obliterated; and the native
      fierceness of the Huns was exasperated by their intercourse with
      the savage tribes, who were compared, with some propriety, to the
      wild beasts of the desert. Their independent spirit soon rejected
      the hereditary succession of the Tanjous; and while each horde
      was governed by its peculiar mursa, their tumultuary council
      directed the public measures of the whole nation. As late as the
      thirteenth century, their transient residence on the eastern
      banks of the Volga was attested by the name of Great Hungary. 49
      In the winter, they descended with their flocks and herds towards
      the mouth of that mighty river; and their summer excursions
      reached as high as the latitude of Saratoff, or perhaps the
      conflux of the Kama. Such at least were the recent limits of the
      black Calmucks, 50 who remained about a century under the
      protection of Russia; and who have since returned to their native
      seats on the frontiers of the Chinese empire. The march, and the
      return, of those wandering Tartars, whose united camp consists of
      fifty thousand tents or families, illustrate the distant
      emigrations of the ancient Huns. 51

      44 (return) [ The various accidents, the downfall, and the flight
      of the Huns, are related in the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91,
      95, 139, &c. The small numbers of each horde may be due to their
      losses and divisions.]

      45 (return) [ M. de Guignes has skilfully traced the footsteps of
      the Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary, (tom. ii. p. 123,
      277, &c., 325, &c.)]

      4511 (return) [ The Armenian authors often mention this people
      under the name of Hepthal. St. Martin considers that the name of
      Nepthalites is an error of a copyist. St. Martin, iv. 254.—M.]

      46 (return) [ Mohammed, sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana
      when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his moguls. The
      Oriental historians (see D’Herbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.,)
      celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful
      country which he desolated. In the next century, the same
      provinces of Chorasmia and Nawaralnahr were described by
      Abulfeda, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.) Their actual
      misery may be seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p.
      423—469.]

      47 (return) [ Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the
      Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry I should ascribe the
      new and extraordinary trade, which transported the merchandises
      of India into Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the
      Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and sea,
      were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. (See l’Esprit
      des Loix, l. xxi.)]

      48 (return) [ Procopius de Bell. Persico, l. i. c. 3, p. 9.]

      49 (return) [ In the thirteenth century, the monk Rubruquis (who
      traversed the immense plain of Kipzak, in his journey to the
      court of the Great Khan) observed the remarkable name of
      _Hungary_, with the traces of a common language and origin,
      (Hist. des Voyages, tom. vii. p. 269.)]

      50 (return) [ Bell, (vol. i. p. 29—34,) and the editors of the
      Genealogical History, (p. 539,) have described the Calmucks of
      the Volga in the beginning of the present century.]

      51 (return) [ This great transmigration of 300,000 Calmucks, or
      Torgouts, happened in the year 1771. The original narrative of
      Kien-long, the reigning emperor of China, which was intended for
      the inscription of a column, has been translated by the
      missionaries of Pekin, (Mémoires sur la Chine, tom. i. p.
      401—418.) The emperor affects the smooth and specious language of
      the Son of Heaven, and the Father of his People.]

      It is impossible to fill the dark interval of time, which
      elapsed, after the Huns of the Volga were lost in the eyes of the
      Chinese, and before they showed themselves to those of the
      Romans. There is some reason, however, to apprehend, that the
      same force which had driven them from their native seats, still
      continued to impel their march towards the frontiers of Europe.
      The power of the Sienpi, their implacable enemies, which extended
      above three thousand miles from East to West, 52 must have
      gradually oppressed them by the weight and terror of a formidable
      neighborhood; and the flight of the tribes of Scythia would
      inevitably tend to increase the strength or to contract the
      territories, of the Huns. The harsh and obscure appellations of
      those tribes would offend the ear, without informing the
      understanding, of the reader; but I cannot suppress the very
      natural suspicion, _that_ the Huns of the North derived a
      considerable reenforcement from the ruin of the dynasty of the
      South, which, in the course of the third century, submitted to
      the dominion of China; _that_ the bravest warriors marched away
      in search of their free and adventurous countrymen; _and_ that,
      as they had been divided by prosperity, they were easily reunited
      by the common hardships of their adverse fortune. 53 The Huns,
      with their flocks and herds, their wives and children, their
      dependents and allies, were transported to the west of the Volga,
      and they boldly advanced to invade the country of the Alani, a
      pastoral people, who occupied, or wasted, an extensive tract of
      the deserts of Scythia. The plains between the Volga and the
      Tanais were covered with the tents of the Alani, but their name
      and manners were diffused over the wide extent of their
      conquests; and the painted tribes of the Agathyrsi and Geloni
      were confounded among their vassals. Towards the North, they
      penetrated into the frozen regions of Siberia, among the savages
      who were accustomed, in their rage or hunger, to the taste of
      human flesh; and their Southern inroads were pushed as far as the
      confines of Persia and India. The mixture of Samartic and German
      blood had contributed to improve the features of the Alani, 5311
      to whiten their swarthy complexions, and to tinge their hair with
      a yellowish cast, which is seldom found in the Tartar race. They
      were less deformed in their persons, less brutish in their
      manners, than the Huns; but they did not yield to those
      formidable Barbarians in their martial and independent spirit; in
      the love of freedom, which rejected even the use of domestic
      slaves; and in the love of arms, which considered war and rapine
      as the pleasure and the glory of mankind. A naked cimeter, fixed
      in the ground, was the only object of their religious worship;
      the scalps of their enemies formed the costly trappings of their
      horses; and they viewed, with pity and contempt, the
      pusillanimous warriors, who patiently expected the infirmities of
      age, and the tortures of lingering disease. 54 On the banks of
      the Tanais, the military power of the Huns and the Alani
      encountered each other with equal valor, but with unequal
      success. The Huns prevailed in the bloody contest; the king of
      the Alani was slain; and the remains of the vanquished nation
      were dispersed by the ordinary alternative of flight or
      submission. 55 A colony of exiles found a secure refuge in the
      mountains of Caucasus, between the Euxine and the Caspian, where
      they still preserve their name and their independence. Another
      colony advanced, with more intrepid courage, towards the shores
      of the Baltic; associated themselves with the Northern tribes of
      Germany; and shared the spoil of the Roman provinces of Gaul and
      Spain. But the greatest part of the nation of the Alani embraced
      the offers of an honorable and advantageous union; and the Huns,
      who esteemed the valor of their less fortunate enemies,
      proceeded, with an increase of numbers and confidence, to invade
      the limits of the Gothic empire.

      52 (return) [ The Khan-Mou (tom. iii. p. 447) ascribes to their
      conquests a space of 14,000 _lis_. According to the present
      standard, 200 _lis_ (or more accurately 193) are equal to one
      degree of latitude; and one English mile consequently exceeds
      three miles of China. But there are strong reasons to believe
      that the ancient _li_ scarcely equalled one half of the modern.
      See the elaborate researches of M. D’Anville, a geographer who is
      not a stranger in any age or climate of the globe. (Mémoires de
      l’Acad. tom. ii. p. 125-502. Itineraires, p. 154-167.)]

      53 (return) [ See Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 125—144. The
      subsequent history (p. 145—277) of three or four Hunnic dynasties
      evidently proves that their martial spirit was not impaired by a
      long residence in China.]

      5311 (return) [ Compare M. Klaproth’s curious speculations on the
      Alani. He supposes them to have been the people, known by the
      Chinese, at the time of their first expeditions to the West,
      under the name of Yath-sai or A-lanna, the Alanân of Persian
      tradition, as preserved in Ferdusi; the same, according to
      Ammianus, with the Massagetæ, and with the Albani. The remains of
      the nation still exist in the Ossetæ of Mount Caucasus. Klaproth,
      Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie, p. 174.—M. Compare Shafarik
      Slawische alterthümer, i. p. 350.—M. 1845.]

      54 (return) [ Utque hominibus quietis et placidis otium est
      voluptabile, ita illos pericula juvent et bella. Judicatur ibi
      beatus qui in prœlio profuderit animam: senescentes etiam et
      fortuitis mortibus mundo digressos, ut degeneres et ignavos,
      conviciis atrocibus insectantur. [Ammian. xxxi. 11.] We must
      think highly of the conquerors of _such_ men.]

      55 (return) [ On the subject of the Alani, see Ammianus, (xxxi.
      2,) Jornandes, (de Rebus Geticis, c. 24,) M. de Guignes, (Hist.
      des Huns, tom. ii. p. 279,) and the Genealogical History of the
      Tartars, (tom. ii. p. 617.)]

      The great Hermanric, whose dominions extended from the Baltic to
      the Euxine, enjoyed, in the full maturity of age and reputation,
      the fruit of his victories, when he was alarmed by the formidable
      approach of a host of unknown enemies, 56 on whom his barbarous
      subjects might, without injustice, bestow the epithet of
      Barbarians. The numbers, the strength, the rapid motions, and the
      implacable cruelty of the Huns, were felt, and dreaded, and
      magnified, by the astonished Goths; who beheld their fields and
      villages consumed with flames, and deluged with indiscriminate
      slaughter. To these real terrors they added the surprise and
      abhorrence which were excited by the shrill voice, the uncouth
      gestures, and the strange deformity of the Huns. 5611 These
      savages of Scythia were compared (and the picture had some
      resemblance) to the animals who walk very awkwardly on two legs
      and to the misshapen figures, the _Termini_, which were often
      placed on the bridges of antiquity. They were distinguished from
      the rest of the human species by their broad shoulders, flat
      noses, and small black eyes, deeply buried in the head; and as
      they were almost destitute of beards, they never enjoyed either
      the manly grace of youth, or the venerable aspect of age. 57 A
      fabulous origin was assigned, worthy of their form and manners;
      that the witches of Scythia, who, for their foul and deadly
      practices, had been driven from society, had copulated in the
      desert with infernal spirits; and that the Huns were the
      offspring of this execrable conjunction. 58 The tale, so full of
      horror and absurdity, was greedily embraced by the credulous
      hatred of the Goths; but, while it gratified their hatred, it
      increased their fear, since the posterity of dæmons and witches
      might be supposed to inherit some share of the præternatural
      powers, as well as of the malignant temper, of their parents.
      Against these enemies, Hermanric prepared to exert the united
      forces of the Gothic state; but he soon discovered that his
      vassal tribes, provoked by oppression, were much more inclined to
      second, than to repel, the invasion of the Huns. One of the
      chiefs of the Roxolani 59 had formerly deserted the standard of
      Hermanric, and the cruel tyrant had condemned the innocent wife
      of the traitor to be torn asunder by wild horses. The brothers of
      that unfortunate woman seized the favorable moment of revenge.

      The aged king of the Goths languished some time after the
      dangerous wound which he received from their daggers; but the
      conduct of the war was retarded by his infirmities; and the
      public councils of the nation were distracted by a spirit of
      jealousy and discord. His death, which has been imputed to his
      own despair, left the reins of government in the hands of
      Withimer, who, with the doubtful aid of some Scythian
      mercenaries, maintained the unequal contest against the arms of
      the Huns and the Alani, till he was defeated and slain in a
      decisive battle. The Ostrogoths submitted to their fate; and the
      royal race of the Amali will hereafter be found among the
      subjects of the haughty Attila. But the person of Witheric, the
      infant king, was saved by the diligence of Alatheus and Saphrax;
      two warriors of approved valor and fiedlity, who, by cautious
      marches, conducted the independent remains of the nation of the
      Ostrogoths towards the Danastus, or Niester; a considerable
      river, which now separates the Turkish dominions from the empire
      of Russia. On the banks of the Niester, the prudent Athanaric,
      more attentive to his own than to the general safety, had fixed
      the camp of the Visigoths; with the firm resolution of opposing
      the victorious Barbarians, whom he thought it less advisable to
      provoke. The ordinary speed of the Huns was checked by the weight
      of baggage, and the encumbrance of captives; but their military
      skill deceived, and almost destroyed, the army of Athanaric.
      While the Judge of the Visigoths defended the banks of the
      Niester, he was encompassed and attacked by a numerous detachment
      of cavalry, who, by the light of the moon, had passed the river
      in a fordable place; and it was not without the utmost efforts of
      courage and conduct, that he was able to effect his retreat
      towards the hilly country. The undaunted general had already
      formed a new and judicious plan of defensive war; and the strong
      lines, which he was preparing to construct between the mountains,
      the Pruth, and the Danube, would have secured the extensive and
      fertile territory that bears the modern name of Walachia, from
      the destructive inroads of the Huns. 60 But the hopes and
      measures of the Judge of the Visigoths was soon disappointed, by
      the trembling impatience of his dismayed countrymen; who were
      persuaded by their fears, that the interposition of the Danube
      was the only barrier that could save them from the rapid pursuit,
      and invincible valor, of the Barbarians of Scythia. Under the
      command of Fritigern and Alavivus, 61 the body of the nation
      hastily advanced to the banks of the great river, and implored
      the protection of the Roman emperor of the East. Athanaric
      himself, still anxious to avoid the guilt of perjury, retired,
      with a band of faithful followers, into the mountainous country
      of Caucaland; which appears to have been guarded, and almost
      concealed, by the impenetrable forests of Transylvania. 62 6211

      56 (return) [ As we are possessed of the authentic history of the
      Huns, it would be impertinent to repeat, or to refute, the fables
      which misrepresent their origin and progress, their passage of
      the mud or water of the Mæotis, in pursuit of an ox or stag, les
      Indes qu’ils avoient découvertes, &c., (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 224.
      Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Procopius, Hist. Miscell. c. 5. Jornandes,
      c. 24. Grandeur et Décadence, &c., des Romains, c. 17.)]

      5611 (return) [ Art added to their native ugliness; in fact, it
      is difficult to ascribe the proper share in the features of this
      hideous picture to nature, to the barbarous skill with which they
      were self-disfigured, or to the terror and hatred of the Romans.
      Their noses were flattened by their nurses, their cheeks were
      gashed by an iron instrument, that the scars might look more
      fearful, and prevent the growth of the beard. Jornandes and
      Sidonius Apollinaris:—

     Obtundit teneras circumdata fascia nares, Ut galeis cedant.

      Yet he adds that their forms were robust and manly, their height
      of a middle size, but, from the habit of riding, disproportioned.

     Stant pectora vasta, Insignes humer, succincta sub ilibus alvus.
     Forma quidem pediti media est, procera sed extat Si cernas
     equites, sic longi sæpe putantur Si sedeant.]

      57 (return) [ Prodigiosæ formæ, et pandi; ut bipedes existimes
      bestias; vel quales in commarginandis pontibus, effigiati
      stipites dolantur incompte. Ammian. xxxi. i. Jornandes (c. 24)
      draws a strong caricature of a Calmuck face. Species pavenda
      nigredine... quædam deformis offa, non fecies; habensque magis
      puncta quam lumina. See Buffon. Hist. Naturelle, tom. iii. 380.]

      58 (return) [ This execrable origin, which Jornandes (c. 24)
      describes with the rancor of a Goth, might be originally derived
      from a more pleasing fable of the Greeks. (Herodot. l. iv. c. 9,
      &c.)]

      59 (return) [ The Roxolani may be the fathers of the the
      _Russians_, (D’Anville, Empire de Russie, p. 1—10,) whose
      residence (A.D. 862) about Novogrod Veliki cannot be very remote
      from that which the Geographer of Ravenna (i. 12, iv. 4, 46, v.
      28, 30) assigns to the Roxolani, (A.D. 886.) * Note: See, on the
      origin of the Russ, Schlozer, Nordische Geschichte, p. 78—M.]

      60 (return) [ The text of Ammianus seems to be imperfect or
      corrupt; but the nature of the ground explains, and almost
      defines, the Gothic rampart. Mémoires de l’Académie, &c., tom.
      xxviii. p. 444—462.]

      61 (return) [ M. de Buat (Hist. des Peuples de l’Europe, tom. vi.
      p. 407) has conceived a strange idea, that Alavivus was the same
      person as Ulphilas, the Gothic bishop; and that Ulphilas, the
      grandson of a Cappadocian captive, became a temporal prince of
      the Goths.]

      62 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 3) and Jornandes (de Rebus Geticis,
      c. 24) describe the subversion of the Gothic empire by the Huns.]

      6211 (return) [ The most probable opinion as to the position of
      this land is that of M. Malte-Brun. He thinks that Caucaland is
      the territory of the Cacoenses, placed by Ptolemy (l. iii. c. 8)
      towards the Carpathian Mountains, on the side of the present
      Transylvania, and therefore the canton of Cacava, to the south of
      Hermanstadt, the capital of the principality. Caucaland it is
      evident, is the Gothic form of these different names. St. Martin,
      iv 103.—M.]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part III.


      After Valens had terminated the Gothic war with some appearance
      of glory and success, he made a progress through his dominions of
      Asia, and at length fixed his residence in the capital of Syria.
      The five years 63 which he spent at Antioch was employed to
      watch, from a secure distance, the hostile designs of the Persian
      monarch; to check the depredations of the Saracens and Isaurians;
      64 to enforce, by arguments more prevalent than those of reason
      and eloquence, the belief of the Arian theology; and to satisfy
      his anxious suspicions by the promiscuous execution of the
      innocent and the guilty. But the attention of the emperor was
      most seriously engaged, by the important intelligence which he
      received from the civil and military officers who were intrusted
      with the defence of the Danube. He was informed, that the North
      was agitated by a furious tempest; that the irruption of the
      Huns, an unknown and monstrous race of savages, had subverted the
      power of the Goths; and that the suppliant multitudes of that
      warlike nation, whose pride was now humbled in the dust, covered
      a space of many miles along the banks of the river. With
      outstretched arms, and pathetic lamentations, they loudly
      deplored their past misfortunes and their present danger;
      acknowledged that their only hope of safety was in the clemency
      of the Roman government; and most solemnly protested, that if the
      gracious liberality of the emperor would permit them to cultivate
      the waste lands of Thrace, they should ever hold themselves
      bound, by the strongest obligations of duty and gratitude, to
      obey the laws, and to guard the limits, of the republic. These
      assurances were confirmed by the ambassadors of the Goths, 6411
      who impatiently expected from the mouth of Valens an answer that
      must finally determine the fate of their unhappy countrymen. The
      emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and
      authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the
      end of the preceding year; and as the distressful situation of
      the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was
      deprived of the favorite resources of feeble and timid minds, who
      consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most
      admirable efforts of consummate prudence. As long as the same
      passions and interests subsist among mankind, the questions of
      war and peace, of justice and policy, which were debated in the
      councils of antiquity, will frequently present themselves as the
      subject of modern deliberation. But the most experienced
      statesman of Europe has never been summoned to consider the
      propriety, or the danger, of admitting, or rejecting, an
      innumerable multitude of Barbarians, who are driven by despair
      and hunger to solicit a settlement on the territories of a
      civilized nation. When that important proposition, so essentially
      connected with the public safety, was referred to the ministers
      of Valens, they were perplexed and divided; but they soon
      acquiesced in the flattering sentiment which seemed the most
      favorable to the pride, the indolence, and the avarice of their
      sovereign. The slaves, who were decorated with the titles of
      præfects and generals, dissembled or disregarded the terrors of
      this national emigration; so extremely different from the partial
      and accidental colonies, which had been received on the extreme
      limits of the empire. But they applauded the liberality of
      fortune, which had conducted, from the most distant countries of
      the globe, a numerous and invincible army of strangers, to defend
      the throne of Valens; who might now add to the royal treasures
      the immense sums of gold supplied by the provincials to
      compensate their annual proportion of recruits. The prayers of
      the Goths were granted, and their service was accepted by the
      Imperial court: and orders were immediately despatched to the
      civil and military governors of the Thracian diocese, to make the
      necessary preparations for the passage and subsistence of a great
      people, till a proper and sufficient territory could be allotted
      for their future residence. The liberality of the emperor was
      accompanied, however, with two harsh and rigorous conditions,
      which prudence might justify on the side of the Romans; but which
      distress alone could extort from the indignant Goths. Before they
      passed the Danube, they were required to deliver their arms: and
      it was insisted, that their children should be taken from them,
      and dispersed through the provinces of Asia; where they might be
      civilized by the arts of education, and serve as hostages to
      secure the fidelity of their parents.

      63 (return) [ The Chronology of Ammianus is obscure and
      imperfect. Tillemont has labored to clear and settle the annals
      of Valens.]

      64 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 223. Sozomen, l. vi. c. 38. The
      Isaurians, each winter, infested the roads of Asia Minor, as far
      as the neighborhood of Constantinople. Basil, Epist. cel. apud
      Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 106.]

      6411 (return) [ Sozomen and Philostorgius say that the bishop
      Ulphilas was one of these ambassadors.—M.]

      During the suspense of a doubtful and distant negotiation, the
      impatient Goths made some rash attempts to pass the Danube,
      without the permission of the government, whose protection they
      had implored. Their motions were strictly observed by the
      vigilance of the troops which were stationed along the river and
      their foremost detachments were defeated with considerable
      slaughter; yet such were the timid councils of the reign of
      Valens, that the brave officers who had served their country in
      the execution of their duty, were punished by the loss of their
      employments, and narrowly escaped the loss of their heads. The
      Imperial mandate was at length received for transporting over the
      Danube the whole body of the Gothic nation; 65 but the execution
      of this order was a task of labor and difficulty. The stream of
      the Danube, which in those parts is above a mile broad, 66 had
      been swelled by incessant rains; and in this tumultuous passage,
      many were swept away, and drowned, by the rapid violence of the
      current. A large fleet of vessels, of boats, and of canoes, was
      provided; many days and nights they passed and repassed with
      indefatigable toil; and the most strenuous diligence was exerted
      by the officers of Valens, that not a single Barbarian, of those
      who were reserved to subvert the foundations of Rome, should be
      left on the opposite shore. It was thought expedient that an
      accurate account should be taken of their numbers; but the
      persons who were employed soon desisted, with amazement and
      dismay, from the prosecution of the endless and impracticable
      task: 67 and the principal historian of the age most seriously
      affirms, that the prodigious armies of Darius and Xerxes, which
      had so long been considered as the fables of vain and credulous
      antiquity, were now justified, in the eyes of mankind, by the
      evidence of fact and experience. A probable testimony has fixed
      the number of the Gothic warriors at two hundred thousand men:
      and if we can venture to add the just proportion of women, of
      children, and of slaves, the whole mass of people which composed
      this formidable emigration, must have amounted to near a million
      of persons, of both sexes, and of all ages. The children of the
      Goths, those at least of a distinguished rank, were separated
      from the multitude. They were conducted, without delay, to the
      distant seats assigned for their residence and education; and as
      the numerous train of hostages or captives passed through the
      cities, their gay and splendid apparel, their robust and martial
      figure, excited the surprise and envy of the Provincials. 6711
      But the stipulation, the most offensive to the Goths, and the
      most important to the Romans, was shamefully eluded. The
      Barbarians, who considered their arms as the ensigns of honor and
      the pledges of safety, were disposed to offer a price, which the
      lust or avarice of the Imperial officers was easily tempted to
      accept. To preserve their arms, the haughty warriors consented,
      with some reluctance, to prostitute their wives or their
      daughters; the charms of a beauteous maid, or a comely boy,
      secured the connivance of the inspectors; who sometimes cast an
      eye of covetousness on the fringed carpets and linen garments of
      their new allies, 68 or who sacrificed their duty to the mean
      consideration of filling their farms with cattle, and their
      houses with slaves. The Goths, with arms in their hands, were
      permitted to enter the boats; and when their strength was
      collected on the other side of the river, the immense camp which
      was spread over the plains and the hills of the Lower Mæsia,
      assumed a threatening and even hostile aspect. The leaders of the
      Ostrogoths, Alatheus and Saphrax, the guardians of their infant
      king, appeared soon afterwards on the Northern banks of the
      Danube; and immediately despatched their ambassadors to the court
      of Antioch, to solicit, with the same professions of allegiance
      and gratitude, the same favor which had been granted to the
      suppliant Visigoths. The absolute refusal of Valens suspended
      their progress, and discovered the repentance, the suspicions,
      and the fears, of the Imperial council.

      65 (return) [ The passage of the Danube is exposed by Ammianus,
      (xxxi. 3, 4,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 223, 224,) Eunapius in Excerpt.
      Legat. (p. 19, 20,) and Jornandes, (c. 25, 26.) Ammianus declares
      (c. 5) that he means only, ispas rerum digerere _summitates_. But
      he often takes a false measure of their importance; and his
      superfluous prolixity is disagreeably balanced by his
      unseasonable brevity.]

      66 (return) [ Chishull, a curious traveller, has remarked the
      breadth of the Danube, which he passed to the south of Bucharest
      near the conflux of the Argish, (p. 77.) He admires the beauty
      and spontaneous plenty of Mæsia, or Bulgaria.]

      67 (return) [

     Quem sci scire velit, Libyci velit æquoris idem Discere quam multæ
     Zephyro turbentur harenæ.

      Ammianus has inserted, in his prose, these lines of Virgil,
      (Georgia l. ii. 105,) originally designed by the poet to express
      the impossibility of numbering the different sorts of vines. See
      Plin. Hist. Natur l. xiv.]

      6711 (return) [ A very curious, but obscure, passage of Eunapius,
      appears to me to have been misunderstood by M. Mai, to whom we
      owe its discovery. The substance is as follows: “The Goths
      transported over the river their native deities, with their
      priests of both sexes; but concerning their rites they maintained
      a deep and ‘_adamantine_ silence.’ To the Romans they pretended
      to be generally Christians, and placed certain persons to
      represent bishops in a conspicuous manner on their wagons. There
      was even among them a sort of what are called monks, persons whom
      it was not difficult to mimic; it was enough to wear black
      raiment, to be wicked, and held in respect.” (Eunapius hated the
      “black-robed monks,” as appears in another passage, with the
      cordial detestation of a heathen philosopher.) “Thus, while they
      faithfully but secretly adhered to their own religion, the Romans
      were weak enough to suppose them perfect Christians.” Mai, 277.
      Eunapius in Niebuhr, 82.—M]

      68 (return) [ Eunapius and Zosimus curiously specify these
      articles of Gothic wealth and luxury. Yet it must be presumed,
      that they were the manufactures of the provinces; which the
      Barbarians had acquired as the spoils of war; or as the gifts, or
      merchandise, of peace.]

      An undisciplined and unsettled nation of Barbarians required the
      firmest temper, and the most dexterous management. The daily
      subsistence of near a million of extraordinary subjects could be
      supplied only by constant and skilful diligence, and might
      continually be interrupted by mistake or accident. The insolence,
      or the indignation, of the Goths, if they conceived themselves to
      be the objects either of fear or of contempt, might urge them to
      the most desperate extremities; and the fortune of the state
      seemed to depend on the prudence, as well as the integrity, of
      the generals of Valens. At this important crisis, the military
      government of Thrace was exercised by Lupicinus and Maximus, in
      whose venal minds the slightest hope of private emolument
      outweighed every consideration of public advantage; and whose
      guilt was only alleviated by their incapacity of discerning the
      pernicious effects of their rash and criminal administration.

      Instead of obeying the orders of their sovereign, and satisfying,
      with decent liberality, the demands of the Goths, they levied an
      ungenerous and oppressive tax on the wants of the hungry
      Barbarians. The vilest food was sold at an extravagant price;
      and, in the room of wholesome and substantial provisions, the
      markets were filled with the flesh of dogs, and of unclean
      animals, who had died of disease. To obtain the valuable
      acquisition of a pound of bread, the Goths resigned the
      possession of an expensive, though serviceable, slave; and a
      small quantity of meat was greedily purchased with ten pounds of
      a precious, but useless metal, 69 when their property was
      exhausted, they continued this necessary traffic by the sale of
      their sons and daughters; and notwithstanding the love of
      freedom, which animated every Gothic breast, they submitted to
      the humiliating maxim, that it was better for their children to
      be maintained in a servile condition, than to perish in a state
      of wretched and helpless independence. The most lively resentment
      is excited by the tyranny of pretended benefactors, who sternly
      exact the debt of gratitude which they have cancelled by
      subsequent injuries: a spirit of discontent insensibly arose in
      the camp of the Barbarians, who pleaded, without success, the
      merit of their patient and dutiful behavior; and loudly
      complained of the inhospitable treatment which they had received
      from their new allies. They beheld around them the wealth and
      plenty of a fertile province, in the midst of which they suffered
      the intolerable hardships of artificial famine. But the means of
      relief, and even of revenge, were in their hands; since the
      rapaciousness of their tyrants had left to an injured people the
      possession and the use of arms. The clamors of a multitude,
      untaught to disguise their sentiments, announced the first
      symptoms of resistance, and alarmed the timid and guilty minds of
      Lupicinus and Maximus. Those crafty ministers, who substituted
      the cunning of temporary expedients to the wise and salutary
      counsels of general policy, attempted to remove the Goths from
      their dangerous station on the frontiers of the empire; and to
      disperse them, in separate quarters of cantonment, through the
      interior provinces. As they were conscious how ill they had
      deserved the respect, or confidence, of the Barbarians, they
      diligently collected, from every side, a military force, that
      might urge the tardy and reluctant march of a people, who had not
      yet renounced the title, or the duties, of Roman subjects. But
      the generals of Valens, while their attention was solely directed
      to the discontented Visigoths, imprudently disarmed the ships and
      the fortifications which constituted the defence of the Danube.
      The fatal oversight was observed, and improved, by Alatheus and
      Saphrax, who anxiously watched the favorable moment of escaping
      from the pursuit of the Huns. By the help of such rafts and
      vessels as could be hastily procured, the leaders of the
      Ostrogoths transported, without opposition, their king and their
      army; and boldly fixed a hostile and independent camp on the
      territories of the empire. 70

      69 (return) [ _Decem libras;_ the word _silver_ must be
      understood. Jornandes betrays the passions and prejudices of a
      Goth. The servile Geeks, Eunapius and Zosimus, disguise the Roman
      oppression, and execrate the perfidy of the Barbarians. Ammianus,
      a patriot historian, slightly, and reluctantly, touches on the
      odious subject. Jerom, who wrote almost on the spot, is fair,
      though concise. Per avaritaim aximi ducis, ad rebellionem fame
      _coacti_ sunt, (in Chron.) * Note: A new passage from the history
      of Eunapius is nearer to the truth. ‘It appeared to our
      commanders a legitimate source of gain to be bribed by the
      Barbarians: Edit. Niebuhr, p. 82.—M.]

      70 (return) [ Ammianus, xxxi. 4, 5.]

      Under the name of Judges, Alavivus and Fritigern were the leaders
      of the Visigoths in peace and war; and the authority which they
      derived from their birth was ratified by the free consent of the
      nation. In a season of tranquility, their power might have been
      equal, as well as their rank; but, as soon as their countrymen
      were exasperated by hunger and oppression, the superior abilities
      of Fritigern assumed the military command, which he was qualified
      to exercise for the public welfare. He restrained the impatient
      spirit of the Visigoths till the injuries and the insults of
      their tyrants should justify their resistance in the opinion of
      mankind: but he was not disposed to sacrifice any solid
      advantages for the empty praise of justice and moderation.
      Sensible of the benefits which would result from the union of the
      Gothic powers under the same standard, he secretly cultivated the
      friendship of the Ostrogoths; and while he professed an implicit
      obedience to the orders of the Roman generals, he proceeded by
      slow marches towards Marcianopolis, the capital of the Lower
      Mæsia, about seventy miles from the banks of the Danube. On that
      fatal spot, the flames of discord and mutual hatred burst forth
      into a dreadful conflagration. Lupicinus had invited the Gothic
      chiefs to a splendid entertainment; and their martial train
      remained under arms at the entrance of the palace. But the gates
      of the city were strictly guarded, and the Barbarians were
      sternly excluded from the use of a plentiful market, to which
      they asserted their equal claim of subjects and allies. Their
      humble prayers were rejected with insolence and derision; and as
      their patience was now exhausted, the townsmen, the soldiers, and
      the Goths, were soon involved in a conflict of passionate
      altercation and angry reproaches. A blow was imprudently given; a
      sword was hastily drawn; and the first blood that was spilt in
      this accidental quarrel, became the signal of a long and
      destructive war. In the midst of noise and brutal intemperance,
      Lupicinus was informed, by a secret messenger, that many of his
      soldiers were slain, and despoiled of their arms; and as he was
      already inflamed by wine, and oppressed by sleep he issued a rash
      command, that their death should be revenged by the massacre of
      the guards of Fritigern and Alavivus.

      The clamorous shouts and dying groans apprised Fritigern of his
      extreme danger; and, as he possessed the calm and intrepid spirit
      of a hero, he saw that he was lost if he allowed a moment of
      deliberation to the man who had so deeply injured him. “A
      trifling dispute,” said the Gothic leader, with a firm but gentle
      tone of voice, “appears to have arisen between the two nations;
      but it may be productive of the most dangerous consequences,
      unless the tumult is immediately pacified by the assurance of our
      safety, and the authority of our presence.” At these words,
      Fritigern and his companions drew their swords, opened their
      passage through the unresisting crowd, which filled the palace,
      the streets, and the gates, of Marcianopolis, and, mounting their
      horses, hastily vanished from the eyes of the astonished Romans.
      The generals of the Goths were saluted by the fierce and joyful
      acclamations of the camp; war was instantly resolved, and the
      resolution was executed without delay: the banners of the nation
      were displayed according to the custom of their ancestors; and
      the air resounded with the harsh and mournful music of the
      Barbarian trumpet. 71 The weak and guilty Lupicinus, who had
      dared to provoke, who had neglected to destroy, and who still
      presumed to despise, his formidable enemy, marched against the
      Goths, at the head of such a military force as could be collected
      on this sudden emergency. The Barbarians expected his approach
      about nine miles from Marcianopolis; and on this occasion the
      talents of the general were found to be of more prevailing
      efficacy than the weapons and discipline of the troops. The valor
      of the Goths was so ably directed by the genius of Fritigern,
      that they broke, by a close and vigorous attack, the ranks of the
      Roman legions. Lupicinus left his arms and standards, his
      tribunes and his bravest soldiers, on the field of battle; and
      their useless courage served only to protect the ignominious
      flight of their leader. “That successful day put an end to the
      distress of the Barbarians, and the security of the Romans: from
      that day, the Goths, renouncing the precarious condition of
      strangers and exiles, assumed the character of citizens and
      masters, claimed an absolute dominion over the possessors of
      land, and held, in their own right, the northern provinces of the
      empire, which are bounded by the Danube.” Such are the words of
      the Gothic historian, 72 who celebrates, with rude eloquence, the
      glory of his countrymen. But the dominion of the Barbarians was
      exercised only for the purposes of rapine and destruction. As
      they had been deprived, by the ministers of the emperor, of the
      common benefits of nature, and the fair intercourse of social
      life, they retaliated the injustice on the subjects of the
      empire; and the crimes of Lupicinus were expiated by the ruin of
      the peaceful husbandmen of Thrace, the conflagration of their
      villages, and the massacre, or captivity, of their innocent
      families. The report of the Gothic victory was soon diffused over
      the adjacent country; and while it filled the minds of the Romans
      with terror and dismay, their own hasty imprudence contributed to
      increase the forces of Fritigern, and the calamities of the
      province. Some time before the great emigration, a numerous body
      of Goths, under the command of Suerid and Colias, had been
      received into the protection and service of the empire. 73 They
      were encamped under the walls of Hadrianople; but the ministers
      of Valens were anxious to remove them beyond the Hellespont, at a
      distance from the dangerous temptation which might so easily be
      communicated by the neighborhood, and the success, of their
      countrymen. The respectful submission with which they yielded to
      the order of their march, might be considered as a proof of their
      fidelity; and their moderate request of a sufficient allowance of
      provisions, and of a delay of only two days was expressed in the
      most dutiful terms. But the first magistrate of Hadrianople,
      incensed by some disorders which had been committed at his
      country-house, refused this indulgence; and arming against them
      the inhabitants and manufacturers of a populous city, he urged,
      with hostile threats, their instant departure. The Barbarians
      stood silent and amazed, till they were exasperated by the
      insulting clamors, and missile weapons, of the populace: but when
      patience or contempt was fatigued, they crushed the undisciplined
      multitude, inflicted many a shameful wound on the backs of their
      flying enemies, and despoiled them of the splendid armor, 74
      which they were unworthy to bear. The resemblance of their
      sufferings and their actions soon united this victorious
      detachment to the nation of the Visigoths; the troops of Colias
      and Suerid expected the approach of the great Fritigern, ranged
      themselves under his standard, and signalized their ardor in the
      siege of Hadrianople. But the resistance of the garrison informed
      the Barbarians, that in the attack of regular fortifications, the
      efforts of unskillful courage are seldom effectual. Their general
      acknowledged his error, raised the siege, declared that “he was
      at peace with stone walls,” 75 and revenged his disappointment on
      the adjacent country. He accepted, with pleasure, the useful
      reenforcement of hardy workmen, who labored in the gold mines of
      Thrace, 76 for the emolument, and under the lash, of an unfeeling
      master: 77 and these new associates conducted the Barbarians,
      through the secret paths, to the most sequestered places, which
      had been chosen to secure the inhabitants, the cattle, and the
      magazines of corn. With the assistance of such guides, nothing
      could remain impervious or inaccessible; resistance was fatal;
      flight was impracticable; and the patient submission of helpless
      innocence seldom found mercy from the Barbarian conqueror. In the
      course of these depredations, a great number of the children of
      the Goths, who had been sold into captivity, were restored to the
      embraces of their afflicted parents; but these tender interviews,
      which might have revived and cherished in their minds some
      sentiments of humanity, tended only to stimulate their native
      fierceness by the desire of revenge. They listened, with eager
      attention, to the complaints of their captive children, who had
      suffered the most cruel indignities from the lustful or angry
      passions of their masters, and the same cruelties, the same
      indignities, were severely retaliated on the sons and daughters
      of the Romans. 78

      71 (return) [ Vexillis de _more_ sublatis, auditisque _triste
      sonantibus classicis_. Ammian. xxxi. 5. These are the _rauca
      cornua_ of Claudian, (in Rufin. ii. 57,) the large horns of the
      _Uri_, or wild bull; such as have been more recently used by the
      Swiss Cantons of Uri and Underwald. (Simler de Republicâ Helvet,
      l. ii. p. 201, edit. Fuselin. Tigur 1734.) Their military horn is
      finely, though perhaps casually, introduced in an original
      narrative of the battle of Nancy, (A.D. 1477.) “Attendant le
      combat le dit cor fut corné par trois fois, tant que le vent du
      souffler pouvoit durer: ce qui esbahit fort Monsieur de
      Bourgoigne; _car deja à Morat l’avoit ouy_.” (See the Pièces
      Justificatives in the 4to. edition of Philippe de Comines, tom.
      iii. p. 493.)]

      72 (return) [ Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 26, p. 648, edit.
      Grot. These _splendidi panni_ (they are comparatively such) are
      undoubtedly transcribed from the larger histories of Priscus,
      Ablavius, or Cassiodorus.]

      73 (return) [ Cum populis suis longe ante suscepti. We are
      ignorant of the precise date and circumstances of their
      transmigration.]

      74 (return) [ An Imperial manufacture of shields, &c., was
      established at Hadrianople; and the populace were headed by the
      Fabricenses, or workmen. (Vales. ad Ammian. xxxi. 6.)]

      75 (return) [ Pacem sibi esse cum parietibus memorans. Ammian.
      xxxi. 7.]

      76 (return) [ These mines were in the country of the Bessi, in
      the ridge of mountains, the Rhodope, that runs between Philippi
      and Philippopolis; two Macedonian cities, which derived their
      name and origin from the father of Alexander. From the mines of
      Thrace he annually received the value, not the weight, of a
      thousand talents, (200,000l.,) a revenue which paid the phalanx,
      and corrupted the orators of Greece. See Diodor. Siculus, tom.
      ii. l. xvi. p. 88, edit. Wesseling. Godefroy’s Commentary on the
      Theodosian Code, tom. iii. p. 496. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq.
      tom. i. p. 676, 857. D Anville, Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
      336.]

      77 (return) [ As those unhappy workmen often ran away, Valens had
      enacted severe laws to drag them from their hiding-places. Cod.
      Theodosian, l. x. tit xix leg. 5, 7.]

      78 (return) [ See Ammianus, xxxi. 5, 6. The historian of the
      Gothic war loses time and space, by an unseasonable
      recapitulation of the ancient inroads of the Barbarians.]

      The imprudence of Valens and his ministers had introduced into
      the heart of the empire a nation of enemies; but the Visigoths
      might even yet have been reconciled, by the manly confession of
      past errors, and the sincere performance of former engagements.
      These healing and temperate measures seemed to concur with the
      timorous disposition of the sovereign of the East: but, on this
      occasion alone, Valens was brave; and his unseasonable bravery
      was fatal to himself and to his subjects. He declared his
      intention of marching from Antioch to Constantinople, to subdue
      this dangerous rebellion; and, as he was not ignorant of the
      difficulties of the enterprise, he solicited the assistance of
      his nephew, the emperor Gratian, who commanded all the forces of
      the West. The veteran troops were hastily recalled from the
      defence of Armenia; that important frontier was abandoned to the
      discretion of Sapor; and the immediate conduct of the Gothic war
      was intrusted, during the absence of Valens, to his lieutenants
      Trajan and Profuturus, two generals who indulged themselves in a
      very false and favorable opinion of their own abilities. On their
      arrival in Thrace, they were joined by Richomer, count of the
      domestics; and the auxiliaries of the West, that marched under
      his banner, were composed of the Gallic legions, reduced indeed,
      by a spirit of desertion, to the vain appearances of strength and
      numbers. In a council of war, which was influenced by pride,
      rather than by reason, it was resolved to seek, and to encounter,
      the Barbarians, who lay encamped in the spacious and fertile
      meadows, near the most southern of the six mouths of the Danube.
      79 Their camp was surrounded by the usual fortification of
      wagons; 80 and the Barbarians, secure within the vast circle of
      the enclosure, enjoyed the fruits of their valor, and the spoils
      of the province. In the midst of riotous intemperance, the
      watchful Fritigern observed the motions, and penetrated the
      designs, of the Romans. He perceived, that the numbers of the
      enemy were continually increasing: and, as he understood their
      intention of attacking his rear, as soon as the scarcity of
      forage should oblige him to remove his camp, he recalled to their
      standard his predatory detachments, which covered the adjacent
      country. As soon as they descried the flaming beacons, 81 they
      obeyed, with incredible speed, the signal of their leader: the
      camp was filled with the martial crowd of Barbarians; their
      impatient clamors demanded the battle, and their tumultuous zeal
      was approved and animated by the spirit of their chiefs. The
      evening was already far advanced; and the two armies prepared
      themselves for the approaching combat, which was deferred only
      till the dawn of day.

      While the trumpets sounded to arms, the undaunted courage of the
      Goths was confirmed by the mutual obligation of a solemn oath;
      and as they advanced to meet the enemy, the rude songs, which
      celebrated the glory of their forefathers, were mingled with
      their fierce and dissonant outcries, and opposed to the
      artificial harmony of the Roman shout. Some military skill was
      displayed by Fritigern to gain the advantage of a commanding
      eminence; but the bloody conflict, which began and ended with the
      light, was maintained on either side, by the personal and
      obstinate efforts of strength, valor, and agility. The legions of
      Armenia supported their fame in arms; but they were oppressed by
      the irresistible weight of the hostile multitude the left wing of
      the Romans was thrown into disorder and the field was strewed
      with their mangled carcasses. This partial defeat was balanced,
      however, by partial success; and when the two armies, at a late
      hour of the evening, retreated to their respective camps, neither
      of them could claim the honors, or the effects, of a decisive
      victory. The real loss was more severely felt by the Romans, in
      proportion to the smallness of their numbers; but the Goths were
      so deeply confounded and dismayed by this vigorous, and perhaps
      unexpected, resistance, that they remained seven days within the
      circle of their fortifications. Such funeral rites, as the
      circumstances of time and place would admit, were piously
      discharged to some officers of distinguished rank; but the
      indiscriminate vulgar was left unburied on the plain. Their flesh
      was greedily devoured by the birds of prey, who in that age
      enjoyed very frequent and delicious feasts; and several years
      afterwards the white and naked bones, which covered the wide
      extent of the fields, presented to the eyes of Ammianus a
      dreadful monument of the battle of Salices. 82

      79 (return) [ The Itinerary of Antoninus (p. 226, 227, edit.
      Wesseling) marks the situation of this place about sixty miles
      north of Tomi, Ovid’s exile; and the name of _Salices_ (the
      willows) expresses the nature of the soil.]

      80 (return) [ This circle of wagons, the _Carrago_, was the usual
      fortification of the Barbarians. (Vegetius de Re Militari, l.
      iii. c. 10. Valesius ad Ammian. xxxi. 7.) The practice and the
      name were preserved by their descendants as late as the fifteenth
      century. The _Charroy_, which surrounded the _Ost_, is a word
      familiar to the readers of Froissard, or Comines.]

      81 (return) [ Statim ut accensi malleoli. I have used the literal
      sense of real torches or beacons; but I almost suspect, that it
      is only one of those turgid metaphors, those false ornaments,
      that perpetually disfigure to style of Ammianus.]

      82 (return) [ Indicant nunc usque albentes ossibus campi. Ammian.
      xxxi. 7. The historian might have viewed these plains, either as
      a soldier, or as a traveller. But his modesty has suppressed the
      adventures of his own life subsequent to the Persian wars of
      Constantius and Julian. We are ignorant of the time when he
      quitted the service, and retired to Rome, where he appears to
      have composed his History of his Own Times.]

      The progress of the Goths had been checked by the doubtful event
      of that bloody day; and the Imperial generals, whose army would
      have been consumed by the repetition of such a contest, embraced
      the more rational plan of destroying the Barbarians by the wants
      and pressure of their own multitudes. They prepared to confine
      the Visigoths in the narrow angle of land between the Danube, the
      desert of Scythia, and the mountains of Hæmus, till their
      strength and spirit should be insensibly wasted by the inevitable
      operation of famine. The design was prosecuted with some conduct
      and success: the Barbarians had almost exhausted their own
      magazines, and the harvests of the country; and the diligence of
      Saturninus, the master-general of the cavalry, was employed to
      improve the strength, and to contract the extent, of the Roman
      fortifications. His labors were interrupted by the alarming
      intelligence, that new swarms of Barbarians had passed the
      unguarded Danube, either to support the cause, or to imitate the
      example, of Fritigern. The just apprehension, that he himself
      might be surrounded, and overwhelmed, by the arms of hostile and
      unknown nations, compelled Saturninus to relinquish the siege of
      the Gothic camp; and the indignant Visigoths, breaking from their
      confinement, satiated their hunger and revenge by the repeated
      devastation of the fruitful country, which extends above three
      hundred miles from the banks of the Danube to the straits of the
      Hellespont. 83 The sagacious Fritigern had successfully appealed
      to the passions, as well as to the interest, of his Barbarian
      allies; and the love of rapine, and the hatred of Rome, seconded,
      or even prevented, the eloquence of his ambassadors. He cemented
      a strict and useful alliance with the great body of his
      countrymen, who obeyed Alatheus and Saphrax as the guardians of
      their infant king: the long animosity of rival tribes was
      suspended by the sense of their common interest; the independent
      part of the nation was associated under one standard; and the
      chiefs of the Ostrogoths appear to have yielded to the superior
      genius of the general of the Visigoths. He obtained the
      formidable aid of the Taifalæ, 8311 whose military renown was
      disgraced and polluted by the public infamy of their domestic
      manners. Every youth, on his entrance into the world, was united
      by the ties of honorable friendship, and brutal love, to some
      warrior of the tribe; nor could he hope to be released from this
      unnatural connection, till he had approved his manhood by
      slaying, in single combat, a huge bear, or a wild boar of the
      forest. 84 But the most powerful auxiliaries of the Goths were
      drawn from the camp of those enemies who had expelled them from
      their native seats. The loose subordination, and extensive
      possessions, of the Huns and the Alani, delayed the conquests,
      and distracted the councils, of that victorious people. Several
      of the hords were allured by the liberal promises of Fritigern;
      and the rapid cavalry of Scythia added weight and energy to the
      steady and strenuous efforts of the Gothic infantry. The
      Sarmatians, who could never forgive the successor of Valentinian,
      enjoyed and increased the general confusion; and a seasonable
      irruption of the Alemanni, into the provinces of Gaul, engaged
      the attention, and diverted the forces, of the emperor of the
      West. 85

      83 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 8.]

      8311 (return) [ The Taifalæ, who at this period inhabited the
      country which now forms the principality of Wallachia, were, in
      my opinion, the last remains of the great and powerful nation of
      the Dacians, (Daci or Dahæ.) which has given its name to these
      regions, over which they had ruled so long. The Taifalæ passed
      with the Goths into the territory of the empire. A great number
      of them entered the Roman service, and were quartered in
      different provinces. They are mentioned in the Notitia Imperii.
      There was a considerable body in the country of the Pictavi, now
      Poithou. They long retained their manners and language, and
      caused the name of the Theofalgicus pagus to be given to the
      district they inhabited. Two places in the department of La
      Vendee, Tiffanges and La Tiffardière, still preserve evident
      traces of this denomination. St. Martin, iv. 118.—M.]

      84 (return) [ Hanc Taifalorum gentem turpem, et obscenæ vitæ
      flagitiis ita accipimus mersam; ut apud eos nefandi concubitûs
      fœdere copulentur mares puberes, ætatis viriditatem in eorum
      pollutis usibus consumpturi. Porro, siqui jam adultus aprum
      exceperit solus, vel interemit ursum immanem, colluvione
      liberatur incesti. Ammian. xxxi. 9. ——Among the Greeks, likewise,
      more especially among the Cretans, the holy bands of friendship
      were confirmed, and sullied, by unnatural love.]

      85 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 8, 9. Jerom (tom. i. p. 26)
      enumerates the nations and marks a calamitous period of twenty
      years. This epistle to Heliodorus was composed in the year 397,
      (Tillemont, Mém. Eccles tom xii. p. 645.)]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part IV.


      One of the most dangerous inconveniences of the introduction of
      the Barbarians into the army and the palace, was sensibly felt in
      their correspondence with their hostile countrymen; to whom they
      imprudently, or maliciously, revealed the weakness of the Roman
      empire. A soldier, of the lifeguards of Gratian, was of the
      nation of the Alemanni, and of the tribe of the Lentienses, who
      dwelt beyond the Lake of Constance. Some domestic business
      obliged him to request a leave of absence. In a short visit to
      his family and friends, he was exposed to their curious
      inquiries: and the vanity of the loquacious soldier tempted him
      to display his intimate acquaintance with the secrets of the
      state, and the designs of his master. The intelligence, that
      Gratian was preparing to lead the military force of Gaul, and of
      the West, to the assistance of his uncle Valens, pointed out to
      the restless spirit of the Alemanni the moment, and the mode, of
      a successful invasion. The enterprise of some light detachments,
      who, in the month of February, passed the Rhine upon the ice, was
      the prelude of a more important war. The boldest hopes of rapine,
      perhaps of conquest, outweighed the considerations of timid
      prudence, or national faith. Every forest, and every village,
      poured forth a band of hardy adventurers; and the great army of
      the Alemanni, which, on their approach, was estimated at forty
      thousand men by the fears of the people, was afterwards magnified
      to the number of seventy thousand by the vain and credulous
      flattery of the Imperial court. The legions, which had been
      ordered to march into Pannonia, were immediately recalled, or
      detained, for the defence of Gaul; the military command was
      divided between Nanienus and Mellobaudes; and the youthful
      emperor, though he respected the long experience and sober wisdom
      of the former, was much more inclined to admire, and to follow,
      the martial ardor of his colleague; who was allowed to unite the
      incompatible characters of count of the domestics, and of king of
      the Franks. His rival Priarius, king of the Alemanni, was guided,
      or rather impelled, by the same headstrong valor; and as their
      troops were animated by the spirit of their leaders, they met,
      they saw, they encountered each other, near the town of
      Argentaria, or Colmar, 86 in the plains of Alsace. The glory of
      the day was justly ascribed to the missile weapons, and
      well-practised evolutions, of the Roman soldiers; the Alemanni,
      who long maintained their ground, were slaughtered with
      unrelenting fury; five thousand only of the Barbarians escaped to
      the woods and mountains; and the glorious death of their king on
      the field of battle saved him from the reproaches of the people,
      who are always disposed to accuse the justice, or policy, of an
      unsuccessful war. After this signal victory, which secured the
      peace of Gaul, and asserted the honor of the Roman arms, the
      emperor Gratian appeared to proceed without delay on his Eastern
      expedition; but as he approached the confines of the Alemanni, he
      suddenly inclined to the left, surprised them by his unexpected
      passage of the Rhine, and boldly advanced into the heart of their
      country. The Barbarians opposed to his progress the obstacles of
      nature and of courage; and still continued to retreat, from one
      hill to another, till they were satisfied, by repeated trials, of
      the power and perseverance of their enemies. Their submission was
      accepted as a proof, not indeed of their sincere repentance, but
      of their actual distress; and a select number of their brave and
      robust youth was exacted from the faithless nation, as the most
      substantial pledge of their future moderation. The subjects of
      the empire, who had so often experienced that the Alemanni could
      neither be subdued by arms, nor restrained by treaties, might not
      promise themselves any solid or lasting tranquillity: but they
      discovered, in the virtues of their young sovereign, the prospect
      of a long and auspicious reign. When the legions climbed the
      mountains, and scaled the fortifications of the Barbarians, the
      valor of Gratian was distinguished in the foremost ranks; and the
      gilt and variegated armor of his guards was pierced and shattered
      by the blows which they had received in their constant attachment
      to the person of their sovereign. At the age of nineteen, the son
      of Valentinian seemed to possess the talents of peace and war;
      and his personal success against the Alemanni was interpreted as
      a sure presage of his Gothic triumphs. 87

      86 (return) [ The field of battle, _Argentaria_ or
      _Argentovaria_, is accurately fixed by M. D’Anville (Notice de
      l’Ancienne Gaule, p. 96—99) at twenty-three Gallic leagues, or
      thirty-four and a half Roman miles to the south of Strasburg.
      From its ruins the adjacent town of _Colmar_ has arisen. Note: It
      is rather Horburg, on the right bank of the River Ill, opposite
      to Colmar. From Schoepflin, Alsatia Illustrata. St. Martin, iv.
      121.—M.]

      87 (return) [ The full and impartial narrative of Ammianus (xxxi.
      10) may derive some additional light from the Epitome of Victor,
      the Chronicle of Jerom, and the History of Orosius, (l. vii. c.
      33, p. 552, edit. Havercamp.)]

      While Gratian deserved and enjoyed the applause of his subjects,
      the emperor Valens, who, at length, had removed his court and
      army from Antioch, was received by the people of Constantinople
      as the author of the public calamity. Before he had reposed
      himself ten days in the capital, he was urged by the licentious
      clamors of the Hippodrome to march against the Barbarians, whom
      he had invited into his dominions; and the citizens, who are
      always brave at a distance from any real danger, declared, with
      confidence, that, if they were supplied with arms, _they_ alone
      would undertake to deliver the province from the ravages of an
      insulting foe. 88 The vain reproaches of an ignorant multitude
      hastened the downfall of the Roman empire; they provoked the
      desperate rashness of Valens; who did not find, either in his
      reputation or in his mind, any motives to support with firmness
      the public contempt. He was soon persuaded, by the successful
      achievements of his lieutenants, to despise the power of the
      Goths, who, by the diligence of Fritigern, were now collected in
      the neighborhood of Hadrianople. The march of the Taifalæ had
      been intercepted by the valiant Frigeric: the king of those
      licentious Barbarians was slain in battle; and the suppliant
      captives were sent into distant exile to cultivate the lands of
      Italy, which were assigned for their settlement in the vacant
      territories of Modena and Parma. 89 The exploits of Sebastian, 90
      who was recently engaged in the service of Valens, and promoted
      to the rank of master-general of the infantry, were still more
      honorable to himself, and useful to the republic. He obtained the
      permission of selecting three hundred soldiers from each of the
      legions; and this separate detachment soon acquired the spirit of
      discipline, and the exercise of arms, which were almost forgotten
      under the reign of Valens. By the vigor and conduct of Sebastian,
      a large body of the Goths were surprised in their camp; and the
      immense spoil, which was recovered from their hands, filled the
      city of Hadrianople, and the adjacent plain. The splendid
      narratives, which the general transmitted of his own exploits,
      alarmed the Imperial court by the appearance of superior merit;
      and though he cautiously insisted on the difficulties of the
      Gothic war, his valor was praised, his advice was rejected; and
      Valens, who listened with pride and pleasure to the flattering
      suggestions of the eunuchs of the palace, was impatient to seize
      the glory of an easy and assured conquest. His army was
      strengthened by a numerous reenforcement of veterans; and his
      march from Constantinople to Hadrianople was conducted with so
      much military skill, that he prevented the activity of the
      Barbarians, who designed to occupy the intermediate defiles, and
      to intercept either the troops themselves, or their convoys of
      provisions. The camp of Valens, which he pitched under the walls
      of Hadrianople, was fortified, according to the practice of the
      Romans, with a ditch and rampart; and a most important council
      was summoned, to decide the fate of the emperor and of the
      empire. The party of reason and of delay was strenuously
      maintained by Victor, who had corrected, by the lessons of
      experience, the native fierceness of the Sarmatian character;
      while Sebastian, with the flexible and obsequious eloquence of a
      courtier, represented every precaution, and every measure, that
      implied a doubt of immediate victory, as unworthy of the courage
      and majesty of their invincible monarch. The ruin of Valens was
      precipitated by the deceitful arts of Fritigern, and the prudent
      admonitions of the emperor of the West. The advantages of
      negotiating in the midst of war were perfectly understood by the
      general of the Barbarians; and a Christian ecclesiastic was
      despatched, as the holy minister of peace, to penetrate, and to
      perplex, the councils of the enemy. The misfortunes, as well as
      the provocations, of the Gothic nation, were forcibly and truly
      described by their ambassador; who protested, in the name of
      Fritigern, that he was still disposed to lay down his arms, or to
      employ them only in the defence of the empire; if he could secure
      for his wandering countrymen a tranquil settlement on the waste
      lands of Thrace, and a sufficient allowance of corn and cattle.
      But he added, in a whisper of confidential friendship, that the
      exasperated Barbarians were averse to these reasonable
      conditions; and that Fritigern was doubtful whether he could
      accomplish the conclusion of the treaty, unless he found himself
      supported by the presence and terrors of an Imperial army. About
      the same time, Count Richomer returned from the West to announce
      the defeat and submission of the Alemanni, to inform Valens that
      his nephew advanced by rapid marches at the head of the veteran
      and victorious legions of Gaul, and to request, in the name of
      Gratian and of the republic, that every dangerous and decisive
      measure might be suspended, till the junction of the two emperors
      should insure the success of the Gothic war. But the feeble
      sovereign of the East was actuated only by the fatal illusions of
      pride and jealousy. He disdained the importunate advice; he
      rejected the humiliating aid; he secretly compared the
      ignominious, at least the inglorious, period of his own reign,
      with the fame of a beardless youth; and Valens rushed into the
      field, to erect his imaginary trophy, before the diligence of his
      colleague could usurp any share of the triumphs of the day.

      88 (return) [ Moratus paucissimos dies, seditione popularium
      levium pulsus Ammian. xxxi. 11. Socrates (l. iv. c. 38) supplies
      the dates and some circumstances. * Note: Compare fragment of
      Eunapius. Mai, 272, in Niebuhr, p. 77.—M]

      89 (return) [ Vivosque omnes circa Mutinam, Regiumque, et Parmam,
      Italica oppida, rura culturos exterminavit. Ammianus, xxxi. 9.
      Those cities and districts, about ten years after the colony of
      the Taifalæ, appear in a very desolate state. See Muratori,
      Dissertazioni sopra le Antichità Italiane, tom. i. Dissertat.
      xxi. p. 354.]

      90 (return) [ Ammian. xxxi. 11. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 228—230. The
      latter expatiates on the desultory exploits of Sebastian, and
      despatches, in a few lines, the important battle of Hadrianople.
      According to the ecclesiastical critics, who hate Sebastian, the
      praise of Zosimus is disgrace, (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs,
      tom. v. p. 121.) His prejudice and ignorance undoubtedly render
      him a very questionable judge of merit.]

      On the ninth of August, a day which has deserved to be marked
      among the most inauspicious of the Roman Calendar, 91 the emperor
      Valens, leaving, under a strong guard, his baggage and military
      treasure, marched from Hadrianople to attack the Goths, who were
      encamped about twelve miles from the city. 92 By some mistake of
      the orders, or some ignorance of the ground, the right wing, or
      column of cavalry arrived in sight of the enemy, whilst the left
      was still at a considerable distance; the soldiers were
      compelled, in the sultry heat of summer, to precipitate their
      pace; and the line of battle was formed with tedious confusion
      and irregular delay. The Gothic cavalry had been detached to
      forage in the adjacent country; and Fritigern still continued to
      practise his customary arts. He despatched messengers of peace,
      made proposals, required hostages, and wasted the hours, till the
      Romans, exposed without shelter to the burning rays of the sun,
      were exhausted by thirst, hunger, and intolerable fatigue. The
      emperor was persuaded to send an ambassador to the Gothic camp;
      the zeal of Richomer, who alone had courage to accept the
      dangerous commission, was applauded; and the count of the
      domestics, adorned with the splendid ensigns of his dignity, had
      proceeded some way in the space between the two armies, when he
      was suddenly recalled by the alarm of battle. The hasty and
      imprudent attack was made by Bacurius the Iberian, who commanded
      a body of archers and targeteers; and as they advanced with
      rashness, they retreated with loss and disgrace. In the same
      moment, the flying squadrons of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose
      return was anxiously expected by the general of the Goths,
      descended like a whirlwind from the hills, swept across the
      plain, and added new terrors to the tumultuous, but irresistible
      charge of the Barbarian host. The event of the battle of
      Hadrianople, so fatal to Valens and to the empire, may be
      described in a few words: the Roman cavalry fled; the infantry
      was abandoned, surrounded, and cut in pieces. The most skilful
      evolutions, the firmest courage, are scarcely sufficient to
      extricate a body of foot, encompassed, on an open plain, by
      superior numbers of horse; but the troops of Valens, oppressed by
      the weight of the enemy and their own fears, were crowded into a
      narrow space, where it was impossible for them to extend their
      ranks, or even to use, with effect, their swords and javelins. In
      the midst of tumult, of slaughter, and of dismay, the emperor,
      deserted by his guards and wounded, as it was supposed, with an
      arrow, sought protection among the Lancearii and the Mattiarii,
      who still maintained their ground with some appearance of order
      and firmness. His faithful generals, Trajan and Victor, who
      perceived his danger, loudly exclaimed that all was lost, unless
      the person of the emperor could be saved. Some troops, animated
      by their exhortation, advanced to his relief: they found only a
      bloody spot, covered with a heap of broken arms and mangled
      bodies, without being able to discover their unfortunate prince,
      either among the living or the dead. Their search could not
      indeed be successful, if there is any truth in the circumstances
      with which some historians have related the death of the emperor.

      By the care of his attendants, Valens was removed from the field
      of battle to a neighboring cottage, where they attempted to dress
      his wound, and to provide for his future safety. But this humble
      retreat was instantly surrounded by the enemy: they tried to
      force the door, they were provoked by a discharge of arrows from
      the roof, till at length, impatient of delay, they set fire to a
      pile of dry magots, and consumed the cottage with the Roman
      emperor and his train. Valens perished in the flames; and a
      youth, who dropped from the window, alone escaped, to attest the
      melancholy tale, and to inform the Goths of the inestimable prize
      which they had lost by their own rashness. A great number of
      brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of
      Hadrianople, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed
      in the fatal consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly
      sustained in the fields of Cannæ. 93 Two master-generals of the
      cavalry and infantry, two great officers of the palace, and
      thirty-five tribunes, were found among the slain; and the death
      of Sebastian might satisfy the world, that he was the victim, as
      well as the author, of the public calamity. Above two thirds of
      the Roman army were destroyed: and the darkness of the night was
      esteemed a very favorable circumstance, as it served to conceal
      the flight of the multitude, and to protect the more orderly
      retreat of Victor and Richomer, who alone, amidst the general
      consternation, maintained the advantage of calm courage and
      regular discipline. 94

      91 (return) [ Ammianus (xxxi. 12, 13) almost alone describes the
      councils and actions which were terminated by the fatal battle of
      Hadrianople. We might censure the vices of his style, the
      disorder and perplexity of his narrative: but we must now take
      leave of this impartial historian; and reproach is silenced by
      our regret for such an irreparable loss.]

      92 (return) [ The difference of the eight miles of Ammianus, and
      the twelve of Idatius, can only embarrass those critics (Valesius
      ad loc.,) who suppose a great army to be a mathematical point,
      without space or dimensions.]

      93 (return) [ Nec ulla annalibus, præter Cannensem pugnam, ita ad
      internecionem res legitur gesta. Ammian. xxxi. 13. According to
      the grave Polybius, no more than 370 horse, and 3,000 foot,
      escaped from the field of Cannæ: 10,000 were made prisoners; and
      the number of the slain amounted to 5,630 horse, and 70,000 foot,
      (Polyb. l. iii. p 371, edit. Casaubon, 8vo.) Livy (xxii. 49) is
      somewhat less bloody: he slaughters only 2,700 horse, and 40,000
      foot. The Roman army was supposed to consist of 87,200 effective
      men, (xxii. 36.)]

      94 (return) [ We have gained some faint light from Jerom, (tom.
      i. p. 26 and in Chron. p. 188,) Victor, (in Epitome,) Orosius,
      (l. vii. c. 33, p. 554,) Jornandes, (c. 27,) Zosimus, (l. iv. p.
      230,) Socrates, (l. iv. c. 38,) Sozomen, (l. vi. c. 40,) Idatius,
      (in Chron.) But their united evidence, if weighed against
      Ammianus alone, is light and unsubstantial.]

      While the impressions of grief and terror were still recent in
      the minds of men, the most celebrated rhetorician of the age
      composed the funeral oration of a vanquished army, and of an
      unpopular prince, whose throne was already occupied by a
      stranger. “There are not wanting,” says the candid Libanius,
      “those who arraign the prudence of the emperor, or who impute the
      public misfortune to the want of courage and discipline in the
      troops. For my own part, I reverence the memory of their former
      exploits: I reverence the glorious death, which they bravely
      received, standing, and fighting in their ranks: I reverence the
      field of battle, stained with _their_ blood, and the blood of the
      Barbarians. Those honorable marks have been already washed away
      by the rains; but the lofty monuments of their bones, the bones
      of generals, of centurions, and of valiant warriors, claim a
      longer period of duration. The king himself fought and fell in
      the foremost ranks of the battle. His attendants presented him
      with the fleetest horses of the Imperial stable, that would soon
      have carried him beyond the pursuit of the enemy. They vainly
      pressed him to reserve his important life for the future service
      of the republic. He still declared that he was unworthy to
      survive so many of the bravest and most faithful of his subjects;
      and the monarch was nobly buried under a mountain of the slain.
      Let none, therefore, presume to ascribe the victory of the
      Barbarians to the fear, the weakness, or the imprudence, of the
      Roman troops. The chiefs and the soldiers were animated by the
      virtue of their ancestors, whom they equalled in discipline and
      the arts of war. Their generous emulation was supported by the
      love of glory, which prompted them to contend at the same time
      with heat and thirst, with fire and the sword; and cheerfully to
      embrace an honorable death, as their refuge against flight and
      infamy. The indignation of the gods has been the only cause of
      the success of our enemies.” The truth of history may disclaim
      some parts of this panegyric, which cannot strictly be reconciled
      with the character of Valens, or the circumstances of the battle:
      but the fairest commendation is due to the eloquence, and still
      more to the generosity, of the sophist of Antioch. 95

      95 (return) [ Libanius de ulciscend. Julian. nece, c. 3, in
      Fabricius, Bibliot Græc. tom. vii. p. 146—148.]

      The pride of the Goths was elated by this memorable victory; but
      their avarice was disappointed by the mortifying discovery, that
      the richest part of the Imperial spoil had been within the walls
      of Hadrianople. They hastened to possess the reward of their
      valor; but they were encountered by the remains of a vanquished
      army, with an intrepid resolution, which was the effect of their
      despair, and the only hope of their safety. The walls of the
      city, and the ramparts of the adjacent camp, were lined with
      military engines, that threw stones of an enormous weight; and
      astonished the ignorant Barbarians by the noise, and velocity,
      still more than by the real effects, of the discharge. The
      soldiers, the citizens, the provincials, the domestics of the
      palace, were united in the danger, and in the defence: the
      furious assault of the Goths was repulsed; their secret arts of
      treachery and treason were discovered; and, after an obstinate
      conflict of many hours, they retired to their tents; convinced,
      by experience, that it would be far more advisable to observe the
      treaty, which their sagacious leader had tacitly stipulated with
      the fortifications of great and populous cities. After the hasty
      and impolitic massacre of three hundred deserters, an act of
      justice extremely useful to the discipline of the Roman armies,
      the Goths indignantly raised the siege of Hadrianople. The scene
      of war and tumult was instantly converted into a silent solitude:
      the multitude suddenly disappeared; the secret paths of the woods
      and mountains were marked with the footsteps of the trembling
      fugitives, who sought a refuge in the distant cities of Illyricum
      and Macedonia; and the faithful officers of the household, and
      the treasury, cautiously proceeded in search of the emperor, of
      whose death they were still ignorant. The tide of the Gothic
      inundation rolled from the walls of Hadrianople to the suburbs of
      Constantinople. The Barbarians were surprised with the splendid
      appearance of the capital of the East, the height and extent of
      the walls, the myriads of wealthy and affrighted citizens who
      crowded the ramparts, and the various prospect of the sea and
      land. While they gazed with hopeless desire on the inaccessible
      beauties of Constantinople, a sally was made from one of the
      gates by a party of Saracens, 96 who had been fortunately engaged
      in the service of Valens. The cavalry of Scythia was forced to
      yield to the admirable swiftness and spirit of the Arabian
      horses: their riders were skilled in the evolutions of irregular
      war; and the Northern Barbarians were astonished and dismayed, by
      the inhuman ferocity of the Barbarians of the South.

      A Gothic soldier was slain by the dagger of an Arab; and the
      hairy, naked savage, applying his lips to the wound, expressed a
      horrid delight, while he sucked the blood of his vanquished
      enemy. 97 The army of the Goths, laden with the spoils of the
      wealthy suburbs and the adjacent territory, slowly moved, from
      the Bosphorus, to the mountains which form the western boundary
      of Thrace. The important pass of Succi was betrayed by the fear,
      or the misconduct, of Maurus; and the Barbarians, who no longer
      had any resistance to apprehend from the scattered and vanquished
      troops of the East, spread themselves over the face of a fertile
      and cultivated country, as far as the confines of Italy and the
      Hadriatic Sea. 98

      96 (return) [ Valens had gained, or rather purchased, the
      friendship of the Saracens, whose vexatious inroads were felt on
      the borders of Phœnicia, Palestine, and Egypt. The Christian
      faith had been lately introduced among a people, reserved, in a
      future age, to propagate another religion, (Tillemont, Hist. des
      Empereurs, tom. v. p. 104, 106, 141. Mém. Eccles. tom. vii. p.
      593.)]

      97 (return) [ Crinitus quidam, nudus omnia præter pubem,
      subraunum et ugubre strepens. Ammian. xxxi. 16, and Vales. ad
      loc. The Arabs often fought naked; a custom which may be ascribed
      to their sultry climate, and ostentatious bravery. The
      description of this unknown savage is the lively portrait of
      Derar, a name so dreadful to the Christians of Syria. See
      Ockley’s Hist. of the Saracens, vol. i. p. 72, 84, 87.]

      98 (return) [ The series of events may still be traced in the
      last pages of Ammianus, (xxxi. 15, 16.) Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 227,
      231,) whom we are now reduced to cherish, misplaces the sally of
      the Arabs before the death of Valens. Eunapius (in Excerpt.
      Legat. p. 20) praises the fertility of Thrace, Macedonia, &c.]

      The Romans, who so coolly, and so concisely, mention the acts of
      _justice_ which were exercised by the legions, 99 reserve their
      compassion, and their eloquence, for their own sufferings, when
      the provinces were invaded, and desolated, by the arms of the
      successful Barbarians. The simple circumstantial narrative (did
      such a narrative exist) of the ruin of a single town, of the
      misfortunes of a single family, 100 might exhibit an interesting
      and instructive picture of human manners: but the tedious
      repetition of vague and declamatory complaints would fatigue the
      attention of the most patient reader. The same censure may be
      applied, though not perhaps in an equal degree, to the profane,
      and the ecclesiastical, writers of this unhappy period; that
      their minds were inflamed by popular and religious animosity; and
      that the true size and color of every object is falsified by the
      exaggerations of their corrupt eloquence. The vehement Jerom 101
      might justly deplore the calamities inflicted by the Goths, and
      their barbarous allies, on his native country of Pannonia, and
      the wide extent of the provinces, from the walls of
      Constantinople to the foot of the Julian Alps; the rapes, the
      massacres, the conflagrations; and, above all, the profanation of
      the churches, that were turned into stables, and the contemptuous
      treatment of the relics of holy martyrs. But the Saint is surely
      transported beyond the limits of nature and history, when he
      affirms, “that, in those desert countries, nothing was left
      except the sky and the earth; that, after the destruction of the
      cities, and the extirpation of the human race, the land was
      overgrown with thick forests and inextricable brambles; and that
      the universal desolation, announced by the prophet Zephaniah, was
      accomplished, in the scarcity of the beasts, the birds, and even
      of the fish.” These complaints were pronounced about twenty years
      after the death of Valens; and the Illyrian provinces, which were
      constantly exposed to the invasion and passage of the Barbarians,
      still continued, after a calamitous period of ten centuries, to
      supply new materials for rapine and destruction. Could it even be
      supposed, that a large tract of country had been left without
      cultivation and without inhabitants, the consequences might not
      have been so fatal to the inferior productions of animated
      nature. The useful and feeble animals, which are nourished by the
      hand of man, might suffer and perish, if they were deprived of
      his protection; but the beasts of the forest, his enemies or his
      victims, would multiply in the free and undisturbed possession of
      their solitary domain. The various tribes that people the air, or
      the waters, are still less connected with the fate of the human
      species; and it is highly probable that the fish of the Danube
      would have felt more terror and distress, from the approach of a
      voracious pike, than from the hostile inroad of a Gothic army.

      99 (return) [ Observe with how much indifference Cæsar relates,
      in the Commentaries of the Gallic war, _that_ he put to death the
      whole senate of the Veneti, who had yielded to his mercy, (iii.
      16;) _that_ he labored to extirpate the whole nation of the
      Eburones, (vi. 31;) _that_ forty thousand persons were massacred
      at Bourges by the just revenge of his soldiers, who spared
      neither age nor sex, (vii. 27,) &c.]

      100 (return) [ Such are the accounts of the sack of Magdeburgh,
      by the ecclesiastic and the fisherman, which Mr. Harte has
      transcribed, (Hist. of Gustavus Adolphus, vol. i. p. 313—320,)
      with some apprehension of violating the _dignity_ of history.]

      101 (return) [ Et vastatis urbibus, hominibusque interfectis,
      solitudinem et _raritatem bestiarum_ quoque fieri, _et
      volatilium, pisciumque:_ testis Illyricum est, testis Thracia,
      testis in quo ortus sum solum, (Pannonia;) ubi præter cœlum et
      terram, et crescentes vepres, et condensa sylvarum _cuncta
      perierunt_. Tom. vii. p. 250, l, Cap. Sophonias and tom. i. p.
      26.]




      Chapter XXVI: Progress of The Huns.—Part V.


      Whatever may have been the just measure of the calamities of
      Europe, there was reason to fear that the same calamities would
      soon extend to the peaceful countries of Asia. The sons of the
      Goths had been judiciously distributed through the cities of the
      East; and the arts of education were employed to polish, and
      subdue, the native fierceness of their temper. In the space of
      about twelve years, their numbers had continually increased; and
      the children, who, in the first emigration, were sent over the
      Hellespont, had attained, with rapid growth, the strength and
      spirit of perfect manhood. 102 It was impossible to conceal from
      their knowledge the events of the Gothic war; and, as those
      daring youths had not studied the language of dissimulation, they
      betrayed their wish, their desire, perhaps their intention, to
      emulate the glorious example of their fathers. The danger of the
      times seemed to justify the jealous suspicions of the
      provincials; and these suspicions were admitted as unquestionable
      evidence, that the Goths of Asia had formed a secret and
      dangerous conspiracy against the public safety. The death of
      Valens had left the East without a sovereign; and Julius, who
      filled the important station of master-general of the troops,
      with a high reputation of diligence and ability, thought it his
      duty to consult the senate of Constantinople; which he
      considered, during the vacancy of the throne, as the
      representative council of the nation. As soon as he had obtained
      the discretionary power of acting as he should judge most
      expedient for the good of the republic, he assembled the
      principal officers, and privately concerted effectual measures
      for the execution of his bloody design. An order was immediately
      promulgated, that, on a stated day, the Gothic youth should
      assemble in the capital cities of their respective provinces;
      and, as a report was industriously circulated, that they were
      summoned to receive a liberal gift of lands and money, the
      pleasing hope allayed the fury of their resentment, and, perhaps,
      suspended the motions of the conspiracy. On the appointed day,
      the unarmed crowd of the Gothic youth was carefully collected in
      the square or Forum; the streets and avenues were occupied by the
      Roman troops, and the roofs of the houses were covered with
      archers and slingers. At the same hour, in all the cities of the
      East, the signal was given of indiscriminate slaughter; and the
      provinces of Asia were delivered by the cruel prudence of Julius,
      from a domestic enemy, who, in a few months, might have carried
      fire and sword from the Hellespont to the Euphrates. 103 The
      urgent consideration of the public safety may undoubtedly
      authorize the violation of every positive law. How far that, or
      any other, consideration may operate to dissolve the natural
      obligations of humanity and justice, is a doctrine of which I
      still desire to remain ignorant.

      102 (return) [ Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 20) foolishly
      supposes a præternatural growth of the young Goths, that he may
      introduce Cadmus’s armed men, who sprang from the dragon’s teeth,
      &c. Such was the Greek eloquence of the times.]

      103 (return) [ Ammianus evidently approves this execution,
      efficacia velox et salutaris, which concludes his work, (xxxi.
      16.) Zosimus, who is curious and copious, (l. iv. p. 233—236,)
      mistakes the date, and labors to find the reason, why Julius did
      not consult the emperor Theodosius who had not yet ascended the
      throne of the East.]

      The emperor Gratian was far advanced on his march towards the
      plains of Hadrianople, when he was informed, at first by the
      confused voice of fame, and afterwards by the more accurate
      reports of Victor and Richomer, that his impatient colleague had
      been slain in battle, and that two thirds of the Roman army were
      exterminated by the sword of the victorious Goths. Whatever
      resentment the rash and jealous vanity of his uncle might
      deserve, the resentment of a generous mind is easily subdued by
      the softer emotions of grief and compassion; and even the sense
      of pity was soon lost in the serious and alarming consideration
      of the state of the republic. Gratian was too late to assist, he
      was too weak to revenge, his unfortunate colleague; and the
      valiant and modest youth felt himself unequal to the support of a
      sinking world. A formidable tempest of the Barbarians of Germany
      seemed ready to burst over the provinces of Gaul; and the mind of
      Gratian was oppressed and distracted by the administration of the
      Western empire. In this important crisis, the government of the
      East, and the conduct of the Gothic war, required the undivided
      attention of a hero and a statesman. A subject invested with such
      ample command would not long have preserved his fidelity to a
      distant benefactor; and the Imperial council embraced the wise
      and manly resolution of conferring an obligation, rather than of
      yielding to an insult. It was the wish of Gratian to bestow the
      purple as the reward of virtue; but, at the age of nineteen, it
      is not easy for a prince, educated in the supreme rank, to
      understand the true characters of his ministers and generals. He
      attempted to weigh, with an impartial hand, their various merits
      and defects; and, whilst he checked the rash confidence of
      ambition, he distrusted the cautious wisdom which despaired of
      the republic. As each moment of delay diminished something of the
      power and resources of the future sovereign of the East, the
      situation of the times would not allow a tedious debate. The
      choice of Gratian was soon declared in favor of an exile, whose
      father, only three years before, had suffered, under the sanction
      of _his_ authority, an unjust and ignominious death. The great
      Theodosius, a name celebrated in history, and dear to the
      Catholic church, 104 was summoned to the Imperial court, which
      had gradually retreated from the confines of Thrace to the more
      secure station of Sirmium. Five months after the death of Valens,
      the emperor Gratian produced before the assembled troops _his_
      colleague and _their_ master; who, after a modest, perhaps a
      sincere, resistance, was compelled to accept, amidst the general
      acclamations, the diadem, the purple, and the equal title of
      Augustus. 105 The provinces of Thrace, Asia, and Egypt, over
      which Valens had reigned, were resigned to the administration of
      the new emperor; but, as he was specially intrusted with the
      conduct of the Gothic war, the Illyrian præfecture was
      dismembered; and the two great dioceses of Dacia and Macedonia
      were added to the dominions of the Eastern empire. 106

      104 (return) [ A life of Theodosius the Great was composed in the
      last century, (Paris, 1679, in 4to-1680, 12mo.,) to inflame the
      mind of the young Dauphin with Catholic zeal. The author,
      Flechier, afterwards bishop of Nismes, was a celebrated preacher;
      and his history is adorned, or tainted, with pulpit eloquence;
      but he takes his learning from Baronius, and his principles from
      St. Ambrose and St Augustin.]

      105 (return) [ The birth, character, and elevation of Theodosius
      are marked in Pacatus, (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 10, 11, 12,)
      Themistius, (Orat. xiv. p. 182,) (Zosimus, l. iv. p. 231,)
      Augustin. (de Civitat. Dei. v. 25,) Orosius, (l. vii. c. 34,)
      Sozomen, (l. vii. c. 2,) Socrates, (l. v. c. 2,) Theodoret, (l.
      v. c. 5,) Philostorgius, (l. ix. c. 17, with Godefroy, p. 393,)
      the Epitome of Victor, and the Chronicles of Prosper, Idatius,
      and Marcellinus, in the Thesaurus Temporum of Scaliger. * Note:
      Add a hostile fragment of Eunapius. Mai, p. 273, in Niebuhr, p
      178—M.]

      106 (return) [ Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 716,
      &c.]

      The same province, and perhaps the same city, 107 which had given
      to the throne the virtues of Trajan, and the talents of Hadrian,
      was the orignal seat of another family of Spaniards, who, in a
      less fortunate age, possessed, near fourscore years, the
      declining empire of Rome. 108 They emerged from the obscurity of
      municipal honors by the active spirit of the elder Theodosius, a
      general whose exploits in Britain and Africa have formed one of
      the most splendid parts of the annals of Valentinian. The son of
      that general, who likewise bore the name of Theodosius, was
      educated, by skilful preceptors, in the liberal studies of youth;
      but he was instructed in the art of war by the tender care and
      severe discipline of his father. 109 Under the standard of such a
      leader, young Theodosius sought glory and knowledge, in the most
      distant scenes of military action; inured his constitution to the
      difference of seasons and climates; distinguished his valor by
      sea and land; and observed the various warfare of the Scots, the
      Saxons, and the Moors. His own merit, and the recommendation of
      the conqueror of Africa, soon raised him to a separate command;
      and, in the station of Duke of Mæsia, he vanquished an army of
      Sarmatians; saved the province; deserved the love of the
      soldiers; and provoked the envy of the court. 110 His rising
      fortunes were soon blasted by the disgrace and execution of his
      illustrious father; and Theodosius obtained, as a favor, the
      permission of retiring to a private life in his native province
      of Spain. He displayed a firm and temperate character in the ease
      with which he adapted himself to this new situation. His time was
      almost equally divided between the town and country; the spirit,
      which had animated his public conduct, was shown in the active
      and affectionate performance of every social duty; and the
      diligence of the soldier was profitably converted to the
      improvement of his ample patrimony, 111 which lay between
      Valladolid and Segovia, in the midst of a fruitful district,
      still famous for a most exquisite breed of sheep. 112 From the
      innocent, but humble labors of his farm, Theodosius was
      transported, in less than four months, to the throne of the
      Eastern empire; and the whole period of the history of the world
      will not perhaps afford a similar example, of an elevation at the
      same time so pure and so honorable. The princes who peaceably
      inherit the sceptre of their fathers, claim and enjoy a legal
      right, the more secure as it is absolutely distinct from the
      merits of their personal characters. The subjects, who, in a
      monarchy, or a popular state, acquire the possession of supreme
      power, may have raised themselves, by the superiority either of
      genius or virtue, above the heads of their equals; but their
      virtue is seldom exempt from ambition; and the cause of the
      successful candidate is frequently stained by the guilt of
      conspiracy, or civil war. Even in those governments which allow
      the reigning monarch to declare a colleague or a successor, his
      partial choice, which may be influenced by the blindest passions,
      is often directed to an unworthy object But the most suspicious
      malignity cannot ascribe to Theodosius, in his obscure solitude
      of Caucha, the arts, the desires, or even the hopes, of an
      ambitious statesman; and the name of the Exile would long since
      have been forgotten, if his genuine and distinguished virtues had
      not left a deep impression in the Imperial court. During the
      season of prosperity, he had been neglected; but, in the public
      distress, his superior merit was universally felt and
      acknowledged. What confidence must have been reposed in his
      integrity, since Gratian could trust, that a pious son would
      forgive, for the sake of the republic, the murder of his father!
      What expectations must have been formed of his abilities to
      encourage the hope, that a single man could save, and restore,
      the empire of the East! Theodosius was invested with the purple
      in the thirty-third year of his age. The vulgar gazed with
      admiration on the manly beauty of his face, and the graceful
      majesty of his person, which they were pleased to compare with
      the pictures and medals of the emperor Trajan; whilst intelligent
      observers discovered, in the qualities of his heart and
      understanding, a more important resemblance to the best and
      greatest of the Roman princes.

      107 (return) [ _Italica_, founded by Scipio Africanus for his
      wounded veterans of _Italy_. The ruins still appear, about a
      league above Seville, but on the opposite bank of the river. See
      the Hispania Illustrata of Nonius, a short though valuable
      treatise, c. xvii. p. 64—67.]

      108 (return) [ I agree with Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom.
      v. p. 726) in suspecting the royal pedigree, which remained a
      secret till the promotion of Theodosius. Even after that event,
      the silence of Pacatus outweighs the venal evidence of
      Themistius, Victor, and Claudian, who connect the family of
      Theodosius with the blood of Trajan and Hadrian.]

      109 (return) [ Pacatas compares, and consequently prefers, the
      youth of Theodosius to the military education of Alexander,
      Hannibal, and the second Africanus; who, like him, had served
      under their fathers, (xii. 8.)]

      110 (return) [ Ammianus (xxix. 6) mentions this victory of
      Theodosius Junior Dux Mæsiæ, prima etiam tum lanugine juvenis,
      princeps postea perspectissimus. The same fact is attested by
      Themistius and Zosimus but Theodoret, (l. v. c. 5,) who adds some
      curious circumstances, strangely applies it to the time of the
      interregnum.]

      111 (return) [ Pacatus (in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 9) prefers the
      rustic life of Theodosius to that of Cincinnatus; the one was the
      effect of choice, the other of poverty.]

      112 (return) [ M. D’Anville (Geographie Ancienne, tom. i. p. 25)
      has fixed the situation of Caucha, or Coca, in the old province
      of Gallicia, where Zosimus and Idatius have placed the birth, or
      patrimony, of Theodosius.]

      It is not without the most sincere regret, that I must now take
      leave of an accurate and faithful guide, who has composed the
      history of his own times, without indulging the prejudices and
      passions, which usually affect the mind of a contemporary.
      Ammianus Marcellinus, who terminates his useful work with the
      defeat and death of Valens, recommends the more glorious subject
      of the ensuing reign to the youthful vigor and eloquence of the
      rising generation. 113 The rising generation was not disposed to
      accept his advice or to imitate his example; 114 and, in the
      study of the reign of Theodosius, we are reduced to illustrate
      the partial narrative of Zosimus, by the obscure hints of
      fragments and chronicles, by the figurative style of poetry or
      panegyric, and by the precarious assistance of the ecclesiastical
      writers, who, in the heat of religious faction, are apt to
      despise the profane virtues of sincerity and moderation.
      Conscious of these disadvantages, which will continue to involve
      a considerable portion of the decline and fall of the Roman
      empire, I shall proceed with doubtful and timorous steps. Yet I
      may boldly pronounce, that the battle of Hadrianople was never
      revenged by any signal or decisive victory of Theodosius over the
      Barbarians: and the expressive silence of his venal orators may
      be confirmed by the observation of the condition and
      circumstances of the times. The fabric of a mighty state, which
      has been reared by the labors of successive ages, could not be
      overturned by the misfortune of a single day, if the fatal power
      of the imagination did not exaggerate the real measure of the
      calamity. The loss of forty thousand Romans, who fell in the
      plains of Hadrianople, might have been soon recruited in the
      populous provinces of the East, which contained so many millions
      of inhabitants. The courage of a soldier is found to be the
      cheapest, and most common, quality of human nature; and
      sufficient skill to encounter an undisciplined foe might have
      been speedily taught by the care of the surviving centurions. If
      the Barbarians were mounted on the horses, and equipped with the
      armor, of their vanquished enemies, the numerous studs of
      Cappadocia and Spain would have supplied new squadrons of
      cavalry; the thirty-four arsenals of the empire were plentifully
      stored with magazines of offensive and defensive arms: and the
      wealth of Asia might still have yielded an ample fund for the
      expenses of the war. But the effects which were produced by the
      battle of Hadrianople on the minds of the Barbarians and of the
      Romans, extended the victory of the former, and the defeat of the
      latter, far beyond the limits of a single day. A Gothic chief was
      heard to declare, with insolent moderation, that, for his own
      part, he was fatigued with slaughter: but that he was astonished
      how a people, who fled before him like a flock of sheep, could
      still presume to dispute the possession of their treasures and
      provinces. 115 The same terrors which the name of the Huns had
      spread among the Gothic tribes, were inspired, by the formidable
      name of the Goths, among the subjects and soldiers of the Roman
      empire. 116 If Theodosius, hastily collecting his scattered
      forces, had led them into the field to encounter a victorious
      enemy, his army would have been vanquished by their own fears;
      and his rashness could not have been excused by the chance of
      success. But the _great_ Theodosius, an epithet which he
      honorably deserved on this momentous occasion, conducted himself
      as the firm and faithful guardian of the republic. He fixed his
      head-quarters at Thessalonica, the capital of the Macedonian
      diocese; 117 from whence he could watch the irregular motions of
      the Barbarians, and direct the operations of his lieutenants,
      from the gates of Constantinople to the shores of the Hadriatic.
      The fortifications and garrisons of the cities were strengthened;
      and the troops, among whom a sense of order and discipline was
      revived, were insensibly emboldened by the confidence of their
      own safety. From these secure stations, they were encouraged to
      make frequent sallies on the Barbarians, who infested the
      adjacent country; and, as they were seldom allowed to engage,
      without some decisive superiority, either of ground or of
      numbers, their enterprises were, for the most part, successful;
      and they were soon convinced, by their own experience, of the
      possibility of vanquishing their _invincible_ enemies. The
      detachments of these separate garrisons were generally united
      into small armies; the same cautious measures were pursued,
      according to an extensive and well-concerted plan of operations;
      the events of each day added strength and spirit to the Roman
      arms; and the artful diligence of the emperor, who circulated the
      most favorable reports of the success of the war, contributed to
      subdue the pride of the Barbarians, and to animate the hopes and
      courage of his subjects. If, instead of this faint and imperfect
      outline, we could accurately represent the counsels and actions
      of Theodosius, in four successive campaigns, there is reason to
      believe, that his consummate skill would deserve the applause of
      every military reader. The republic had formerly been saved by
      the delays of Fabius; and, while the splendid trophies of Scipio,
      in the field of Zama, attract the eyes of posterity, the camps
      and marches of the dictator among the hills of the Campania, may
      claim a juster proportion of the solid and independent fame,
      which the general is not compelled to share, either with fortune
      or with his troops. Such was likewise the merit of Theodosius;
      and the infirmities of his body, which most unseasonably
      languished under a long and dangerous disease, could not oppress
      the vigor of his mind, or divert his attention from the public
      service. 118

      113 (return) [ Let us hear Ammianus himself. Hæc, ut miles
      quondam et Græcus, a principatu Cæsaris Nervæ exorsus, adusque
      Valentis inter, pro virium explicavi mensurâ: opus veritatem
      professum nun quam, ut arbitror, sciens, silentio ausus
      corrumpere vel mendacio. Scribant reliqua potiores ætate,
      doctrinisque florentes. Quos id, si libuerit, aggressuros,
      procudere linguas ad majores moneo stilos. Ammian. xxxi. 16. The
      first thirteen books, a superficial epitome of two hundred and
      fifty-seven years, are now lost: the last eighteen, which contain
      no more than twenty-five years, still preserve the copious and
      authentic history of his own times.]

      114 (return) [ Ammianus was the last subject of Rome who composed
      a profane history in the Latin language. The East, in the next
      century, produced some rhetorical historians, Zosimus,
      Olympiedorus, Malchus, Candidus &c. See Vossius de Historicis
      Græcis, l. ii. c. 18, de Historicis Latinis l. ii. c. 10, &c.]

      115 (return) [ Chrysostom, tom. i. p. 344, edit. Montfaucon. I
      have verified and examined this passage: but I should never,
      without the aid of Tillemont, (Hist. des Emp. tom. v. p. 152,)
      have detected an historical anecdote, in a strange medley of
      moral and mystic exhortations, addressed, by the preacher of
      Antioch, to a young widow.]

      116 (return) [ Eunapius, in Excerpt. Legation. p. 21.]

      117 (return) [ See Godefroy’s Chronology of the Laws. Codex
      Theodos tom. l. Prolegomen. p. xcix.—civ.]

      118 (return) [ Most writers insist on the illness, and long
      repose, of Theodosius, at Thessalonica: Zosimus, to diminish his
      glory; Jornandes, to favor the Goths; and the ecclesiastical
      writers, to introduce his baptism.]

      The deliverance and peace of the Roman provinces 119 was the work
      of prudence, rather than of valor: the prudence of Theodosius was
      seconded by fortune: and the emperor never failed to seize, and
      to improve, every favorable circumstance. As long as the superior
      genius of Fritigern preserved the union, and directed the motions
      of the Barbarians, their power was not inadequate to the conquest
      of a great empire. The death of that hero, the predecessor and
      master of the renowned Alaric, relieved an impatient multitude
      from the intolerable yoke of discipline and discretion. The
      Barbarians, who had been restrained by his authority, abandoned
      themselves to the dictates of their passions; and their passions
      were seldom uniform or consistent. An army of conquerors was
      broken into many disorderly bands of savage robbers; and their
      blind and irregular fury was not less pernicious to themselves,
      than to their enemies. Their mischievous disposition was shown in
      the destruction of every object which they wanted strength to
      remove, or taste to enjoy; and they often consumed, with
      improvident rage, the harvests, or the granaries, which soon
      afterwards became necessary for their own subsistence. A spirit
      of discord arose among the independent tribes and nations, which
      had been united only by the bands of a loose and voluntary
      alliance. The troops of the Huns and the Alani would naturally
      upbraid the flight of the Goths; who were not disposed to use
      with moderation the advantages of their fortune; the ancient
      jealousy of the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths could not long be
      suspended; and the haughty chiefs still remembered the insults
      and injuries, which they had reciprocally offered, or sustained,
      while the nation was seated in the countries beyond the Danube.
      The progress of domestic faction abated the more diffusive
      sentiment of national animosity; and the officers of Theodosius
      were instructed to purchase, with liberal gifts and promises, the
      retreat or service of the discontented party. The acquisition of
      Modar, a prince of the royal blood of the Amali, gave a bold and
      faithful champion to the cause of Rome. The illustrious deserter
      soon obtained the rank of master-general, with an important
      command; surprised an army of his countrymen, who were immersed
      in wine and sleep; and, after a cruel slaughter of the astonished
      Goths, returned with an immense spoil, and four thousand wagons,
      to the Imperial camp. 120 In the hands of a skilful politician,
      the most different means may be successfully applied to the same
      ends; and the peace of the empire, which had been forwarded by
      the divisions, was accomplished by the reunion, of the Gothic
      nation. Athanaric, who had been a patient spectator of these
      extraordinary events, was at length driven, by the chance of
      arms, from the dark recesses of the woods of Caucaland. He no
      longer hesitated to pass the Danube; and a very considerable part
      of the subjects of Fritigern, who already felt the inconveniences
      of anarchy, were easily persuaded to acknowledge for their king a
      Gothic Judge, whose birth they respected, and whose abilities
      they had frequently experienced. But age had chilled the daring
      spirit of Athanaric; and, instead of leading his people to the
      field of battle and victory, he wisely listened to the fair
      proposal of an honorable and advantageous treaty. Theodosius, who
      was acquainted with the merit and power of his new ally,
      condescended to meet him at the distance of several miles from
      Constantinople; and entertained him in the Imperial city, with
      the confidence of a friend, and the magnificence of a monarch.
      “The Barbarian prince observed, with curious attention, the
      variety of objects which attracted his notice, and at last broke
      out into a sincere and passionate exclamation of wonder. I now
      behold (said he) what I never could believe, the glories of this
      stupendous capital! And as he cast his eyes around, he viewed,
      and he admired, the commanding situation of the city, the
      strength and beauty of the walls and public edifices, the
      capacious harbor, crowded with innumerable vessels, the perpetual
      concourse of distant nations, and the arms and discipline of the
      troops. Indeed, (continued Athanaric,) the emperor of the Romans
      is a god upon earth; and the presumptuous man, who dares to lift
      his hand against him, is guilty of his own blood.” 121 The Gothic
      king did not long enjoy this splendid and honorable reception;
      and, as temperance was not the virtue of his nation, it may
      justly be suspected, that his mortal disease was contracted
      amidst the pleasures of the Imperial banquets. But the policy of
      Theodosius derived more solid benefit from the death, than he
      could have expected from the most faithful services, of his ally.
      The funeral of Athanaric was performed with solemn rites in the
      capital of the East; a stately monument was erected to his
      memory; and his whole army, won by the liberal courtesy, and
      decent grief, of Theodosius, enlisted under the standard of the
      Roman empire. 122 The submission of so great a body of the
      Visigoths was productive of the most salutary consequences; and
      the mixed influence of force, of reason, and of corruption,
      became every day more powerful, and more extensive. Each
      independent chieftain hastened to obtain a separate treaty, from
      the apprehension that an obstinate delay might expose _him_,
      alone and unprotected, to the revenge, or justice, of the
      conqueror. The general, or rather the final, capitulation of the
      Goths, may be dated four years, one month, and twenty-five days,
      after the defeat and death of the emperor Valens. 123

      119 (return) [ Compare Themistius (Orat, xiv. p. 181) with
      Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232,) Jornandes, (c. xxvii. p. 649,) and the
      prolix Commentary of M. de Buat, (Hist. de Peuples, &c., tom. vi.
      p. 477—552.) The Chronicles of Idatius and Marcellinus allude, in
      general terms, to magna certamina, _magna multaque_ prælia. The
      two epithets are not easily reconciled.]

      120 (return) [ Zosimus (l. iv. p. 232) styles him a Scythian, a
      name which the more recent Greeks seem to have appropriated to
      the Goths.]

      121 (return) [ The reader will not be displeased to see the
      original words of Jornandes, or the author whom he transcribed.
      Regiam urbem ingressus est, miransque, En, inquit, cerno quod
      sæpe incredulus audiebam, famam videlicet tantæ urbis. Et huc
      illuc oculos volvens, nunc situm urbis, commeatumque navium, nunc
      mœnia clara pro spectans, miratur; populosque diversarum gentium,
      quasi fonte in uno e diversis partibus scaturiente unda, sic
      quoque militem ordinatum aspiciens; Deus, inquit, sine dubio est
      terrenus Imperator, et quisquis adversus eum manum moverit, ipse
      sui sanguinis reus existit Jornandes (c. xxviii. p. 650) proceeds
      to mention his death and funeral.]

      122 (return) [ Jornandes, c. xxviii. p. 650. Even Zosimus (l. v.
      p. 246) is compelled to approve the generosity of Theodosius, so
      honorable to himself, and so beneficial to the public.]

      123 (return) [ The short, but authentic, hints in the _Fasti_ of
      Idatius (Chron. Scaliger. p. 52) are stained with contemporary
      passion. The fourteenth oration of Themistius is a compliment to
      Peace, and the consul Saturninus, (A.D. 383.)]

      The provinces of the Danube had been already relieved from the
      oppressive weight of the Gruthungi, or Ostrogoths, by the
      voluntary retreat of Alatheus and Saphrax, whose restless spirit
      had prompted them to seek new scenes of rapine and glory. Their
      destructive course was pointed towards the West; but we must be
      satisfied with a very obscure and imperfect knowledge of their
      various adventures. The Ostrogoths impelled several of the German
      tribes on the provinces of Gaul; concluded, and soon violated, a
      treaty with the emperor Gratian; advanced into the unknown
      countries of the North; and, after an interval of more than four
      years, returned, with accumulated force, to the banks of the
      Lower Danube. Their troops were recruited with the fiercest
      warriors of Germany and Scythia; and the soldiers, or at least
      the historians, of the empire, no longer recognized the name and
      countenances of their former enemies. 124 The general who
      commanded the military and naval powers of the Thracian frontier,
      soon perceived that his superiority would be disadvantageous to
      the public service; and that the Barbarians, awed by the presence
      of his fleet and legions, would probably defer the passage of the
      river till the approaching winter. The dexterity of the spies,
      whom he sent into the Gothic camp, allured the Barbarians into a
      fatal snare. They were persuaded that, by a bold attempt, they
      might surprise, in the silence and darkness of the night, the
      sleeping army of the Romans; and the whole multitude was hastily
      embarked in a fleet of three thousand canoes. 125 The bravest of
      the Ostrogoths led the van; the main body consisted of the
      remainder of their subjects and soldiers; and the women and
      children securely followed in the rear. One of the nights without
      a moon had been selected for the execution of their design; and
      they had almost reached the southern bank of the Danube, in the
      firm confidence that they should find an easy landing and an
      unguarded camp. But the progress of the Barbarians was suddenly
      stopped by an unexpected obstacle a triple line of vessels,
      strongly connected with each other, and which formed an
      impenetrable chain of two miles and a half along the river. While
      they struggled to force their way in the unequal conflict, their
      right flank was overwhelmed by the irresistible attack of a fleet
      of galleys, which were urged down the stream by the united
      impulse of oars and of the tide. The weight and velocity of those
      ships of war broke, and sunk, and dispersed, the rude and feeble
      canoes of the Barbarians; their valor was ineffectual; and
      Alatheus, the king, or general, of the Ostrogoths, perished with
      his bravest troops, either by the sword of the Romans, or in the
      waves of the Danube. The last division of this unfortunate fleet
      might regain the opposite shore; but the distress and disorder of
      the multitude rendered them alike incapable, either of action or
      counsel; and they soon implored the clemency of the victorious
      enemy. On this occasion, as well as on many others, it is a
      difficult task to reconcile the passions and prejudices of the
      writers of the age of Theodosius. The partial and malignant
      historian, who misrepresents every action of his reign, affirms,
      that the emperor did not appear in the field of battle till the
      Barbarians had been vanquished by the valor and conduct of his
      lieutenant Promotus. 126 The flattering poet, who celebrated, in
      the court of Honorius, the glory of the father and of the son,
      ascribes the victory to the personal prowess of Theodosius; and
      almost insinuates, that the king of the Ostrogoths was slain by
      the hand of the emperor. 127 The truth of history might perhaps
      be found in a just medium between these extreme and contradictory
      assertions.

      124 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252.]

      125 (return) [ I am justified, by reason and example, in applying
      this Indian name to the the Barbarians, the single trees hollowed
      into the shape of a boat. Zosimus, l. iv. p. 253. Ausi Danubium
      quondam tranare Gruthungi In lintres fregere nemus: ter mille
      ruebant Per fluvium plenæ cuneis immanibus alni. Claudian, in iv.
      Cols. Hon. 623.]

      126 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 252—255. He too frequently
      betrays his poverty of judgment by disgracing the most serious
      narratives with trifling and incredible circumstances.]

      127 (return) [—Odothæi Regis _opima_ Retulit—Ver. 632. The
      _opima_ were the spoils which a Roman general could only win from
      the king, or general, of the enemy, whom he had slain with his
      own hands: and no more than three such examples are celebrated in
      the victorious ages of Rome.]

      The original treaty which fixed the settlement of the Goths,
      ascertained their privileges, and stipulated their obligations,
      would illustrate the history of Theodosius and his successors.
      The series of their history has imperfectly preserved the spirit
      and substance of this single agreement. 128 The ravages of war
      and tyranny had provided many large tracts of fertile but
      uncultivated land for the use of those Barbarians who might not
      disdain the practice of agriculture. A numerous colony of the
      Visigoths was seated in Thrace; the remains of the Ostrogoths
      were planted in Phrygia and Lydia; their immediate wants were
      supplied by a distribution of corn and cattle; and their future
      industry was encouraged by an exemption from tribute, during a
      certain term of years. The Barbarians would have deserved to feel
      the cruel and perfidious policy of the Imperial court, if they
      had suffered themselves to be dispersed through the provinces.
      They required, and they obtained, the sole possession of the
      villages and districts assigned for their residence; they still
      cherished and propagated their native manners and language;
      asserted, in the bosom of despotism, the freedom of their
      domestic government; and acknowledged the sovereignty of the
      emperor, without submitting to the inferior jurisdiction of the
      laws and magistrates of Rome. The hereditary chiefs of the tribes
      and families were still permitted to command their followers in
      peace and war; but the royal dignity was abolished; and the
      generals of the Goths were appointed and removed at the pleasure
      of the emperor. An army of forty thousand Goths was maintained
      for the perpetual service of the empire of the East; and those
      haughty troops, who assumed the title of _Fæderati_, or allies,
      were distinguished by their gold collars, liberal pay, and
      licentious privileges. Their native courage was improved by the
      use of arms and the knowledge of discipline; and, while the
      republic was guarded, or threatened, by the doubtful sword of the
      Barbarians, the last sparks of the military flame were finally
      extinguished in the minds of the Romans. 129 Theodosius had the
      address to persuade his allies, that the conditions of peace,
      which had been extorted from him by prudence and necessity, were
      the voluntary expressions of his sincere friendship for the
      Gothic nation. 130 A different mode of vindication or apology was
      opposed to the complaints of the people; who loudly censured
      these shameful and dangerous concessions. 131 The calamities of
      the war were painted in the most lively colors; and the first
      symptoms of the return of order, of plenty, and security, were
      diligently exaggerated. The advocates of Theodosius could affirm,
      with some appearance of truth and reason, that it was impossible
      to extirpate so many warlike tribes, who were rendered desperate
      by the loss of their native country; and that the exhausted
      provinces would be revived by a fresh supply of soldiers and
      husbandmen. The Barbarians still wore an angry and hostile
      aspect; but the experience of past times might encourage the
      hope, that they would acquire the habits of industry and
      obedience; that their manners would be polished by time,
      education, and the influence of Christianity; and that their
      posterity would insensibly blend with the great body of the Roman
      people. 132

      128 (return) [ See Themistius, Orat. xvi. p. 211. Claudian (in
      Eutrop. l. ii. 112) mentions the Phrygian colony:——Ostrogothis
      colitur mistisque Gruthungis Phyrx ager——and then proceeds to
      name the rivers of Lydia, the Pactolus, and Herreus.]

      129 (return) [ Compare Jornandes, (c. xx. 27,) who marks the
      condition and number of the Gothic _Fæderati_, with Zosimus, (l.
      iv. p. 258,) who mentions their golden collars; and Pacatus, (in
      Panegyr. Vet. xii. 37,) who applauds, with false or foolish joy,
      their bravery and discipline.]

      130 (return) [ Amator pacis generisque Gothorum, is the praise
      bestowed by the Gothic historian, (c. xxix.,) who represents his
      nation as innocent, peaceable men, slow to anger, and patient of
      injuries. According to Livy, the Romans conquered the world in
      their own defence.]

      131 (return) [ Besides the partial invectives of Zosimus, (always
      discontented with the Christian reigns,) see the grave
      representations which Synesius addresses to the emperor Arcadius,
      (de Regno, p. 25, 26, edit. Petav.) The philosophic bishop of
      Cyrene was near enough to judge; and he was sufficiently removed
      from the temptation of fear or flattery.]

      132 (return) [ Themistius (Orat. xvi. p. 211, 212) composes an
      elaborate and rational apology, which is not, however, exempt
      from the puerilities of Greek rhetoric. Orpheus could _only_
      charm the wild beasts of Thrace; but Theodosius enchanted the men
      and women, whose predecessors in the same country had torn
      Orpheus in pieces, &c.]

      Notwithstanding these specious arguments, and these sanguine
      expectations, it was apparent to every discerning eye, that the
      Goths would long remain the enemies, and might soon become the
      conquerors of the Roman empire. Their rude and insolent behavior
      expressed their contempt of the citizens and provincials, whom
      they insulted with impunity. 133 To the zeal and valor of the
      Barbarians Theodosius was indebted for the success of his arms:
      but their assistance was precarious; and they were sometimes
      seduced, by a treacherous and inconstant disposition, to abandon
      his standard, at the moment when their service was the most
      essential. During the civil war against Maximus, a great number
      of Gothic deserters retired into the morasses of Macedonia,
      wasted the adjacent provinces, and obliged the intrepid monarch
      to expose his person, and exert his power, to suppress the rising
      flame of rebellion. 134 The public apprehensions were fortified
      by the strong suspicion, that these tumults were not the effect
      of accidental passion, but the result of deep and premeditated
      design. It was generally believed, that the Goths had signed the
      treaty of peace with a hostile and insidious spirit; and that
      their chiefs had previously bound themselves, by a solemn and
      secret oath, never to keep faith with the Romans; to maintain the
      fairest show of loyalty and friendship, and to watch the
      favorable moment of rapine, of conquest, and of revenge. But as
      the minds of the Barbarians were not insensible to the power of
      gratitude, several of the Gothic leaders sincerely devoted
      themselves to the service of the empire, or, at least, of the
      emperor; the whole nation was insensibly divided into two
      opposite factions, and much sophistry was employed in
      conversation and dispute, to compare the obligations of their
      first, and second, engagements. The Goths, who considered
      themselves as the friends of peace, of justice, and of Rome, were
      directed by the authority of Fravitta, a valiant and honorable
      youth, distinguished above the rest of his countrymen by the
      politeness of his manners, the liberality of his sentiments, and
      the mild virtues of social life. But the more numerous faction
      adhered to the fierce and faithless Priulf, 13411 who inflamed
      the passions, and asserted the independence, of his warlike
      followers. On one of the solemn festivals, when the chiefs of
      both parties were invited to the Imperial table, they were
      insensibly heated by wine, till they forgot the usual restraints
      of discretion and respect, and betrayed, in the presence of
      Theodosius, the fatal secret of their domestic disputes. The
      emperor, who had been the reluctant witness of this extraordinary
      controversy, dissembled his fears and resentment, and soon
      dismissed the tumultuous assembly. Fravitta, alarmed and
      exasperated by the insolence of his rival, whose departure from
      the palace might have been the signal of a civil war, boldly
      followed him; and, drawing his sword, laid Priulf dead at his
      feet. Their companions flew to arms; and the faithful champion of
      Rome would have been oppressed by superior numbers, if he had not
      been protected by the seasonable interposition of the Imperial
      guards. 135 Such were the scenes of Barbaric rage, which
      disgraced the palace and table of the Roman emperor; and, as the
      impatient Goths could only be restrained by the firm and
      temperate character of Theodosius, the public safety seemed to
      depend on the life and abilities of a single man. 136

      133 (return) [ Constantinople was deprived half a day of the
      public allowance of bread, to expiate the murder of a Gothic
      soldier: was the guilt of the people. Libanius, Orat. xii. p.
      394, edit. Morel.]

      134 (return) [ Zosimus, l. iv. p. 267-271. He tells a long and
      ridiculous story of the adventurous prince, who roved the country
      with only five horsemen, of a spy whom they detected, whipped,
      and killed in an old woman’s cottage, &c.]

      13411 (return) [ Eunapius.—M.]

      135 (return) [ Compare Eunapius (in Excerpt. Legat. p. 21, 22)
      with Zosimus, (l. iv. p. 279.) The difference of circumstances
      and names must undoubtedly be applied to the same story.
      Fravitta, or Travitta, was afterwards consul, (A.D. 401.) and
      still continued his faithful services to the eldest son of
      Theodosius. (Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. v. p. 467.)]

      136 (return) [ Les Goths ravagerent tout depuis le Danube
      jusqu’au Bosphore; exterminerent Valens et son armée; et ne
      repasserent le Danube, que pour abandonner l’affreuse solitude
      qu’ils avoient faite, (Œuvres de Montesquieu, tom. iii. p. 479.
      Considerations sur les _Causes_ de la Grandeur et de la Décadence
      des Romains, c. xvii.) The president Montesquieu seems ignorant
      that the Goths, after the defeat of Valens, _never_ abandoned the
      Roman territory. It is now thirty years, says Claudian, (de Bello
      Getico, 166, &c., A.D. 404,) Ex quo jam patrios gens hæc oblita
      Triones, Atque Istrum transvecta semel, vestigia fixit Threicio
      funesta solo—the error is inexcusable; since it disguises the
      principal and immediate cause of the fall of the Western empire
      of Rome.]




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